The RM of Yellowhead will ask an independent investigator to solve a dispute over an allegedly illegal hog barn operation in southwestern Manitoba.

The citizens' group HogWatch Manitoba made an official presentation to the RM council two week ago, It claimed the barn owner, Wim Verbruggen had built a bigger barn housing more animals than the rules allowed. A Hogwatch official, Ruth Pryzner, suggested it be shut down because it had deprived any concerned resident the right to be heard. She also feared he may have to spread the waste on fields in winter, which is illegal. That's because he apparently has not expanded his storage capacity to take care of the waste from the barn.

But, following a council meeting today, Mayor Don Yanick told PinP, Verbruggen still maintains he is not keeping more animals than he should (He claims it is 297, not the 300 or more he is alleged to be). The Mayor says the RM will ask some independent person to look into the situation to confirm who is right before deciding on any further action. Despite the controversy, the Mayor says he would not be opposed to one or two more barns in the region in the future. 

After serving for several terms in that position, Yanick is not seeking re-election in the civic elections later this month.

Hogwatch has not yet commented on this latest development. But its position has already been,“If the Yellowhead Council refuses to take the strongest enforcement action possible, choosing instead to try and bring the operator into compliance with the law, rural people and the environment are in big trouble as the hog industry expands across the Province. Failures in the livestock approval system have broad implications for how hog barn expansion will proceed in the future under the Pallister government's direction,” Pryzner concluded.

Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5oC approved by governments

Damaged buildings in Hull, Québec three days after the tornado.
Photo by Roc 1981.

INCHEON, Republic of Korea, 8 Oct - Limiting global warming to 1.5oC would require rapid, far- reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. Details here.

"Manitoba doesn't need a carbon tax. We're already 'green!'" - Premier Brian Pallister.

by Larry Powell

Below is a copy of an e-mail I just sent to Chris Hall, host of the CBC Radio program, "The House." It concerns an interview he did this morning with Manitoba's Premier, Brian Pallister on the Premier's move to withdraw from the federal carbon tax plan. If you didn't hear it, Pallister announced to the world that a carbon tax is not needed in Manitoba because both he and his government are already green!

Manitoba Premier, Brian Pallister.

Photo by grainnews.ca

Hi Chris!

I'm a native Manitoban who has, as a journalist, researcher and citizen, long been immersed in the politics of this province. I could hear the lies dripping from Premier Pallister's mouth as you interviewed him on the carbon tax this morning.

His assertion that both he and Manitoba are already green, comes less than a year after his government slashed important legislation. It once provided us with a measure of health and environmental protection from the mass pollution created by this province's already large "factory hog" industry. 

And, despite a wealth of science that shows the harm this industry has, for years, inflicted on our water, soil and air, countless new mega-barns are going up as we speak. Predictably, this is also being accompanied by a growing swell of complaints from rural residents whose solitude, privacy and property values are being invaded, not only by the stench from the barns and the disease-carrying manure being spread widely on food crops, but from dust and noise from huge semi-trailers rumbling along, nearby. 

Don't forget, animal agriculture is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, which was, after all, the topic at hand. It produces copious amounts of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than the most common one, carbon dioxide. 

Not surprisingly, under the guise of "investments" or "loans" (which may not be loans at all, but outright grants), this expanding industry is being "helped along" with generous dollops of our tax dollars. In what alternate universe could this possibly be considered a "polluter pay" policy?

Pallister's hidebound ideology - that we must have growth at all costs - and that most regulations amount to nothing more than "red tape" - amounts to contempt for his own citizens and an insult to our intelligence. 

Lake Winnipeg and other important waterways in this province have, for years, been so overgrown with algae (much of it the toxic "blue-green" kind), they can be seen from space! Does anyone in her right mind believe that massive industry expansion will make these problems anything but worse?

If Pallister had boasted that his province was not really green but "blue-green" he would have been closer to the truth!

Larry Powell

Shoal Lk. MB!

Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news

The Washington Post.

A much-awaited report from the U.N.'s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming. Story here.

Hurricane Florence. NASA

Washington Rolls Back Safety Rules Inspired by Deepwater Horizon Disaster

The New York Times

The Trump administration has completed its plan to roll back major offshore-drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in 2010 that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history. Story here.

