Statement by Concerned Citizens of the Valley

Concerned Citizens of the Valley is a group of people who live in the Swan River Valley of west-central Manitoba, CA.

In the mid-1990’s, Louisiana Pacific proposed to build an Oriented Strandboard mill near Minitonas in west-central Manitoba. Clean Environment Commission hearings on the environmental impact of the OSB mill were held in 1994.

The wood products plant in question. (photo by Larry.)

At the time of the hearings, the US Environmental Protection Agency had reached an agreement with Louisiana-Pacific to install Regenerative Thermal Oxidizers in it’s US mills. These RTOs limit the emission of toxic compounds like formaldehyde, benzene and Volatile Organic Compounds, toxins known to be hazardous to human health.

In Manitoba, requirements were far less rigorous and Louisiana-Pacific did not propose to install RTOs, nor was the government suggesting that the Company do so. It was the view of some that Manitoba citizens should be afforded at least the same level of health and environmental protection as citizens of the US. Environmental groups and citizens from the Swan Valley came together to work towards that goal.

The Clean Environment Commission hearings lasted several weeks and included testimony from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Louisiana-Pacific relented and agreed to install RTOs at the Swan Valley mill. This was a significant environmental victory for those very dedicated people who worked and volunteered on behalf of their fellow man and the environment.

Fast forward to the present.

Louisiana-Pacific is losing money due to lower demand for its product. The Company wants to cut costs. It issues statements indicating that it will cut jobs and will be examining other means to reduce costs.

The Company pleads its case to the Manitoba government in 2008. The Company indicates that it costs $3 million per year to operate the RTOs. And that the RTOs have a life expectancy of about ten years, their time is up, and it will cost $10 million to replace them. The Company also indicates that it has made some changes to its operation that would reduce emissions. The mill may close if costs are not reduced, and people will be out of work.

What happens? On January 8 of this year, Manitoba Conservation quietly grants approval for the Company to stop using the RTOs on an interim basis. Near the end of January, in an article in the local Swan Valley paper, the mill manager is quoted to say “We have been working with ministers Rosann Wowchuk and Stan Struthers and Andrew Swan on this and other cost saving initiatives. We are very pleased that they are supporting us.”.

Despite the huge investment of volunteer capital to ensure that the mill was required to install RTOs, the interim approval is granted because the government views the alteration to be ‘minor’. There was no notification of what Manitoba Conservation had done. And people, including those living next to the mill, were left in the dark. At least for awhile.

Near the end of January, Manitoba Conservation advertises in the Winnipeg Free Press and the local Swan Valley paper. The government indicates that Louisiana-Pacific has applied to permanently stop using its RTOs and to increase the amount of toxicants that it will emit to the area.

Since that time, we have come together to examine Louisiana-Pacific’s proposal. Here are a few of the things that we have found.
• A number of the contaminants pose risks to human health. Some of the contaminants are known carcinogens. Volatile Organic Compounds, even in low quantities, can affect the central nervous and respiratory systems. The young, old, those with compromised breathing, those with diabetes, and the unborn are most vulnerable.
• RTOs or equivalent equipment are required at Louisiana-Pacific and all OSB mills in the US. This includes mills that operate like the Swan Valley mill.
• A recent comparison of Canada to the US, Europe, and Australia found that “... Canada provides weaker protection for human health from the negative effects of air pollution that the U.S., Australia, and the European Union. Canada is the only nation to rely on voluntary national guidelines, which provide a far weaker approach to air pollution than the national standards in the U.S., Australia, and the European Union”.
• The Company proposes to build higher stacks to more widely disperse the greater amount of toxins.
• Louisiana-Pacific indicates that, once it gets through the economic downturn, the Company will be stronger than ever. Analysts in the field of OSB are predicting that the demand for this product will recover by 2010 and then be very strong. If the Company can cut costs by shutting of pollution controls in Manitoba, it will that much more profitable in the future.
• There are significant questions surrounding the assessments conducted by LP’s consultants.
• The health assessment was done by an organization that receives its funding from the forestry industry, including Louisiana-Pacific. We would be far more confident if the assessment had been conducted by a truly independent organization whose mandate was public health.
• The assessment of the movement and concentrations of toxins was done by a US company that is no longer in existence. We wonder why Louisiana-Pacific did not hire a Manitoba engineering firm, as this kind of work is done by a number of engineers certified to operate in Manitoba.
• There is considerable similarity between how Louisiana-Pacific has handled its assessment of dispersion of the toxins, and how Louisiana-Pacific handled its 1995 assessment of the ability of the forest to provide for the mill. In that case, it has since been proven that Louisiana-Pacific and its consultants massively overestimated the sustainable wood supply and the rate at which the forest grows.

