How Ontario could have cracked down on Chemical Valley pollution — but chose not to

“A non-negligible risk of cancer.” “Significant elevated benzene concentrations.” “Risks to the public.” 

That’s how the Ontario government referred to emissions of the carcinogen benzene from the INEOS Styrolution petrochemical plant in Sarnia in 2023 — a year before those emissions sparked a state of emergency for neighbouring Aamjiwnaang First Nation. 

Internal documents show Ontario’s Environment Ministry had noted similar concerns since at least 2019. Still, it declined to impose a strict limit on the plant’s benzene levels until the 2024 state of emergency, instead ordering the company to install new emissions-control technology, among other measures.

Benzene is a byproduct of petroleum refining that’s also found in crude oil and fuel. It’s one of the foundational ingredients in plastic that, along with other chemicals, can be used to make anything from food containers to, in INEOS’ case, rubber.

INEOS, which has since shut down its plant in Sarnia, said its benzene emissions were within the limits set by the Ontario government. The plant is one of several dozen petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants in an area of Sarnia known as Chemical Valley. The Ontario government has struggled to control emissions from the facilities for decades, even as Aamjiwnaang First Nation has sounded alarms about how pollution has harmed its members’ health. 

Ontario’s Environment Ministry did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal about the documents and how it regulates air pollution in Chemical Valley. The Narwhal also sent detailed questions to INEOS Styrolution. The company did not answer most of them, but sent a statement saying it prioritizes safety and has “consistently operated within the strict limits” set by the Environment Ministry. “INEOS Styrolution remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the health and safety of our employees and the community, and we have consistently adhered to [the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks’] emissions requirements,” spokesperson April Ludwikowski wrote.

The ministry’s response to the benzene emissions from the INEOS plant is one example of a pattern pieced together by The Narwhal through 250 pages of internal ministry documents, obtained through two freedom of information requests. 

The records outline several steps the Ontario government could have taken to address air pollution in Chemical Valley — but didn’t.

As the ministry sent compliance orders, benzene spikes continued

The records obtained by The Narwhal show Ontario’s Environment Ministry made three attempts to cut benzene emissions from INEOS through directives called compliance orders. The ministry uses compliance orders to compel companies to fix issues, or take certain steps to prevent potential harm to people and the environment. 

In the years leading up to the 2024 emergency in Aamjiwnaang, the ministry sent three orders to INEOS — one in 2019, another in 2020 and a third in 2023. The orders urged INEOS to gradually lower its benzene emissions closer to Ontario’s health-based air quality guidelines. 

But earlier in 2019, the ministry had also sent INEOS another set of guidelines. These ones were based on benzene standards in Texas, which experts have criticized for being too loose and putting residents at higher risk of cancer. They recommend benzene levels remain below an hourly average of up to 580 micrograms per cubic metre, which is three times more than the levels recorded in Aamjiwnaang as people went to the emergency room in 2024.

An INEOS Styrolution spokesperson told The Narwhal the 580 micrograms per cubic metre was an “established” emissions limit set by the ministry, and that the company never breached it. The Environment Ministry did not answer questions about how it applied those numbers to INEOS.

“Ontario wasn’t looking at all the cumulative impacts, which we’ve been saying for decades now,” Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin said. “[It was] just allowing exceedances and not looking out for the health and safety of our community or the environment.”

Despite the orders, elevated levels of benzene continued to waft across the road from INEOS to Aamjiwnaang for years. 

Though some of the steps outlined in the first two orders helped, one air monitor near the plant showed emissions of benzene that “increased each year,” according to the 2023 order. The same document noted six incidents in 2022 and 2023 where air monitors detected “significantly elevated” concentrations of benzene from INEOS, including some where air monitors recorded levels even higher than the ones that prompted the 2024 state of emergency.

Sometimes the emissions came from spills, according to the 2023 order. Other times, they came from planned maintenance or the “prolonged storage” of waste with benzene in it. None technically violated the laws governing the plant. 

“INEOS [is] concerned that orders require them to do too much, too soon,” said one late 2023 briefing document prepared by the Environment Ministry. “They believed that since they were complying with the [standard], they shouldn’t have to do more.” 

INEOS and the ministry didn’t answer questions about the orders. 

The province sent INEOS a fourth order in spring 2024, as benzene levels spiked again, sickening people in Aamjiwnaang. That order required INEOS to notify the public if readings of benzene spiked, develop another plan to “address benzene from wastewater” and investigate where the carcinogen might be coming from. 

High levels of benzene were reported again a week later, prompting Aamjiwnaang to issue its state of emergency.

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INEOS temporarily shut down the plant following the ministry’s 2024 order, five years after the ministry first raised red flags about its benzene emissions. The company soon announced it would close the plant entirely due to the “economics of the facility within a wider industry context.” It said the situation was not related to the benzene spikes. 

Chief Nahmabin said the Ontario government sent the orders without checking with Aamjiwnaang to make sure they were effective — a “big miss,” as the community has asked time and again to be involved in decisions about its territory.

More and more, Aamjiwnaang is taking the regulation of industry into its own hands, writing air standards for the reserve and working with the federal government on a pilot project to address environmental racism. “We cannot wait for governments to be the one that acts for us,” Nahmabin said.

Ontario skipped a planned review of its benzene standards for petroleum and petrochemical plants

Though Ontario has strict air quality standards for benzene, it said it’s not “technically and economically feasible” for all industrial facilities to meet them. So some plants follow different sets of rules called technical standards, which require them to use the best available equipment to lower emissions as much as possible. Seven facilities in the Sarnia area, including INEOS Styrolution’s now-shuttered plant, are regulated by technical standards for the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries.

