Winnipeg Free Press - By: Frances Russell - 3/02/2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Manitoba's Conservation Minister Responds to my Story on Swan Valley Air Emissions
While composing my story, "Standing the Precautionary Principle on its Head; the Manitoba Government celebrated '09 by allowing industrial pollutants to be released in the Swan Valley,"Gov't. of MB photoJust over a month later, I got a response from one of them, Bill Blaikie.
Please read my email and his, below.Larry
==========
From: Larry Powell [mailto:earthkeeperfarm@yahoo.ca]
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 12:22 PM
To: Conservation, Minister; Agriculture, Minister; Finance, Minister
Subject: News Story On LP's Pollution Controls
Dear Honourable Ministers,
I'd like to congratulate you all on your recent appointments to new portfolios! I am a journalist based near Roblin who writes regularly on issues touching on your areas of ministerial responsibility. (I write for my blog - see link below - occasionally for weekly newspapers in my region and magazines such as Briarpatch and Sasquatch.) As you may know, I've written extensively in past about Louisiana Pacific's logging operations in my general part of the province (and, of course yours, Stan and Rosanne). This time, I'm compiling another article about LP's closure of its pollution control devices at Minitonas. If I may, I'd like to direct a couple of questions to each, or all of you, the answers to which I'd like to incorporate into the story.
• Given the protracted time it is taking for the CEC to make its recommendations, are you still comfortable that, rather than requiring the RTOs to remain in service in the interim, you have allowed them to stay offline? This is obviously permitting more industrial pollutants to escape into the air of the Swan Valley than would otherwise have been the case, is it not? (After all, it will soon be one full year that you will have allowed this to happen.)
• Regardless of what the CEC's recommendations will be, or when it makes them, are you prepared to seriously consider placing the RTOs back in service immediately?
• Would you consider looking into the option of LP using a bioreactor as a future means of controlling emissions, as has been suggested by one of the independent experts hired by Concerned Citizens of the Valley?
If you have any questions about me, please feel free to ask! I hope to hear back from you at your earliest opportunity. Best regards and complements of the season!
Larry Powell
See our planet through a fresh lens, Visit: "Paths Less Travelled. Stories rarely told by mainstream media."
========
February 3, 2010
Larry Powell
earthkeeperfarm@yahoo.ca
Dear Mr. Powell:
Thank you for your email of December 31, 2009 in which you sought information related to the review of Louisiana-Pacific’s proposal to alter air emissions control equipment for the Swan Valley Oriented Strand Board plant.
As you are aware, the Clean Environment Commission (CEC) is currently reviewing this matter. My Department will await the recommendations of the CEC before making any permanent decisions regarding air emissions control equipment.
Again, thank you for providing your comments on this matter.
Yours sincerely,
“signed by”
Bill Blaikie
Minister
cc: Honourable Rosann Wowchuk
Honourable Stan Struthers
=====
Editor's note: Normally, I wouldn't consider such a "non-response" response from an elected official even worthy of mention. But I thought it important to place this government on record that it is aware of the action it has taken and is consciously sticking to it, regardless of the consequences down the road.
Will there be consequences in terms of health outcomes later on? Time will tell.
Mr. Balikie's response is not unlike one you might expect from any other government of any other political stripe. His inference clearly is; it would somehow be impossible, illegal or unethical for him to do anything pending the CEC's recommendations. Given that the CEC is strictly an advisory body, that inference is clearly just an excuse for sticking to what many people still believe to be a wrong-headed decision. l.p.
Biotech Wheat Could Slam U.S. Wheat Prices -Report
Wed Jan 27, 2010 - By Carey Gillam
CHICAGO, Jan 27 (Reuters) U.S. wheat prices could fall by 40 percent...
CHICAGO, Jan 27 (Reuters) U.S. wheat prices could fall by 40 percent...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
With Climate Change, Some Birds Are Taking Off for Migration Sooner; Not Reaching Destinations Earlier
ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2010)
Migrating birds can and do keep...
Three American goldfiches (l.) migrated north to Manitoba,
Migrating birds can and do keep...
(R.) Cape May Warbler
Three American goldfiches (l.) migrated north to Manitoba,
as they usually do in mid-spring of 2009. They were caught by a
highly unusual major snowstorm in May! Photos by l.p.
Tell Chevron to Clean up its Toxic Legacy
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Monday, February 1, 2010
GM Crops Facing Meltdown in the USA
ISIS Press Release 01/02/10
Major crops genetically modified for just two traits - herbicide tolerance and insect resistance – are ravaged by super weeds and secondary pests in the heartland of GMOs as farmers fight a losing battle with more of the same; a fundamental shift to organic farming practices may be the
only salvation Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Please circulate widely, keeping all links unchanged, and submit to your government representatives demanding an end to GM crops and support for non-GM organic agriculture
Artist Paul Hoppe
Two traits account for practically all the genetically-modified (GM) crops grown in the world today: herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and insect-resistance due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis).
Commercial planting began around 1997 in the United States, the heartland of GM crops, and increased rapidly over the years.
By now, GM crops have taken over 85-91 percent of the area planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US [1]] (see Table 1), which occupy nearly 171 million acres.
