[flar]

I grew up drinking water drawn downstream of this, and eating fish taken from the river. My grandparents have lived along the river for decades and my grandfather worked at Ethyl for many years. My parents live along the river now, and my stepfather works at Lambton Generating Station. I know many people who work in these plants and I even worked briefly at a natural gas storage facility not far from here.

The environmental effects are undeniable, anyone who has visited Sarnia will have experienced the distinctive odours that emanate from the dozens of chemical plants. Things are much better today than they were in the past. Many of these plants were built in the 50s and 60s when there was much less environmental oversight. A fertilizer plant once caused massive algae blooms downstream, chemical spills were frequent, and I remember warnings not to drink the water when I was young. There have been some mass evacuations due to accidents and in the 1980s a huge chemical blob was found in the river after decades of industrial discharges.

With aging facilities, high oil prices and stricter environmental standards, industry in the Chemical Valley has changed a lot in recent years. Plans for a massive new oil refinery were cancelled, Dow Chemical has ceased operations in Sarnia and I noticed the old Polysar/Bayer rubber plant has been demolished in the past year. The coal-fired Lambton Generating Station will be shutting down in the next couple years. I'm pretty sure that the huge brick power plant in Marysville, MI is mothballed. On the other hand, a new natural gas power generating plant just opened. A lot of these plants will continue operating because they produce the chemicals used in thousands of everyday products.