Melbourn's water supply at risk due to "collapse" of forests caused by logging.

The Guardian

Logging in Australia. Photo by Peter Campbell

Tree-felling helped trigger ‘hidden collapse’ of mountain ash forests, ecologists say. More here.

Pipeline Spills 290,000 Litres of Crude Oil Emulsion in Northern Alberta

DeSmogCanada

A pipeline owned by Paramount Resources Ltd. released an estimated 100,000 litres of crude oil and 190,000 litres of produced water near Zama City, in northwest Alberta, according to an April 11 incident report filed with the Alberta Energy Regulator. Details here.

"In Hogs We Trust." Part IV The environmental costs of intensive livestock operations.

Last October, just before the provincial government relaxed regulations to allow for many more hogs to be produced in this province, George Matheson, Chair of the industry group, “Manitoba Pork,” testified before a legislative committee. 

In an astonishing display of corporate hype, Matheson seemed to think he could, with a single statement, obliterate years of solid scientific research, conducted in his own province.

“Hog manure is not getting into our rivers and lakes,” he declared. “The vast majority…about 85 per cent, is injected into the soil of farmland or immediately incorporated into the soil. This method of application essentially stops manure from running off the land. I cannot overemphasize this point. This means manure does not get into rivers and lakes. In fact, it is illegal for manure to leave a field.”  

In her long career with the University of Winnipeg’s biology department, Dr. Eva Pip (below) has come to a dramatically different conclusion. After visiting more than 400 sites in Manitoba and publishing a series of meticulous, detailed studies, the veteran water quality expert has found, “The two land use categories with the highest nitrate concentrations bleeding into adjacent surface waters were urban sewage and livestock/poultry operations.”

Dr. Eva Pip taught biology at the U of W for more than 
50 years before retiring in 2016. She has published almost 
100 peer-reviewed articles in her career. More than 800 scientists in 
serious academic circles around the world have cited her work, 
as a building block for their own.

Nitrates act as nutrients which promote the rapid growth of harmful and often poisonous algae. As Dr. Pip explains, “These mar beaches, overgrow submerged surfaces, clog filters and fishing nets, and foul drinking water with objectionable tastes, odours and toxins. 

Local fish and invertebrate kills have occurred both in summer and under winter ice.” 

Many big livestock operations, including hog “mega-barns,” have been operating in southern Manitoba for years. This doesn’t make sense to Dr. Pip. “Our provincial government was irresponsibly allowing barns where periodic flooding was very likely, even certain. Since floodwaters flow into Lake Winnipeg, and also to Lake Manitoba via the Portage Diversion, this means that waste affects a very large area, not just the immediately adjacent waters.” Epic flooding in the Red River Valley in 1997 washed a host of human-related contaminants into those lakes, including waste from hog lagoons. 

A study Dr. Pip supervised in 2006, confirmed that three substances harmful to water quality “increased significantly during flooding.” They were, dissolved solids and different forms of the two main nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorous. And human and animal waste were also “major factors” directly affecting water quality near the shore at 90 sites she surveyed along the southern half of Lake Winnipeg. Communities of mollusks (snails and native freshwater mussels), considered important indicators of environmental health, were dwindling, and many are endangered. She recommended another look be taken at management policies affecting the lake, in order to “reduce further habitat decline.” 

In 2012, she published another study showing even more clearly, just how baseless Matheson’s testimony was. For an entire ice-free season, she and one of her students took water samples both upstream and downstream of a small hog and poultry operation in southeastern Manitoba. The farm, complete with waste lagoons and fields where the waste was sprayed, was located between the Brokenhead River and one of its tributaries, Hazel Creek. The study detected significantly higher levels of several substances harmful to water quality in the downstream samples, compared to upstream. These included phosphorous, some nitrogen, solids and fecal coliform bacteria, which increased when it rained. “ The study suggested that environmental loading of livestock waste adversely altered natural stream water quality.” And it called for producers to spread manure “during drier weather conditions, to minimize the large-scale escape events.”  

“Our study demonstrated unequivocally," explains Dr. Pip, "that manure was getting into those waterways from the spread fields after the manure had been spread, and not just small amounts either.” 

