Council of Canadians Celebrates Federal Rejection of New Prosperity Mine

Council of Canadians

The Council of Canadians applauds the Tsilhqot’in Nation and celebrates the federal decision to reject the contentious Taseko Mines Limited New Prosperity Mine. Details here.

Fish Lk. Environment CA

Fertilizer Limits Sought Near Lake Erie to Fight Spread of Algae

New York Times

A United States-Canadian agency called on Wednesday for swift and sweeping limits on the use of fertilizer around Lake Erie to reduce the amount of phosphorus entering the water and creating a vast blanket of algae each summer, threatening fisheries, tourism and even drinking water. Details here. 

A duck family labours through an algae-clogged

river in Manitoba, CA. PLT photo.

Trading Water for Fuel is Fracking Crazy

EcoWatch - by David Suzuki

It would be difficult to live without oil and gas. But it would be impossible to live without water. Yet, in our mad rush to extract and sell every drop of gas and oil as quickly as possible, we’re trading precious water for fossil fuels. Details here.

A Canadian waterfall. Quantity? For now. 
Quality? Not so much! PLT photo.

U.N. Focuses on Faltering Goals: Water, Sanitation, Energy

INTER PRESS SERVICE

The Jangwani slum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was flooded during recent heavy rain. Credit: Muhidin Issa Michuzi/IPS

When the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes. Details here.

Will Canada's Experimental Lakes Area Rise From the Dead?

International Institute for Sustainable Development

OTTAWA—The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) welcomes today’s announcement of proposed new regulations that would allow the important scientific research at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) to continue. 

One of a countless number of freshwater lakes in Manitoba, Canada. PLT photo.

The proposed regulations are published in the Canada Gazette and are entitled “Experimental Lakes Area Research Activities Regulations” and “Regulations Establishing Conditions for Making Regulations under Subsection 36(5.2) of the Fisheries Act.”

This step, together with the Ontario government’s regulation proposal notice last month, is of critical importance to allow the operation of ELA by a third party. IISD seeks to ensure that the long-term scientific work to understand Canada’s changing freshwater management challenges continues. 

“IISD continues to negotiate with both Ontario and the federal government, and we are hopeful that a final arrangement regarding legal transfer of the Experimental Lakes Area can be reached in the coming weeks,” said Scott Vaughan, IISD president and CEO.

It's Hitting the Fan Over Sewage in Manitoba (Again)

Winnipeg Free Press

Opponents outraged as St. Clement's lagoon OK'd. Details here.

Related: 

• The Rural Municipality of Shell River, Manitoba, Scraps Plans for a New Sewage Lagoon at a Controversial Location
• "Born of the Stump"

Born of the Stump - by John Fefchak

Preamble by Larry Powell

This article sprouts from the fertile mind of John Fefchak, a writer from Virden, Manitoba and a regular contributor to this blog. (It's a refinement of a piece he did, which appeared here some time ago.) I believe you'll find it both funny and provocative. In it, he speaks of modern-day policy-makers forsaking their God-given duty to care for Planet Earth. Instead, they have turned their backs on ancient biblical teachings and  abandoned their sacred duty as stewards of our water resources, from which all life springs.

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jessie, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1-10 

by John Fefchak 

INTRODUCTION….THE AGREEMENT.

Before there was anything, there was GOD, a few angels and huge swirling globs of rocks and water with no place to go. 

The angels asked GOD: "Why don't you clean up this mess"?

So GOD collected rocks from the huge swirling glob and put them together in clumps and said, "Some of these clumps of rocks will be planets and some will be stars and some of these rocks will be…just rocks".

Canadian Government Slashes Funding For Water Protection

Canada.com

More than $100 million in cuts are underway at the federal department in charge of protecting Canada’s water and oceans, despite recommendations from top bureaucrats that it needs to increase spending for both environmental and economic reasons. Full story here.

PLT Slams Manitoba for its Blasé Attitude Toward Arsenic

by Larry Powell

Why is the Government of Manitoba clinging to its monumentally callous practise of releasing arsenic into the environment?

After all, the deadly nature of the poison is hardly a deep, dark secret.

Have Premier Selinger and his Minister responsible for the environment, Gord Mackintosh, never heard of the Borgias? They're the infamous Italian family who rose to power in the Church, using arsenic to murder people for their money and property. And that was way back in the middle ages. 

Known even then as "The King of Poisons," a single dose the size of a pea was said to dispatch a victim with "violent abdominal cramping, diarrhea, vomiting and shock." 

Has no one with our provincial government ever read the classic, groundbreaking book, "Silent Spring?" It was written back in the 60s, but has well stood the test of time. In it, its highly-respected author, Rachel Carson reminded the world that arsenic found in chimney soot in England two centuries before, was carcinogenic. It caused cancer. Carson wrote further, "Epidemics of chronic arsenical poisoning involving whole populations over long periods are on record. Arsenic-contaminated environments have also caused sickness and death among horses, cows, goats, pigs, deer, fishes and bees." 

Yet the Manitoba Government will not budge from its decision to allow the Town of Virden, in the southwest, to release arsenic it has captured from the town's drinking water supply into Gopher Creek, a tributary of the Assiniboine River. That river, in turn, flows through many communities downstream, including Brandon and Winnipeg.

The government has stubbornly dismissed repeated pleas by a concerned resident of the area, John Fefchak, to find a method of disposal for this "captured" arsenic other than simply dumping it back into the environment. Sadly, his repeated letters-to-the-editor on this issue, seem to be falling on deaf ears. The province continues to cling to the outdated notion that the arsenic levels involved are so small, there is no cause for concern - that "the solution to pollution is dilution!"

This assumption is, at best, just plain unscientific.

