PICTOU, N.S. – Groups that have voiced concerns about a Nova Scotia pulp mill’s plan to pump millions of litres of treated wastewater into the Northumberland Strait are to issue a response to that plan today.

Northern Pulp submitted thousands of pages of documents to the provincial Environment Department in early October as part of a required focus report on its proposed effluent treatment plant for the mill near Pictou, N.S.

The public had until Nov. 8 to submit comment on the report to the department, and Environment Minister Gordon Wilson is to make a final decision on the treatment plant by mid-December.

Several groups are scheduled to give their assessments of the focus report at a news conference in Pictou this morning, including the Town of Pictou, Pictou Landing First Nation, fishermen from across the Maritimes and the environmental group Friends of the Northumberland Strait.