In response to public comments on Louisiana-Pacific’s proposal, Minister Struthers instructed the Clean Environment Commission to conduct an investigation and public meeting.

We are happy that we will be able to participate in a meeting on this issue, although details of the meeting are presently unknown. For example, we are unaware if we will be able to question Louisiana-Pacific’s consultants.

Of particular importance, huge power imbalances exist between large corporations and government, and ordinary citizens. For example, Louisiana-Pacific had sales of almost 1.7 billion dollars in 2007; the Company’s pockets are pretty deep. And government has immense power in relation to the average citizen.

Intervenor funding provides funding to citizens in an effort to level the playing field. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency considers intervenor funding to be one way to provide “Canadians with high quality environmental assessments that contribute to informed decision making, in support of sustainable development.”

We ask you support us by phoning, writing, and emailing to Minister Struthers, Premier Doer, and your local MLA. We ask you to demand that Minister Struthers provide intervenor funding to Concerned Citizens of the Valley. This will allow our group to hire the best of independent expertise. We believe that this matter cannot be left in the hands of industry and government; it is up to us to make certain that the environment and human health will not be compromised for profitability.

Thank you for your time.

Concerned Citizens of the Valley

Greenhouse gases bad for health: U.S. agency

CBC - Cars, power plants and factories in the United States could all soon face much tougher pollution limits after a government declaration by the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday. It sets the stage for the first federal regulation of gases blamed for global warming. Read more here...

(Photo - Greenpeace)

Failure to Yield

Union of Concerned Scientists - Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions

Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops

For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields. But is this true? Click here for the answer...

George Monbiot: on Global Warming - “It’s over, now we must adapt to what nature sends our way”

George Monbiot is Europe's leading "green" commentator. Below is his article in the UK's Guardian.

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Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it's over. The years in which more than 2C of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we'll be lucky to get away with 4C. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.Read more here....

Big Food - The New Tobacco?

Big Food Is Copying Big Tobacco's Disinformation Tactics.

How Many Will Die This Time?

By Fen Montaigne, Yale Environment 360. Posted April 11, 2009.

Courtesy of AlterNet.

More of Man's Inhumanity Toward Nature?

Photo - Guardian - UK
Published on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 by the Times Online (UK)

by Lewis Smith

Mass strandings of dolphins and whales could be caused because the animals are rendered temporarily deaf by military sonar, experiments have shown. Read more...

Also watch this heart-wrenching BBC video of stranded dolphins.

Breaking News: New Ontario Law on Toxic Chemical Reduction

This just in from Environmental Defence - The province of Ontario has introduced new legislation designed to persuade companies to reduce their use of toxic chemicals. It will be the first jurisdiction in the country to produce such a strategy. Read more....

Should Pesticide "Regulators" & Politicians Face Penalties for Refusing to Protect Honeybees?

By Larry Powell.

Over the past several months, I have politely asked the federal Minister of Health, the Hon.Leona Aglukkaq, (r.) who is responsible for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, at least three times to comment on the issues outlined in my article, below. She has not responded.
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As many of you will know, populations of honeybees have, in recent years, been tragically and "mysteriously" disappearing around the world.

I say "mysteriously" with some sarcasm, because pesticides are already known to be one of the factors. Yet, instead of removing these known toxins from the market, they continue to be allowed, while ever-more harmful ones are being approved!

Not only do the bees produce our honey, they are our most important pollinators, responsible for the production of up to one-third of the human food supply!

Despite numerous and now frantic studies into the phenomenon, which has been dubbed "Colony Collapse Disorder," nothing is being done and the bees continue to disappear.

So I'm not really optimistic for the future of these wondrous creatures.

Why? Because we have now let harmful chemicals insinuate themselves so completely into our lives, we can no longer separate reality from industry or government hype.

Beekeepers are themselves concerned about chemicals now being sprayed on crops like sunflowers, where some of their bees pollinate.

In a recent letter-to-the-editor, a government entomologist talks about "managing" insects on sunflower crops (with chemicals, of course).

It's a single word. But it speaks volumes about how completely we have now divorced ourselves from the notion of working with nature to produce our food.

