Manitoba First Nations seek billions in damages over Winnipeg sewage spill

CBC News

Massive February spill into Red River caused significant harm for downstream communities: lawsuit. Story here.

When corporate interests trump the human right to clean drinking water - a case of concern in Manitoba, Canada.

by Don Sullivan - Canadian Dimension 

Don Sullivan (above) is the spokesperson for What The Frack Manitoba, the former director of the Boreal Forest Network and special adviser to the government of Manitoba on the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage site. He's a research affiliate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and a Queen Golden Jubilee medal recipient.

Two corporations, both Alberta-based, are in the midst of seeking Government of Manitoba approval to build and operate silica sand mines and processing facilities that would extract and process some 2.6 million tonnes of silica sand per year. Story here.

RELATED:

"Is Manitoba's Brokenhead River about to become a dumping ground for an Alberta-based sand-mining company?"

World’s soils ‘under great pressure’, says UN pollution report

The Guardian

A  seeder at work in Manitoba, CA. A PinP photo.

Soils provide 95% of all food but are damaged by industrial, farming, mining and urban pollution. 

Story here.

Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year, study finds

 The Washington Post

A lagoon waste management system for a 900 head hog farm in Georgia. 

Photo by Jeff Vanuga, USDA

The first-of-its-kind report pinpoints meat production as the leading source of deadly pollution. Story here.

Deaths From Fossil Fuel Pollution Much Worse Than COVID-19

Below 2C

The Koch fertilizer plant in Brandon, Manitoba, CA has, since at least 2004, been listed by "Climate Change Connection" as the worst "large final emitter" in this province. “LFEs” are industries or landfills which spew at least 50 thousand tonnes of C02 equivalent into the air annually. Latest figs. show the Koch plant released almost 800 thousand tonnes in 2018. (A PinP photo.)

More people die every year from fossil fuel pollution than have died from COVID-19 since the outbreak in early 2020. According to new research, 8.7 million died prematurely in 2018—more than 18% of the entire global death toll for the year. And while the daily media coverage of the pandemic is on every news feed 24/7, pollution-caused deaths remain largely unnoticed. Details here.

THREE WEBINARS THAT SPEAK THE TRUTH ABOUT MANITOBA'S HOG INDUSTRY

PRODUCED  BY HOG WATCH MANITOBA

1. Learn about the impending disaster of antibiotic resistance. 
2. The heartbreak of having a factory barn as a neighbour. 
3. And the explosion of toxic algae in our lakes. 

JUST CLICK HERE AND FOLLOW THE LINKS.

Fertilizer runoff in streams and rivers can have cascading effects, analysis shows

Science Daily

A river in west-central Manitoba, Canada. A PinP photo.

Fertilizer pollution can have significant ripple effects in the food webs of streams and rivers, according to a new analysis of global data. 

Story here.

As South Africa clings to coal, a struggle for the right to breathe

YaleEnvironmnt360

A small coal Mine, Highveld, South Africa. A Sierra Club photo.

Close ties between the ruling elite and the coal industry have helped perpetuate South Africa’s dependence on the dirtiest fossil fuel for electricity. But now residents of the nation’s most coal-intensive region are suing to force the government to clean up choking air pollution. Story here.

The role we humans play in the continuing decline of Earth's biosphere knows no boundaries. Sadly - an essential part of human life - food production - remains part of the problem.

by Larry Powell

 A thick blanket of smoke again darkens skies over northern India. Every year, farmers light large numbers of small fires between September and December—after the monsoon season—to burn off rice stalks and straw leftover after harvest, a practice known as stubble or paddy burning. (A NASA satellite image.) 

Details here.

Smoke from burning stubble hovers over a small town in southwestern Manitoba, CA.
Nov. 2020. A PinP photo.

Canada is no stranger to the same practise. While "stubble-burning" in this country did not approach that of India's (at least not this year), numerous such fires were still common again this fall over the eastern prairies (See above) and in past years (below).

