Domtar

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Domtar Corporation (TSX: UFS) is a north american pulp and paper company with head offices in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The company was originally known as the Dominion Tar and Chemical Company, Limited. Its first plant was located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia operations in Sydney that began in 1903 were abandoned in 1962 leaving behind the company's contribution to approximately 700,000 tons of sludge consisting of contaminants hazardous to human health. The site, which is the subject of a $400 million government sponsored cleanup, is referred to as the Sydney Tar Ponds.

The company once operated a wood treatment facility in the Transcona section of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The facility has long since been dismantled, and a residential development was created adjacent to the site in the early 1980s. The site itself remained largely vacant. In the late 1990s, years of debate and scientific study culminated with the re-detoxification of the site itself, which was converted to a wildlife sanctuary with a nature path. Moreover, many properties adjacent to the site were excavated to remove contaminated earth. Dozens of homes had their backyards completely dug up, and a handful also had parts of their homes removed and rebuilt--all at the company's expense.

The company ran a "No-co-Rode" pipe facility in Cornwall, Ontario, from 1929 to 1976 located at 7th St. W. and Cumberland Street. No-Co-Rode Co. Ltd., 1944 aka Cornwall Standard Fibre Conduit, 1929 - 38; Cornwall Nocrete Conduit, 1938 - 44(Dominion Tar and Chemical Co. Limited, Fibre Conduit Division, 1944).

Domtar operated a paper mill in Cornwall until 2006. The original mill was built by the Toronto Manufacturing Company in 1881 and purchased by Howard Smith Paper Mills in 1919. Howard Smith (along with St. Lawrence Company) was acquired by Dominion Tar & Chemical in 1961 which then rebranded itself as Domtar in 1965.

Domtar has not remediated most of its former lands in Cornwall including ground contaminated by buried coal tar by-products at its former "No-co-Rode" pipe manufacturing operation, and the "Big Ben"[1] wood chip and bark dump which is the source of leachate plume which has polluted ground water . The actual paper mill site (now a brownfield) was sold to Paris Holdings of Cornwall in 2006 with undisclosed terms and covenants relating to liability and clean up of soil and water affected, for over 120 years, by mill and human waste .

Domtar also operated a wood treatment facility in Cochrane, Alberta, treating railroad ties. This ceased operation about 1982, leaving significantly contaminated land. The latest of several clean-up operations is attempting to prevent the underground migration of the main contaminant plume. Building of non-residential structures is now in progress on part of the land.

Domtar, Inc. entered into a definitive agreement on Aug. 22, 2006 to combine with the paper business of U.S. forest products company Weyerhaeuser Co. to form a new, U.S.-based publicly traded company that will be called Domtar Corporation. The transaction between Domtar, Inc. and Weyerhaeuser that has created the new Domtar Corporation was officially completed March 7, 2007. The Head Office of the new Domtar Corporation is located in Montreal, Quebec, and its Operation Center in Fort Mill, South Carolina.