The standards were penned under the former Liberal government in 2016. At the time, the documents obtained by The Narwhal show, the Environment Ministry didn’t realize how much facilities were actually emitting. Industry-provided figures were “underestimated,” according to an internal memo from late 2023. They pointed to INEOS Styrolution as an example, saying the company was emitting maximum concentrations of benzene 15 times higher than what the province was aware of. 

Company spokesperson Ludwikowski said INEOS maintains “full transparency” in its emissions reporting. Ludwikowski did not directly address questions about the estimates, but denied that the company “underreported our emissions or misled the regulator.”

“Property line emissions monitoring at our Sarnia site is conducted by independent third parties, in accordance with [Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks] requirements, ensuring there is no internal influence over the results,” Ludwikowski said in a statement. 

The Narwhal sent questions about the problem, and direct quotes from the documents, to every company in the Sarnia area that operates under a petrochemical or petroleum industry technical standard. That list also includes Imperial Oil, NOVA Chemicals, Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and Diamond Petrochemicals. Imperial said it “complies with air emissions reporting requirements under the applicable regulations” but “wouldn’t be able to speak to documents that we haven’t seen.” The rest did not respond. 

When the government first wrote the technical standards in 2016, the ministry committed to reviewing them by 2023. The Ford government did not follow through on that plan after it was elected in 2018, despite a warning in the 2023 briefing that said updates are “needed.” The same document also noted companies would likely push back. 

“Industry is looking for further simplifications and relaxations,” the memo said. “Will be opposed to more stringent requirements.” 

The Ford government also skipped a planned update to a policy that, among other things, was aimed at addressing the cumulative effects of benzene emissions from multiple facilities in both the Sarnia area and Hamilton. The previous Liberal government introduced the policy in spring 2018 and committed to reviewing it by 2020. The Progressive Conservatives formed government in 2020 and did not follow up on the plan.

Someone ‘directed’ Ontario’s Environment Ministry to soften sulphur dioxide rules

The province did pass legislation aimed at tackling sulphur dioxide emissions in general in 2022, but the 2023 briefing said the Environment Ministry was “directed” to give industry in the Sarnia area more time to comply, and to make some requirements in the rules “less stringent.” That’s despite concerns from Aamjiwnaang that the extensions granted to two companies in particular, Imperial Oil and Shell, would allow high levels of sulphur dioxide emissions to continue for years longer. 

The document did not say who gave the ministry that direction. The regulation’s listing on the environmental registry noted, “The ministry has carefully considered the comments received during the consultation period, and we are extending the implementation of some of the requirements by two years from the end of 2026 to 2028 as facilities stated they need more time to make these significant changes to their operations.”

The Environment Ministry didn’t answer questions about its reasoning for the decisions detailed in the briefing, and how it weighed Aamjiwnaang’s health concerns against pushback from industry.

Ontario backed off a plan to tighten rules around sulphur dioxide: docs 

The records don’t just show problems with benzene: the Progressive Conservative government also abandoned one proposed plan it said would dramatically cut emissions of another harmful pollutant. 

Sulphur dioxide, which smells like burnt matches, is best known as one of the chemicals that causes acid rain. But when people breathe in a lot of it at once, it can also irritate the human respiratory system.

Ontario has regulations limiting how much of the pollutant companies can emit, and has tightened them in recent years. But some facilities can’t meet those standards — and that includes two companies that make carbon black, a powder used in paint and rubber, with sulphur dioxide as a byproduct. One of those companies, Cabot Corporation, is located in Sarnia.

From 2018 to 2020 Cabot asked the Ontario government for an alternative to the regulations, the late 2023 memo said. Vanessa Craigie, a spokesperson for Cabot, said in a written statement that the company wanted more “flexibility” in the province’s timelines so it could develop and test technology to reduce its sulphur dioxide emissions. 

In June 2023, Ontario unveiled its answer to that request: a proposed technical standard for the carbon black industry. If finalized, by 2028 it would mandate both carbon black facilities in Ontario, including Cabot in Sarnia, to install technology that slashes sulphur dioxide pollution, the province said. By 2030, the companies would have to reduce their emissions by 95 per cent, meeting a new set of weekly and annual limits. 

At the time, Aamjiwnaang told the province those deadlines gave companies too much time to continue emitting the chemical, and companies should already have installed known technology to emit less.

Industry also had concerns about the technical standard, albeit different ones, according to the 2023 briefing note. Cabot told the ministry it would be “easier” for them to just follow the existing air standard instead. Craigie said the company is committed to environmental responsibility and developing new technology, but that the technical standard was “more complex” than the existing standards, “making compliance more challenging within the given timeframe.”

The ministry never finalized the plan, and did not answer questions from The Narwhal about why. Craigie said, “it was deemed not the optimal approach,” and that the ministry opted to work with facilities on specific plans to cut their emissions.

Craigie said Cabot’s final plan to “significantly” reduce sulphur dioxide emissions has received a green light from the ministry and from Aamjiwnaang, and will use “state of the art” technology piloted over the last few years. “In addition, Cabot is committed to voluntarily reducing its operations in order to reduce our contribution to the regional [sulphur dioxide] levels,” Craigie said. “Cabot will reduce operations when regional [sulphur dioxide] concentrations exceed certain levels at nearby monitoring stations.” 

Nahmabin said Cabot has worked to form a better relationship with Aamjinwaang in recent years, sharing more information and responding to concerns quickly. 

“That’s what we’re looking for with our neighbours,” Nahmabin said.