We are so bogged down in the nuances of the debate; which products will kill bees "on contact" (as opposed to which ones will kill them later on, I guess), and how "target" and "non-target" insects are affected, we can no longer see the forest for the trees.

Of course these chemicals have all been sorted into these neat little compartments, each with its own label.

That's nice.

But, does anyone truly believe there will be no harmful synergistic effects when so many chemical soups are applied with such abandon to our food crops yearly?

Are we supposed to accept that new generations of ever-more-potent poisons, descendants of ones used in wartime to kill people and now specifically designed to kill insects, will somehow stop doing their job, say "excuse me," politely and magically step around beneficial insects and kill only the bad ones?

Give me a break!

Yet huge chemical-makers brag on their websites, without fear of contradiction, that they work "with nature," toward "sustainable" agriculture and an end to world hunger!

All the while, their products are threatening food production, not promoting it!

Their version of "sustainability" is to pour ever-larger amounts of their over-priced products onto our crops, just so our producers can "stay even" with last year!

Figures from credible sources show that, despite the chemical onslaught that has transformed agriculture since the 1930's, crops lost to pests of all kinds, have actually increased as a percentage of production!

Might there actually come a day when corporate chemical-makers, government bureaucrats, politicians and regulators, will actually face penalties if they know that certain products are harmful to human health or the environment, yet do nothing? Probably not.

But wouldn't that jam up our courts!

If you think that sounds harsh, consider that one out of every three spoons-full of food we eat, comes courtesy of honeybees!

Meanwhile, North American "regulators", armed with the certain knowledge that products already out there are "very highly toxic" to bees, not only continue to allow their use, but are approving new ones that are probably even worse!

So, on whose behalf are these "regulators" acting? Yours? Mine? Or the chemical companies and their fat bottom lines?

You be the judge.

Meanwhile, scientists and researchers continue to chase their tails, frantically trying to explain every last reason behind "Colony Collapse Disorder," a phenomenon that has been conveniently invented to impress people about how deep a mystery it is to solve.

There probably are factors other than pesticides involved, granted. But why cross every "t" and dot every "i" when they could be acting on one they already know about?

And, in fairness, there are dedicated scientists who have pointed their finger at pesticides too, yet their voices seem to get lost in the wilderness.

It's been pointed out with monotonous regularity that many bee deaths (such as some Canadian ones) do not "fit the profile" of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Gee, I guess they don't count, then! No point in even trying to do anything about those!

You can bet the chemical companies are wringing their hands in glee, knowing that, as they rack up record sales, multiple scientific studies go madly off in all directions, concluding nothing.

In a couple of radio interviews I have heard, academics put a devilishly clever "spin" on the topic. Bending over backwards not to offend the chemical companies, they conceded that "not much more" can be done using pesticides, to protect the bees (from things like mites, etc)! Heaven forbid they should even hint that they are actually a factor!

(One has to wonder just how "beholden" are their respective universities to the chemical companies because of grants they may get from them? Journalists don't ask those kinds of questions, any more.)
l.p.

Please also read "Lament for the Honeybee." Just click on the "Honeybees" category in the column to the right.
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Comment: Yes, we should BEE wise & admit that pesticides are the culprit.
BEE cause if we don't, we will all suffer.
JerrySatire@aol.com www.Lampoon.net
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Farmers Need Help to Grow More Food With Less Water - FAO

Future of water is in agriculture
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf has called for more attention to be paid to water management in agriculture and for increased support and guidance for farmers in developing countries to tackle water scarcity and the related problem of hunger. Meanwhile, the FAO has urged policy-makers to include agriculture in negotiations for a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol.

Photo courtesty of www.treehugger.com

Canada Plunders Our Oceans With the "Best" of Them!

The Trouble With Sea Cucumbers - Sea cucumber stocks are under intense fishing pressure throughout the world, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In a majority of countries reviewed and in the African and Indian Ocean regions, stocks are overfished. In the Asian Pacific region the most sought-after species are largely depleted. [more... (Photos courtesy of FAO)

Large-scale sea cucumber harvesting

operation in Canada. (left).

Is the Harper Deregulation Agenda Running Amok?

New Bill threatens Canada’s grain safety and quality: study March 31, 2009

OTTAWA—A controversial bill to change Canada’s grain regulatory system threatens Canada’s grain safety and quality, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

"Threatened Harvest: Protecting Canada’s World-Class Grain System" is available from the CCPA website.

(Regina Leader-Post photo)