The Deepwater Horizon oil slick from space. Photo by NASA.

Commercial fishing banned across much of the Arctic

The Guardian

International agreement will protect vast areas of sea that have opened up as the ice melts. Story here.

 Fishboats in Norway. Photo by Kristian Magnus Kenstad.

We must keep single-use plastics out of our oceans.

Greenpeace - More here.

Poster by Jessica - NOAA marine debris program.

Thawing permafrost may release more CO2 than previously thought, study suggests

folio
New research from University of Alberta ecologists show "mineral weathering" can be a significant contributor to Arctic climate change. More here.

Melting permafrost in Alaska. Photo by the US Geological Survey.

Orca 'apocalypse': half of killer whales doomed to die from pollution

The Guardian

Banned PCB chemicals are still severely harming the animals - but the Arctic could be a refuge. More here.

An orca breaches. Photo by H. Zell.

Busted! A citizens' group exposes an illegal hog operation in southwestern Manitoba. (An illustrated text version.)

By Larry Powell

Hogwatch Manitoba says a large pig barn in the RM of Yellowhead in the southwest, has been operating illegally  since last year.

This is the barn in question, 5k east of the village of Strathclair.
Photo by Larry Powell.

Ruth Pryzer presented Hogwatch’s case to the Yellowhead council 
this week. She claimed the barn owner, Wim Verbruggen, misled 
the local government when he applied for a building permit early 

last year.

She says the barn he built was three thousand square feet bigger than he said it would be. And it houses many more animals than 
the fewer than 300 he claimed it would. The Planning Act which existed at the time, required that a barn such as the one now up 
and running, have both a “conditional use” hearing and a technical review. 

Neither of these actually took place. 

The lack of a hearing meant there was no chance for anyone in the area to express concerns or perhaps of even finding out about it, beforehand! No technical review meant a group of experts had no chance of examining the project, in detail.

The Hogwatch submission states, “The applicant (Verbruggen) 
had given the RM verbal assurances that the expansion would not require an application for a conditional use permit. Ms. Gapka 
(the RM’s CAO)  said, because the Municipality operates on ‘the honour system and did not have the staffing resources and 
expertise to verify the accuracy of the information supplied by the applicant, the applicant was taken at his word.”

Pryzner believes that honour system is, therefore, “Obviously not working.” And that the violations have been “so egregious, the 
barn should be shut down.”

She also worries that, because the owner has not applied to expand the barn’s manure storage capacity, either, the only way he’ll be able to get rid of the excess is to spread it on fields in the winter. That practice was illegal at the time and remains illegal today (although the Pallister government has since made it easier to, at 
the stroke of the Minister's pen, make it legal.  

Liquid hog waste (slurry) spread on frozen fields has a greater chance of running off  and polluting waterways than it does when spread on unfrozen soil. 

The Mayor of the RM, Don Yanick, told Planet in Peril, he could find no mistakes in the Hogwatch submission. He said it had probably been an “oversight” that no hearing had been held. This was possibly due, he said, to the RM’s lack of experience when dealing with such large building projects. He promised the council would review the information and decide what to do.

But he is obviously not keen on Pryzner's suggestion that the barn be shut down. “Any business in the community," he explained, 
"we like to work with them to solve the issues that they have. And, if they can’t be solved, then we have a decision to make.”

Verbruggen was not at the council meeting. And I have not been able to reach him for comment. However, he told the Brandon Sun, he had done nothing wrong.

He is now in the process of building another barn in a nearby municipality.

Hogwatch Manitoba is made up of farmers, environmentalists and animal rights activists. It promotes an industry that is "ethically, environmentally and economically sustainable."

                            

                            -30-
Watch the video version of this story here.  

The above story, all too often represents the reality of mega-hog production. 

Ads like this, however, are how the industry "spins" its message 
into one of sweetness and love. 

For the First Time, Scientists Prove Human Activity Is the Top Cause of Warming Antarctic Waters...

Mother Jones
...and not regular temperature variations or responses to natural climate change. More here.

Mt. Herschel, Antarctica, with a penguin colony in the foreground, 2006.

Photo by Andrew Mandemaker.