The late David Schindler was a Rhodes scholar and internationally celebrated scientist, 

with a Ph.D in ecology. He co-authored the book, “The Algal Bowl: Overfertilization 

of the World’s Freshwaters and Estuaries.”

The Brokenhead River flows into Lake Winnipeg, the subject of 

another study published in 2012. Entitled, “The rapid eutrophication of Lake Winnipeg,” it was conducted by a team of researchers headed by another water quality expert, Dr. David Schindler of the University of Alberta (above). It concluded that toxic blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) “have nearly doubled in size in that lake since the mid 1990s,” thanks to rapid increases in phosphorous levels." (See graph.)

               

What is eutrophication? Harmful algal blooms, dead zones and fish kills are the results of a process called eutrophication, which begins with increased load of nutrients to estuaries and coastal waters. (A NOAA video.)

In 2007, Manitoba's Clean Environment Commission found that hog wastes spread on fields as a nutrient, “constitute the most serious environmental sustainability issues facing the industry.” 

But, could human health be at risk here, too? 

Further research by Dr. Pip less than four years ago, shows that indeed, it could be. It found a dangerous neurotoxin called BMAA at three places near the shore of Lake Winnipeg’s south basin. Levels of it were found to increase significantly after heavy “blooms” of the blue-green algae and when solids were suspended in the water. BMAA is found worldwide, wherever the algae are found. It has been linked to human ailments including Parkinson’s and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It has been found in the hair and brain tissue of Canadian Alzheimer’s patients.

There are several troubling pathways humans could be exposed to this toxin. These include consuming the milk or meat of livestock or waterfowl who’ve drunk tainted water in dugouts or wetlands, or even bathing in it! Of the three locations studied, the highest levels were found at Patricia Beach, a popular spot for bathers.

As bad as they sound, BMAA toxins are not the end of the story, as Dr. Pip explains. “We found other more important algal toxins in Lake Winnipeg (microcystins, anatoxins) that are much more immediate and potent, and these should be mentioned. We found that microcystins were related to phosphorus and nitrogen in the water. They can be inhaled, absorbed through skin, or ingested.  

A dog swims in a poison 

soup of blue-green algae.

        soup of blue-green algae.

They've been known to sicken people and kill animals. Many communities as well as cottagers draw their drinking water from the lake.” Coliform bacteria (such as E coli) were also associated with phosphorus levels.

Despite all this, Premier Brian Pallister, like the industry, seems more than willing to simply write off all those years of collective scientific wisdom. When announcing last spring his government would relax important environmental regulations so thousands more hogs could be produced in Manitoba, he told reporters, “There’s no compelling evidence that any of these changes will put water at risk."

Meanwhile, Lake Winnipeg (above), the world's 10th largest freshwater lake, gets increasingly polluted with algal blooms that can be seen from space.

 

And, a report commissioned by the Government of Manitoba in 2011 concluded that phosphorous levels in the lake were “three times higher than they were in Lake Erie when that lake was described as dead!”

What about water quantity?

Quite apart from the role big hog operations play in harming the quality of our water, is the question of the volumes needed to water the livestock and clean the barns. The amounts are staggering. Figures on volumes already being consumed are hard to come by. But we are already getting a taste of what an expanded industry will look like. Applications are now pouring in for new barns and permission to expanded existing ones. The big pork processing company, HyLife alone, has applied to build no less than 16 big barns, housing some 50,000 hogs in the RM of Killarney, in the southwest. The company estimates all those barns, together, will require something like 48,000,000 imperial gallons per year! (218,212,320  litres!) The hogs will produce well over 31 million gallons of slurry, to be stored in several new earthen lagoons the company proposes to dig. The water will come from new wells. The barns are to be located in the Pembina River watershed and built on land which is currently in crop production. 

While Canada is not at the top of the list of the many countries now threatened by water shortages, can we afford to ignore the warning signs? As the Guardian newspaper  reports, “Across the globe, huge areas are in crisis today as reservoirs and aquifers dry up.”

And almost everywhere, animal agriculture plays a role. As the Dutch-based “Water Footprint Network”puts it, “Animal products generally have a larger water footprint than crop products.” While cattle require the most water of all livestock, pigs still need almost six thousand (5,988) litres to produce a single kilogram of pork!