Stubble-burning in Manitoba - circa 2005. Photos by PinP.

Wildfire smoke (see brown) over the Canadian prairies last year. A NASA photo.

Smoke from several large wildfires in Canada (now proven to be more severe, frequent and prolonged thanks to manmade climate change) was so thick and widespread that it was easily visible from 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. NASA captured this image in May, 2019, when a river of smoke was streaming east across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Pollution and pandemics: A dangerous mix. Research finds that as one goes, so goes the other -- to a point.

ScienceDaily

A highway project in Alberta. A PinP photo.

Are we setting ourselves up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it? Story here.

The Government of Manitoba robs its rural citizens of their local autonomy to serve its political friends and big business. (Opinion)

        by Larry Powell 

The Premier of Manitoba, Brian Pallister. A Gov't. photo.

The lengths to which the Pallister government is going to enable the unfettered exploitation of Manitoba's resources and massive expansion of its hog industry, should now be clear for all to see. For the past few years, it’s been rolling out, at significant taxpayer expense, the truly draconian measures it’s now taking, to make this happen. 

While the writing has been on the wall, only now are the worst fears being realized. They expose this government’ naked contempt for the democratic rights of rural Manitobans who have the audacity to point out that these goals are misguided - that the emperor has no clothes.

Late last year, the Municipality of Rosser, near Winnipeg, rejected a bid for a gravel mine (euphemistically called a limestone aggregate quarry). The politically well-connected owner of the construction company proposing the mine (who made a substantial contribution to the Conservative Party of Manitoba last year), appealed. Then, along comes a newly-minted creation of the Pallister Conservatives, a "blue-ribbon panel," as it were, called the Municipal Board, and overturns the council’s decision. Anointed with quasi-judicial power and peopled with several of the "party faithful," it can, in the words of one savvy observer, "relieve local councils of their administrative burdens." And, it did. It overturned council's rejection and, surprise, surprise, ruled for the proponent!

So the mine, er, quarry, will now go ahead. There is no appeal. 

So I guess the good people of the little, nearby community of Lillyfield, will just have to grin and bear it.

A gravel mine near the southwestern Manitoba community of Shoal Lake. 

A PinP photo.

Believe me, I know a thing or two about gravel-mines. A big one near my home, in the picturesque Birdtail Valley (above), supplied raw product for a major roadbuilding project to the south of here last year. 

Twenty-two wheelers take a break in Shoal Lake. A PinP photo.

Convoys of big dump-trucks rumbled past my front window in a seniors' complex for months (above), from morning ’til night, carrying their loads - hundreds of round trips a day to the site. 

Never mind that diesel fumes are a major air pollutant which cause lung cancer; Or that the United Nations has long warned the construction industry to curb its greenhouse gas emissions "yesterday" if we are to make any dent in the climate crisis. 

Would the cancellation of that single project have turned this global calamity around? Of course not. 

But will a broader, worse-case climate scenario be in the cards if every community on Earth barges ahead as this government obviously wants us to? Absolutely!

The absence of "eco-wisdom" these events reveal on the part of our lawmakers, is breathtaking.

And Bill 19, the same legislation which tramples local autonomy (or, in the fertile mind of government, reduces red tape), has resulted in another outrage in another part of the province. 

The HyLife killing plant in Neepawa, the largest pork processor in Canada. 
A corporate monolith based in Thailand with tentacles reaching into many
corners of the world's food business, now owns controlling interest.
A PinP photo.

The local, duly-elected Council in the RM of Grassland, near Brandon, has also voted decisively to reject another proposed project - this time a massive complex of hog barns proposed by HyLife Foods (above) near the Village of Elgin. 

And surely, only the naive now believe the Municipal Board will rule any way other than it did in Rosser.

The Grassland Council simply doesn’t believe the tax revenue from the project will cover the cost of servicing it. And residents fear the increased traffic will bring dust and noise, disrupting their quiet, rural lifestyles. 