For example, an American molecular toxicologist, Joshua Hamilton, recently stated that those who ingest only 10 parts per billion (ppb) over a lifetime, an incredibly tiny amount, "increase their risk of disease substantially." (Manitoba’s water standards allow 10 ppb each day. Virden has yet to meet that standard.)

And, in 2011, a team of American university researchers reported the results of a study of almost 12 thousand men and women in Bangladesh. It found a relationship between arsenic exposure and death from heart disease, "at a much lower level of exposure than previously reported."

Even Health Canada, not always the staunchest defender of the public health, saw fit to cut back some time ago on the amount of arsenic it allows in drinking water. 

Meanwhile, Manitoba, by contrast, maintains an attitude respecting this deadly poison which can only be described as strangely cavalier.

l.p.
Published in the Brandon Sun.
Related: Writer Steps up Fight to Protect Water Resources.

Hydro's Nelson River Sturgeon Plan Problematic: Expert

Winnipeg Free Press 

A Canadian expert on lake sturgeon poured cold water Wednesday on Manitoba Hydro’s plans to re-stock the Nelson River with the prehistoric fish after the Keeyask generating station is built. Full story here.

Resurrecting a River

OnEarth

Parched for more than half a century, California’s San Joaquin -- and its salmon -- are coming back. Details here.

Writer Steps Up His Fight to Protect Water Resources (Letter)

Dear Editor;

What will it take to convince the Manitoba government that it should never allow arsenic to be released into our surface waters?

I consider this action reprehensible, yet that is exactly what the province has permitted (the Town of) Virden to do, with arsenic that has been removed from the water source at the town's treatment plant.

The following is my response to Premier Selinger and Minister Mackintosh in regard to their letter. It informs me that they’ll continue to allow the arsenic that’s recovered from the Virden water treatment plant to be released elsewhere. My concern is that this will, over time, only add to surface water contamination and pollute the environment.

This will create unknown consequences for future generations.

Many other substances that are considered toxic in other jurisdictions are obviously not of concern here. It seems this government has no problem with putting lives at risk.

Unregulated Ammonia, Increasingly From Industrial Farming, Threatens U.S. National Parks

Science Daily

Oct. 10, 2013 — Thirty-eight U.S. national parks are experiencing "accidental fertilization" at or above a critical threshold for ecological damage, according to a study published in…Details here.

Mining Industry Frets Over Legislation to Protect Chile's Glaciers and Water Supplies

Winnipeg Free Press

SANTIAGO, Chile - Just how to define a glacier is at the heart of a Chilean congressional battle that could determine the future of mining in the world's largest copper-producing country. Details here.

The Government of Canadaʼs Legacy of Contamination in Northern Saskatchewan Watersheds

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Beaverlodge Lake, a 57 square kilometer water body, and three other watersheds in northern Saskatchewan are seriously contaminated with uranium and selenium. Details here.

Related: Uranium City - a Legacy of Cancer.

Find Out How YOUR Watershed is Doing! Check Out This WWF Video!

Writer Knocks Manitoba Government for "Disgusting" Response to Arsenic Issue

Dear Editor:

Complacency about water safety thrives in Manitoba.

What are we putting into our water ?

PLT photo

We are putting toxic waste (poison) into our water. Toxic = dangerous, immediate or long term effects. In the absence of scientific research, no one should simply claim those products are safe and acceptable, then allow them to be discarded into a water source.

There is absolutely no legitimate government interest

fulfilled, by allowing arsenic, lead and other contaminants 

into a water source. Yet, that is exactly what is happening!

The town of Virden, Manitoba, for instance, has been issued 

a  licence by the province  to dump arsenic taken from the 

water treatment plant, into a surface water source, which

downstream, enters into the Assiniboine River.

The questions then that need to be answered are:

Why does government, the province of Manitoba 

condone and permit such a disdainful action?

Why are the long-term health risks from chronic exposure

to arsenic being ignored? Why are we being valued

as subjects, used in an experimental laboratory?

Why is this human impact allowed?

Why are people being complacent and not speaking

out on this travesty and mockery to our personal health 

and the health of water, the life blood of all living creatures.?

This is a shameful and disgusting act against humans

and our most precious resource. It's time that the

public retaliated; put aside its complacency, and 

started voicing  its opposition to the province. 

The government's lack of moral and humane principles 

must be challenged.  Arsenic is a deadly poison and warrants 

extreme respect, not defensive political bafflegab.

John Fefchak.

Virden. MB.          24 Sept. 2013
Related: "Keep Arsenic out of the Water at Virden, Manitoba, Canada! An Open Letter to Manitoba's Minister of Environment"

Water is Our Most Precious Resource

by John Fefchak

Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.

Water is the life blood of all living things.

It just seems we have so much fresh water in Canada, we don't look after it, as we know we should. (U.S. and Canada need to reduce algae bloom on Lake Erie, WFP 29 Aug)

It is clear that governments have ignored the basic principles of water stewardship for too many years in the pursuit of narrow economic interests.

Lake Winnipeg has become a horrid reminder of devastation, that we are leaving our children and their children to bear alone.

Now Lake Erie has a sickness that has returned.

So many of our Lakes have become diseased.

The name of this disease is 'human complacency.'

Slime on a Lake Winnipeg beach near 

Gimli. PLT photo.

Nestlé's Extraction of Groundwater Near Hope Riles First Nations

Vancouver Sun

Chiefs want compensation for removal of water from their traditional territories. Details here.

Why living in Shannon, Quebec, is Bad For Your Health

The Independent

Water quality was once a source of pride for a town in the shadow of an arms factory. Now, 500 cancers have been diagnosed. Details here.