What about the stink?

But are the threats being posed by the Pallister government's crusade to expand the hog industry, confined to our waterways only? What about the stench produced by massive quantities of hog manure? The industry claims, expansion will do little to worsen that problem.

Yet odours from intensive livestock operations nationwide, have been recognized as a problem in Canada for well over 20 years. In its “Handbook on Health Impacts,” (2004), Health Canada notes, “Among all the animal production sectors, hog farming, given its constant growth since the 1970s and its expansion in many rural and even near-urban areas, is often publicly perceived as one of the most polluting agricultural activities. The number of complaints about odours from animal production operations has increased sharply since the 1970s, mainly because of the transition from solid (manure) to liquid (slurry) waste management. As a result, in 1995, odours from buildings and slurry storage facilities were 5.2 times stronger than they were in 1961; and odours from spreading activities were 8.2 times stronger.”

But hog barn odours can be more than just a nuisance. The Handbook warns that gases including ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and methane can not only irritate the eyes and upper respiratory tract, they can, in high enough concentrations, be lethal. “Half of all cases of severe manure gas poisoning are fatal,” it states. “And a few farm workers in Canada die from such poisoning each year,” usually while cleaning out confined spaces such as manure gutters below the barns.

        

Hard figures are not available. But it's believed in Manitoba, more slurry is now injected directly into the ground, rather than being spread above-ground, as is being done here on farmland near Lake Erie, US in 2014.

Related: 
"In Hogs We Trust."  

A critique of Manitoba’s “runaway” hog industry.

Part 1 - Antibiotic Overuse.

Part 11 - The price we pay for corporate pig$. 

Part 111 - From Malaysia to Manitoba - the global magnitude of livestock diseases.

Part V - What’s behind Manitoba’s drive to expand? 

Big Step Forward on Agricultural Pesticides in Quebec, Canada.

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

A "crop-duster" in Manitoba. PinP photo.

The Government of Quebec has imposed a ban on five pesticides that are commonly used in the agricultural sector – three neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics), atrazine and chlorpyrifos. More here.

Asia’s hunger for sand takes a toll on endangered species

Science

Across Asia, rampant extraction of sand for construction is eroding coastlines and scouring waterways. More here.

The exceptional value of intact forest ecosystems

Nature Ecology & Evolution

Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba. PinP photo.

As the terrestrial human footprint continues to expand, the amount of native forest that is free from significant damaging human activities is in precipitous decline. There is emerging evidence that the remaining intact forest supports an exceptional confluence of globally significant environmental values relative to degraded forests, including imperilled biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, indigenous culture and the maintenance of human health. Here we argue that maintaining and, where possible, restoring the integrity of dwindling intact forests is an urgent priority for current global efforts to halt the ongoing biodiversity crisis, slow rapid climate change and achieve sustainability goals. Retaining the integrity of intact forest ecosystems should be a central component of proactive global and national environmental strategies, alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and promoting reforestation.

If the world builds every coal plant that’s planned, climate change goals are doomed, scientists say

The Washington Post

The much-heralded demise of the coal industry may be overstated, a new scientific analysis asserts — finding that if all planned plants were constructed, the world would have little chance of meeting its climate change goals. Story here.

Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant, 

central Wyoming Greg Goebel from 

Loveland CO, USA

Degeneration nation, 2018. Our darkest hour.

Common Dreams

A fertilizer plant in Manitoba, Canada. A PinP video.

Which is more frightening? The destruction of the environment and the climate that sustain human civilization as we have known it? Or the collapse of democracy and the rise of endless war and fascism? More here.

Spill near Vancouver. Is the cosmos messing with Trudeau and Notley?

NATIONAL

OBSERVER

Just as the Kinder Morgan pipeline controversy surges to fever pitch over oil spill impacts, a barge near Vancouver has sunk, spilling diesel into the ocean in the territory of the Squamish Nation. More here.

A sunken tanker in the harbour at San Juan, 

Puerto Rico, 1968. U.S, Navy photo.

RELATED: Spills are an ocean away — until they’re not

Humans take up too much space -- and it's affecting how mammals move

ScienceDaily

Study found that human-modified landscapes shrink mammal movements by up to half. Story here.