They also worry about their water supply. That’s because the new complex will suck more than 100 thousand litres of water each and every day from the local aquifer. Twenty-four thousand pigs will be crowded into several large buildings. 

That’s about thirty times the human population of my own little town of Shoal Lake. And each pig produces several times the waste of one person. Yet even here we struggle to keep nutrients from our sewage lagoon - which often exceed recommended levels - from entering the lake. 

These likely help feed the growth of toxic algae which have been clogging up the lake water for years, tangling outboard motors and surely contributing to major fish-kills like the one we had here last year (above). 

It's been common knowledge for some time that, wherever humans or pigs are gathered together, deteriorating water quality soon follows. So, if our small town can feel such an impact, imagine the potential for harm there!

And, as a new report from the World Wildlife Fund reveals: "The overall (pollution) threat in the Assiniboine-Red watershed and each of its four sub-watersheds (where the new barns will be built) is (already) “very high.” It blames much of this on "agricultural runoff!"

Dissenting voices are systematically ignored.

In the spring of 2018 - the citizens' group, Hogwatch Manitoba - 

emblazened this headline across its website.

"BILL 19 THREATENS LOCAL CONTROL FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES."

Here is Hogwatch's prophetic, cautionary tale, word for word, as it appeared, two-&-a-half years ago.

"Bill 19 will silence the public. It will allow municipal leaders to get rid of conditional use hearings and Provincial Technical Reviews for factory hog barns. If local politicians take this route, the Province will have the only and final say on where hog factories can be built. The Government of Manitoba is and has been both a promoter and regulator of the hog industry.  Bill 19 is the latest move to promote and de-regulate hog industry expansion. Why is Provincial control a problem? If conditional use disappears, local councils and rural people will not have any say in how factory hog operations perform. Municipalities will have no means of monitoring, enforcing conditions, and protecting local people and the environment from hog operations." 

John Fefchak of Virden is another example of a voice that needs to be listened to, but is not. John is a veteran of the Canadian military and long-time critic of his province's factory-farming style of pork production. He sees the government’s almost messianic drive to be both a regulator of, and cheerleader for the industry, as an attack on the democratic freedoms he did his part to win in the deadly conflicts of the past. Yet, his frequent comments to the news media, including the farm press, are often censored. 

And my local Shoal Lake newspaper, the Crossroads, is refusing to print this story which I put in the form of a letter-to-the-editor. The publisher, Ryan Nesbitt, claims it is "not local enough." He has also refused other letters I have submitted, about climate change, for the same reason.

It's encouraging that the Opposition is now taking up this issue. But I do hope it won't roll out as just another bit of political theatre. We need a profound public discourse on the very ways we develop our resources, produce our food, and exercise and protect our precious democratic rights, too. Is it all working? Or does it need to change? We all need to think about these things when the next election comes around.

RELATED:

For at least a decade, three founders of HyLife Foods have contributed thousands of dollars to the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba.

Manitoba's environmental laws under siege.

Could a million freshwater turtles help clean up some of Australia's polluted rivers? A team of scientists believes, they could!

by Larry Powell

The freshwater turtle, Emydura macquarii. Credit: Claudia Santori.

For well over a century, invasive freshwater fish from Europe - carp (originally from China) - have been released, either deliberately or accidentally from fish farms, into Australian waterways. The fish, now widely regarded as pests, are thriving. 

Their habitat includes rivers flowing through the Murray-Darling Basin of New South Wales. Those vast waterways support, through irrigation and other means, about 40% of agricultural production for the entire country - not to mention vital aquatic eco-systems and drinking water for about three million people. 

Baby Emydura macquarii. Credit: Tom Burd.

By contrast, the clock is ticking for Australia's native freshwater turtles. The new study says the most common species has declined by up to 91 percent in the past 40 years. It blames urbanization, which damages their habitat and makes the turtles more vulnerable to mass die-offs from disease. They're also being run over by vehicles on roadways. And foxes, like the carp, also introduced from elsewhere, are destroying their nests. 

