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Below is an article that some of us in Cape Breton might not want to
hear about our beautiful island, but I must give this reporter mucho
credit for shooting straight from the hip -- I like her style. Although
she should not be blaming the provincial government for this mess --
there is federal blame too, but who cares - the mess is there no matter
who is to blame and it must be cleaned up.
Maybe this is the kind of kick in the ass JAG needs to get up of it's
butt and get the ponds cleaned up?
I think the community should back up the Deleskie Brothers big-time and
put more pressure on JAG to SHUT UP and CLEAN-UP.
JAG members THINK they represent the community, but the Deleskies
proved JAG doesn't represent the community with their 2000-
signature-petition that JAG has chosen to ignore.
Let's get some of those petitions and help the Deleskies get more
signatures and show JAG who the community REALLY is!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Good Article in National Post - Believe it or Not!
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 11:01:14 -0400
From: Brad Duplisea <bduplisea@canadians.org>
Reply-To: "bduplisea@canadians.org" <bduplisea@canadians.org>
Organization: The Council of Canadians
To: "'angdave@istar.ca'" <angdave@istar.ca>
CC: "'morrisons@canada.com'"
<morrisons@canada.com>,"'juanita.mckenzie@ns.sympatico.ca'"
<juanita.mckenzie@ns.sympatico.ca>,"'cartyb@ottawa.cbc.ca'"
<cartyb@ottawa.cbc.ca>,"'roger_dixon@csi.com'"
<roger_dixon@csi.com>,"'ronniedebbie@ns.sympatico.ca'"
<ronniedebbie@ns.sympatico.ca>,"'IICPH@compuserve.com'"
<IICPH@compuserve.com>
PUBLICATION National Post
DATE Thu 30 Sep 1999
EDITION National
SECTION/CATEGORY Comment
PAGE NUMBER A18
BYLINE Patricia Pearson
STORY LENGTH 879
HEADLINE: Breathing poison in Cape Breton: Very tricky business,
taking responsibility for fiascos
I was down in Cape Breton the other day, where there's talk of
beefing up the tourism industry to give fired miners something to
do, and I thought, well, I'm a tourist, how about I take a stroll
past the Sydney Tar Ponds, and see if the vapours make me pass
out?
You're familiar with the Muggah Creek Watershed, a.k.a. Tar Ponds?
The single worst hazardous waste site in Canada, produced entirely
by the government of Nova Scotia. It's a simple formula, really.
Open a steel factory in a desperate economy, run it for a couple
of decades without pollution controls, because the population is
too dependent to protest, and voila!
Eleven thousand residents in the surrounding neighbourhood inhale
carcinogenic contaminants that exceed federal guidelines by
1,000%. They drop dead of cancer and lung disease, which the
government blames on "lifestyle." Their children consume lead in
the garden vegetables. And it goes on, unremedied, for years.
Very tricky business, taking responsibility for fiascos. You need
to behave the way politicians always do in Cape Breton: by
stalling, whether they're avoiding the fate of the mining
industry, deferring the scandalous health- care situation,
ignoring the pollution in Sydney Harbour, or dragging their feet
on these noxious ponds.
The best policy, they seem to have found, is to commission
studies, and then ignore them. Ignore the first one, from 1974,
that identifies health hazards from the coke ovens to the workers
and surrounding families. Then ignore the memo from Health Canada
in 1985, warning of "an increase of morbidity and mortality to
Sydney residents." Finally, announce a 10-year clean-up operation
in 1989 that doesn't result in so much as a lifted shovel.
When people are still bugging you to please stop putting them at
risk of fatal illness, throw $62-million at a working group (as
announced in late September by officials from all three levels of
government) to help experts ponder the mess.
I got to wondering what it would be like to live in the
neighbourhood, just sitting around -- dum de dum -- breathing
poison, while the government moves at the pace of deciduous tree
growth.
So I dropped in on the Deleski family -- Ron, Don and Sheila, a
trio of siblings in their 50s who have been screaming bloody
murder for a decade from their house next door to the sludge.
Don, a stout, fiery-spirited man who strides restlessly about his
kitchen with the help of a cane, has gone on two hunger strikes
since 1993 to force politicians to move their damned asses. "The
only thing I've ever learned about government," he shouts, "is
that they are ruthless. When you realize that your own government
is willing to sacrifice its citizens to save money, who do you
turn to?"
Hyperbolic? I think not. Sheila was a school teacher. She had to
resign because of chronic respiratory distress. Many of the
students she taught have since died. "You see more little children
on puffers than you do babies on soothers," she says. "Politicians
haven't put a human face on this. They should spend a day on the
children's ward here, hearing our kids plead, 'no more chemo.'"
Failing that, Ron adds, leaning against a wall covered with framed
news clippings about Sydney pollution dating back to 1959, "they
could at least offer to relocate us. Imagine the power the
government has to save thousands of people from dying of cancer."
Imagine how inept they are at doing any such thing.
To make their point, Ron and Don Deleski went over to the ponds at
the end of August with a bucket and a shovel, and started to clean
up themselves. The fumes they stirred up were so hazardous that
several reporters fainted. "That day, for me, was like a horror
movie," says Ron. One he's still living in, while I got to sip my
coffee and take my leave.
Later, I picked up a copy of the Cape Breton Post, to read that a
contract for site assessment was going to be awarded in the middle
of October.
I know. You have to do it properly, you have to check one more
time on the 200,000 gallons of benzene released into the soil.
Yep, it's still there.
If another Swissair flight crashed off Nova Scotia's shore, would
the government decide it had to find out precisely what went wrong
with the wiring before it rescued the dying from the sea?
As Sheila points out, this is the vicious circle Cape Bretoners
have been caught in for 50 years. "The people need the government
to give them jobs, so they're too afraid to step on the
government's toes."
Resulting in what? Democracy at its most short-sighted, leadership
without rudimentary vision, politicians who please people by
giving them work, but failing to tell them it's deadly.
"If they don't move in a month," Don Deleski told me, "we're
taking them to court with a class-action suit."
** Good on them. With Environment Canada permitting U.S. companies
to
dump millions of tonnes of hazardous waste into landfills all over
our country, I hope Cape Bretoners establish a precedent.
Politicians who think they can sue tobacco companies for causing
health problems should consider what their voters can start to sue
them for.
Bradford Duplisea
The Council of Canadians
#502 - 151 Slater Street
Ottawa, ON K1P 5H3
Tel: 1.613.233.4487 (ext. 238)
Fax: 1.613.233.6776
[mailto:bduplisea@canadians.org]
Bradford Duplisea
The Council of Canadians
#502 - 151 Slater Street
Ottawa, ON K1P 5H3
Tel: 1.613.233.4487 (ext. 238)
Fax: 1.613.233.6776
[mailto:bduplisea@canadians.org]
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