Moose in Riding Mountain National Park, 
Manitoba, Canada. PinP photo.

Sparrows in the oilpatch are changing their love songs

NATIONAL

OBSERVER 

 PinP photo.

Some birds have been forced to change their tune as a result of noise pollution from oil and gas drilling, new research from the University of Manitoba has found. More here.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Human Activity Fouls Continental Waterways - study

U.S. National Academy Sciences

A Wikimedia photo.

Across North America, streams and rivers are becoming saltier, and freshwater bodies, more alkaline, all thanks to human activity. According to a new study, salty compounds like road de-icers and fertilizers, which make their way into rivers, are significantly changing the salinity levels of the waters in the United States and southern Canada. Researchers analyzed the data recorded at 232 U.S. Geological Survey monitoring sites across the country over the past 50 years. It's the first study to simultaneously account for multiple salt ions — such as sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium — in freshwater across the United States and southern Canada. The results suggest that salt ions, damaging in their own right, are driving up the pH of freshwater as well, making it more alkaline.

$180 B investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge

theguardian

Colossal funding in manufacturing plants by fossil fuel companies will increase plastic production by 40%, risking permanent pollution of the earth. Story here.

RELATED: Big oil invests $180B in plastics, merging two planet-killing industries

Carbon Loophole: Why Is Wood Burning Counted as Green Energy?

YaleEnvironment360
A loophole in carbon-accounting rules is spurring a boom in burning wood pellets in European power plants. The result has been a surge in logging, particularly in the U.S. South, and new doubts about whether Europe can meet its commitments under the Paris accord. Story here.

PinP photo

 PinP photo.

Rationale for Site C ‘Utter Nonsense,’ Says Former Hydro CEO

The Tyee

Province had ability to cancel project without cutting services, argues Eliesen. Story here.

Neurotoxin found in some Lake Winnipeg algae

CBCnews

UBC researchers found BMAA toxin in high concentrations in 25% of algal blooms tested in Manitoba lake. Story here.

Lake Winnipeg. Greenpeace photo.




A FOOTNOTE: In the interests of fairness and accuracy, it should be pointed out that it was Eva Pip,

a long-time water expert at the University of Winnipeg, and a colleague who are on the record as first confirming BMAA in Lake Winnipeg, NOT the BC research team referenced in the CBC story.  

PinP

Find Prof. Pip's research here.

Proposed fossil fuel development threatens yet another caribou herd - by Larry Powell.

Antlers of the barren ground caribou can be a meter tall. 

The majestic animals have traditionally provided food for subsistence hunters. 
A Wikimedia Commons photo. 

According to the magazine Science, US politicians may be about to put the continent’s biggest and healthiest caribou herd at risk. That’s because a US Senate committee has just voted to allow drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The coastal plain region of the sprawling refuge happens to be the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo credit - 

US Fish & Wildlife Service.

Republicans supporting drilling say its footprint will be small. Environmental groups disagree, saying roads and pipelines will dissect the animals' habitat. 

A Canadian wildlife ecologist quoted in the story, Chris Johnson of the University of Northern BC (Prince George), says the consensus that industrial activity disturbs the animals is “pretty strong.” It has already been observed that caribou stay away from industrial activity, including diamond mines in Canada and will even move their calving grounds, as a result.

It is estimated that the Porcupine herd may consist of as many as 200 thousand animals.

US Republicans have been trying to open up the refuge to drilling for decades.

-30-

'Immoral' salmon milking in Toronto rivers decried by anglers, park users

CBCnews

Some fishermen are killing migratory female salmon to harvest their eggs for bait. Story here.

Air Pollution Kills 9 Million, Costs $5 Trillion Per Year

EcoWatch

Wildfires like this can send harmful air particles continent-wide. Wikimedia Commons.

"For decades, pollution and its harmful effects on people's health, the environment, and the planet have been neglected both by Governments and the international development agenda. Yet, pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths." Story here.

RELATED: Please watch my TV newscast, below, which aired some months ago. A segment contained within it references the severe cost of pollution on the world's population.

Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers

theguardian

Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say. Story here.

A purple martin with a dragonfly. 
PinP photo.