Ironically, the scientists have now discovered that the turtles could play a vital role in any plan to rid the rivers of the nuisance carp. As carp die, they decompose and give off ammonia, which is toxic to other creatures.

An experiment the researchers carried out showed, convincingly, that the turtles could act as an effective "clean-up crew." Turns out, they have a huge appetite for the carcasses of the fish, a trait which would improve water quality, to everyone's benefit.

Day nine of the experiments - with turtles present in the water, 

the carp carcass has been completely devoured. 

Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.

The researchers built "artificial wetlands" made up of several large tanks like the one above. They placed dead carp in all of them. Then they put the turtles, in groups of four, in some. The tanks were monitored, either until the carcasses had fully decomposed or been completely eaten by the turtles.

The results, as documented in a study, now published in the journal, Nature,  are striking.

The turtles stripped carp carcasses to skeletons within five days, whereas, without turtles present, the carcasses took more than 27 days - more than five times longer - to decompose. In the tanks with the turtles, ammonia levels fell and dissolved oxygen levels - which aquatic animals need to survive, recovered. Without turtles, the water progressively deteriorated and became very dirty. While crayfish, prawns, and shrimp act similarly, none are as effective as the turtles. 

The leader of the research team, Ricky Spencer of Western Sydney University, believes, a plan by the Australian Government to use a biological agent to get rid of the carp, could be devastating. That's because, without lots of turtles doing the scavenging, mounds of dead fish rotting in the rivers would only emit more ammonia and compound problems of water pollution.

“We’re not just talking about the health of our rivers here," Prof. Spencer adds.  "We’re talking about human health. These are river systems that supply our drinking water and irrigate the fruit and vegetables we eat. So turtles are critical to sustaining the health of humans, as well as our rivers.”

But, with turtle populations on the decline, finding enough to do an effective job, will be daunting. So, the research team is proposing what it calls "Australia's largest, community-empowered conservation program. Local communities will lead 'expansionary conservation,' where we aim to release more than one million extra turtles throughout southeastern Australia each year." A crowd-funding program has been launched to pay for the effort.

There is at least 10 times more plastic in the Atlantic than previously thought

Science News 

"Seal trapped in plastic pollution" by tedxgp2 

Scientists measured 12-21 million tons of three of the most common types of plastic in the top 200 meters of the Atlantic. By assuming the concentration of plastic in the whole Atlantic is the same as that measured at 200 meters deep, the scientists estimated there is around 200 million tons of three of the most common types of plastic alone. Compare this to the previously estimated figure of 17 million. 

Details here.

Agriculture replaces fossil fuels as largest human source of sulfur to the environment

PHYS ORG

A PinP photo.

Historically, coal-fired power plants were the largest source of reactive sulfur, a component of acid rain, to the biosphere. A new study shows that fertilizer and pesticide applications to croplands are now the most important source of sulfur to the environment. Details here.

Is Manitoba's Brokenhead River about to become a dumping ground for an Alberta-based sand-mining company?

by Don Sullivan

Kayakers on the Brokenhead River. A Wikimedia photo.

The Brokenhead River begins in the wetlands of Sandilands Provincial Forest, located in Southeastern Manitoba. It ultimately drains 200 kilometres later into Lake Winnipeg. Most of the river is navigable by canoe or kayak.

This meandering river is now under threat.

It might very well become a toxic dumping ground for CanWhite Sands Corp (CWS) of Alberta. Last month, CWS  filed a proposal under Manitoba's Environment Act, for approval to construct a silica sand processing facility near Vivian in Southeastern Manitoba. The closing date for commenting on this proposal is August 25th, 2020.  If you have concerns, you have between now and then to express them, here. 

Once the processing facility receives government approval, CWS intends to submit a second application. This would be for both the mine, where the sand will be obtained and for the methods the company will use to extract it. The splitting of a single proposed project into two separate ones in this way, probably makes approval a foregone conclusion.

