Minister responds to Opposition Leader�s comments

Environment and Labour Minister Oliver Langdon has responded to Opposition Leader Ed Byrne�s recent comments regarding the Department of Environment and Labour�s response to Mr. Byrne�s requests for information.

"Mr. Byrne sent us two letters under the Freedom of Information Act relating to the testing of water supplies in this province," said the minister. "In one letter he specifically asked for detailed information about the testing of water supplies for trihalomethanes (THMs) for each community. We responded to this request by providing Mr. Byrne with the individual results of every THM laboratory test for each community. This amounted to approximately 2100 pages of information which we provided free of charge."

The second letter was very general. Mr. Byrne requested that he be provided with all reports, correspondence, memos, plans, drawings, photographs, films, microforms, sound recordings, video tapes and any other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, pertaining to the testing of public water supplies in the province from 1994 to present.

"I don�t think Mr. Byrne has any idea how unrealistic his request is," said Minister Langdon. "We can certainly provide the information that he is requesting, and he is more than welcome to it, but he will have to pay for it as it requires a tremendous amount of time and effort to gather the information."

"If Mr. Byrne thinks that I am going to have the staff of my department go through more than 50 file cabinets located in offices across the island and in Labrador, make copies of every file in those cabinets, and provide this mountain of information to him free of charge, then he is mistaken," said the minister. "I am not going to allocate the scarce resources of this department to satisfy the Opposition Leader�s information fishing trip."

"I have already provided Mr. Byrne with a tremendous amount of information on water quality sampling and this has already consumed significant time and energy on the part of departmental staff. I also offered to have my staff meet with him to fully explain our process of water quality sampling."

Minister Langdon stated that his department works very closely with municipalities and regularly provides all communities with information about the quality of their drinking water.

Media contact: Sean Kelly, Communications, (709) 729-2575.

2000 02 25                                                         4:30 p.m.