Table 1. GM crops grown in 2009 in the USA
The ecological time-bomb that came with the GM crops has been ticking away, and is about to explode.
HT crops encouraged the use of herbicides, resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds that demand yet more herbicides.
But the increasing use of deadly herbicide and herbicide mixtures has failed to stall the advance of the palmer superweed in HT crops. At the same time, secondary pests such as the tarnished plant bug, against which Bt toxin is powerless, became the single most damaging insect for US
cotton.
Monster plants that can’t be killed
It is the Day of the Triffids - not the genetically modified plants themselves as alluded to in John Wyndham’s novel - but “super weeds that can’t be killed” [2], created by the planting of genetically modified HT crops, as seen on ABC TV news.
The scene is set at harvest time in Arkansas October 2009.
Grim-faced farmers and scientists speak from fields infested with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate herbicide as you can afford to douse on them. One farmer spent US$0.5 million in three months trying to clear the monster weeds in vain; they stop combine harvesters and break hand tools. Already, an estimated one million acres of soybean and cotton crops in Arkansas have become infested.
The palmer amaranth or palmer pigweed is the most dreaded weed. It can grow 7-8 feet tall, withstand withering heat and prolonged droughts, produce thousands of seeds and has a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it would take over a field in a year.
Meanwhile in North Carolina Perquimans County, farmer and extension worker Paul Smith has just found the offending weed in his field [3], and he too, will have to hire a
migrant crew to remove the weed by hand.
The resistant weed is expected to move into neighbouring counties. It has already developed resistance to at least three other types of herbicides.
Herbicide-resistance in weeds is nothing new. Ten weed species in North Carolina and 189 weed species nationally have developed resistance to some herbicide.
A new herbicide is unlikely to come out, said Alan York,retired professor of agriculture from North Carolina State University and national weed expert
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCropsFacingMeltdown.php
========================================================
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
If you like this original article from the Institute of
Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving
articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation
or purchase on our website
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cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability
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If you would like to be removed from our mailing list
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========================================================
CONTACT DETAILS
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NW2 9DH
telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636]
Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php
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CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php
only salvation Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Please circulate widely, keeping all links unchanged, and submit to your government representatives demanding an end to GM crops and support for non-GM organic agriculture
Artist Paul Hoppe
Two traits account for practically all the genetically-modified (GM) crops grown in the world today: herbicide-tolerance (HT) due to glyphosate-insensitive form of the gene coding for the enzyme targeted by the herbicide, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), derived from soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and insect-resistance due to one or more toxin genes derived from the soil bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis).
Commercial planting began around 1997 in the United States, the heartland of GM crops, and increased rapidly over the years.
By now, GM crops have taken over 85-91 percent of the area planted with the three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton in the US [1]] (see Table 1), which occupy nearly 171 million acres.
Table 1. GM crops grown in 2009 in the USA
The ecological time-bomb that came with the GM crops has been ticking away, and is about to explode.
HT crops encouraged the use of herbicides, resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds that demand yet more herbicides.
But the increasing use of deadly herbicide and herbicide mixtures has failed to stall the advance of the palmer superweed in HT crops. At the same time, secondary pests such as the tarnished plant bug, against which Bt toxin is powerless, became the single most damaging insect for US
cotton.
Monster plants that can’t be killed
It is the Day of the Triffids - not the genetically modified plants themselves as alluded to in John Wyndham’s novel - but “super weeds that can’t be killed” [2], created by the planting of genetically modified HT crops, as seen on ABC TV news.
The scene is set at harvest time in Arkansas October 2009.
Grim-faced farmers and scientists speak from fields infested with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate herbicide as you can afford to douse on them. One farmer spent US$0.5 million in three months trying to clear the monster weeds in vain; they stop combine harvesters and break hand tools. Already, an estimated one million acres of soybean and cotton crops in Arkansas have become infested.
The palmer amaranth or palmer pigweed is the most dreaded weed. It can grow 7-8 feet tall, withstand withering heat and prolonged droughts, produce thousands of seeds and has a root system that drains nutrients away from crops. If left unchecked, it would take over a field in a year.
Meanwhile in North Carolina Perquimans County, farmer and extension worker Paul Smith has just found the offending weed in his field [3], and he too, will have to hire a
migrant crew to remove the weed by hand.
The resistant weed is expected to move into neighbouring counties. It has already developed resistance to at least three other types of herbicides.
Herbicide-resistance in weeds is nothing new. Ten weed species in North Carolina and 189 weed species nationally have developed resistance to some herbicide.
A new herbicide is unlikely to come out, said Alan York,retired professor of agriculture from North Carolina State University and national weed expert
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCropsFacingMeltdown.php
========================================================
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
If you like this original article from the Institute of
Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving
articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation
or purchase on our website
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations.
ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation
dedicated to providing critical public information on
cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability
and ecological sustainability in science.
If you would like to be removed from our mailing list
unsubscribe at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/unsubscribe
or email unsubscribe@i-sis.org.uk
========================================================
CONTACT DETAILS
The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 51885, London
NW2 9DH
telephone: [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20 7272 5636]
Foe email details, see http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php
MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION. FOR PERMISSION, PLEASE
CONTACT ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact2.php
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