CWS indicates that 15 percent of what it will extract (from 200 feet below the surface in the Winnipeg Formation aquifer), will be sand and shale. That means that 85 percent, will be water (a fact conveniently ignored in the company application). Simple math shows, in order to produce its intended target of 1.36 million tonnes of sand per year, CWS will also need to extract 7.7.million cubic meters of water annually.

This will surely pose a serious problem for the people of Southeastern Manitoba who rely on this aquifer for their drinking water. Why? Because this much water coming out of the aquifer annually will certainly inhibit the ability of this aquifer to recharge itself.

Since the average Canadian uses 329 litres of water a day, again math shows the amount required by the company would serve a city much larger than Brandon each year.

The sand and water will be sucked up to the surface through hundreds of boreholes a  year. Only a fraction of it will be needed to process the sand in the wet plant. The bulk of it, likely more than six million cubic meters, will likely be dumped into the Brokenhead. It will contain high levels of heavy metals, chromium, arsenic, neurotoxins. It will also be acidic, as pyrite in the shale will cause acids to drain into the river. Of course CWS never mentions any of this in its application. That would apparently be too transparent for them and even raise a number of alarm bells.

The release of deleterious substances into the river would be a clear violation of the Federal Fisheries Act and threaten aquatic life there - life such as the rare Chestnut Lamprey eel. It's a species at risk, still surviving in the Brokenhead. It would almost certainly be impacted.

The river runs through the Brokenhead First Nation, which, to my knowledge, has never been consulted on the impacts of this project on their Treaty Rights.

"What The Frack Manitoba" is therefore calling on the appropriate authorities to do the following;

Request that the Province of Manitoba suspend its approval process until such a time that the appropriate federal authorities have the required information from CWS to determine the extent of the adverse impacts of the proposed development project will have with respect to federal jurisdiction. And that the proponent (CWS) submit information not only for its proposed silica sand processing facility but also its silica sand mine and mining method, to be reviewed as one project via a panel review process, to determine the extent of the adverse impacts with respect to federal jurisdiction.

Determine if the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is applicable, and if not, that the appropriate federal Minister and or federal authority use the discretionary powers under the IAA to designate this proposed development an IAA Project for the purpose of applying the provisions contained in IAA.

Request that the Crown (Federal/Provincial as they are not divisible) undertake a Section 35 consultation process with Brokenhead First Nation to determine what if any adverse impacts of this proposed project will have with respect to Brokenhead First Nation Section 35 Rights prior to any environmental approval of said propose development project occurs.

Don Sullivan is the spokesperson for What The Frack Manitoba, is the former director of the Boreal Forest Network and served as special adviser to the government of Manitoba on the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage site portfolio. He is a research affiliate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and a Queen Golden Jubilee medal recipient.

Don Sullivan (above) is the spokesperson for What The Frack Manitoba, the former director of the Boreal Forest Network and special adviser to the government of Manitoba on the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage site. He's a research affiliate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and a Queen Golden Jubilee medal recipient.

RELATED: 

"When corporate interests trump the human right to clean drinking water - a case of concern in Manitoba, Canada.

Silica dust produces a distinctive reaction in the lung that eventually leads to the development of masses of fibrous tissue and distinctive nodules of dense fibrosis, which, by contracting, distort and damage the lung. Silicosis is a hazard in any occupation in which workers are exposed to silica dust, particularly rock drilling above or below ground, quarrying, or grinding with a wheel containing silica. Cases have also been reported in dental technicians, who use the material ground into a fine powder.

‘This is sacred’: the fight against a massive frac sand mine in Manitoba.

The sand in question here is destined for use in "facking," a method of extracting shale gas that has either fallen into disrepute or been banned in many places. This links you to what is perhaps the most comprehensive and authoritative compendium of information about the practise by two groups of concerned US physicians. Their bottom-line conclusion is - it ought to be banned!

Brazilian meat giant trucked cattle from deforested Amazon ranch

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

An Adobe photo.

This article exposes the brazen culpability of the global beef industry for the fires ravaging the Amazon each year. Please open this "must-read' story here!

World's biggest meat firm, JBS, caught red-handed. (Video)

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Massive Canadian mines pose transboundary risks

Science Magazine

In 2019, Canada approved an extension of the deadline to start one of the world’s largest copper and gold mines in the headwaters of the transboundary Unuk River (1). The plan for the Kerr-Sulphurets -Mitchell (KSM) mine is to dig one of the largest human-made holes on earth, erect one of the highest dams in North America, and operate water treatment for 200 years after the mine closes (2). Mines such as KSM pose long-term risks to downstream water quality, fish, and people (3). Given that mine contamination is not constrained by political boundaries, U.S., Canadian, and Indigenous governments must urgently engage in collaborative evaluation and regulation of mines in internationally shared rivers. Shortfalls in mine assessments and permitting policies should be addressed.

Mine assessments underestimate risk at high environmental cost. Contributing factors include the ecological complexity of rivers, policy shortcomings in weighing environmental risk (4), and profound engineering challenges posed by mountain mining. For example, insufficient evaluation of soil stability enabled the 2014 catastrophic failure of the Mount Polley tailings dam (5).

Furthermore, the issuance of mine permits relies on the promise of mitigations that lack field validation. Canadian industrial projects typically underdeliver on their mitigations, such as restoring fish habitat (6). Unverified technologies can fail, as evidenced by the 2014 fish kill downstream of Teck Resources’ wastewater treatment plant (7).

Finally, mine assessment and permitting do not require incorporation of transparent, independent, and peer-reviewed science (8). For example, Teck’s Elk Valley permit allows contaminant discharges up to 65 times above scientifically established protective thresholds for fish (9). Political borders do not block the downstream flow of this contaminated water into Montana and Idaho (10).

Stakes are high. Upstream Canadian mines threaten downstream economies, waters, and ways of life, even as the United States is currently weakening its own federal environmental regulations (11). Rather than a race to the bottom, we urge our governments to honor their mutual obligations to protect our shared transboundary waters as codified in the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 (12) and immediately collaborate on binational environmental reviews that are founded upon independent, transparent, and peer-reviewed science.

Urgent changes needed to reduce environmental costs of ‘fast fashion’

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

Stefan Müller (climate stuff)
from Germany

Fundamental changes to the fashion business model, including an urgent transition away from ‘fast fashion’, are needed to improve the long-term sustainability of the fashion supply chain, argue Kirsi Niinimäki and colleagues in a Review published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. The fashion industry is the second largest industrial polluter after aviation, and accounts for up to 10% of global pollution. However, the industry continues to grow, despite rising awareness of the environmental impacts, in part owing to the rise of fast fashion, which relies on cheap manufacturing, frequent consumption, and short-lived garment use. The authors identify the environmental impacts of the fashion supply chain, from production to consumption, focusing on water use, chemical pollution, CO2 emissions and textile waste. For example, the industry produces over 92 million tonnes of waste and consumes 1.5 trillion tonnes of water per year, with developing countries often bearing the burden for developed countries. These impacts highlight the need for substantial changes in the industry, including deceleration of manufacturing and introduction of sustainable practices throughout the supply chain, the authors say.  “Slow fashion is the future”, Niinimäki and co-authors conclude, but “we need a new system-wide understanding of how to transition towards this model, requiring creativity and collaboration between designers and manufacturers, various stakeholders, and end consumers.” A joined-up approach is required with the textile industry investing in cleaner technologies, the fashion industry developing new sustainable business models, and policy-makers modifying legislation. Consumers also have a crucial role and must change their consumption habits and be ready to pay higher prices that account for the environmental impact of fashion.

NASA images show fall in China pollution over virus shutdown

PHYS.ORG

Nitrous oxide levels over China.
Jan. 1st, 2020 (l.). Feb. 25th, 2020.
Nasa images.

NASA satellite images show a dramatic fall in pollution over China that is "partly related" to the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, the space agency said. Story here.