|
|
|
|
|
|
Displaying items by tag: Health and Environment
Read this blog from TheTyee.ca on the Clark Government's decision not to proceed with an outright ban on cosmetic pesticides after committing to do so last year under pressure from the NDP. (May 18, 2012)
A year ago British Columbia Premier Christy Clark promised a province-wide ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides. But now the government majority on the bi-partisan committee she appointed on the topic has recommended against such a ban.
"The evidence just simply does not support a recommendation to ban pesticides for cosmetic use in British Columbia," said Bill Bennett, who chaired the Special Committee on Cosmetic Pesticides.
He outlined the arguments the committee heard both for and against such a ban, saying that on balance he didn't hear anything that persuaded him the provincial government should overrule Health Canada and the federal scientists who make decisions about what pesticides can be sold and used in the country.
"The majority of the committee believed the government should base as much of their environmental policy as possible on science," he said. "Since this was a legislative committee and since we were unencumbered by pressures from cabinet and from the premier's office, and since I was lucky enough to have like minded committee members, we made our decisions on our understanding of the science and the process that everyone gets to in terms of their points of view."
A year ago the NDP opposition proposed a law to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides in the province and Environment Critic Rob Fleming, who was deputy chair of the committee, today said an NDP government would put such a ban in place.
Read more: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2012/05/17/CosmeticClark/
Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler summarizes the enormous costs of an oil spill in Vancouver - including cleanup, tourism, fishing and other economic losses, health impacts and other incalculable costs..."The City of Vancouver passed a motion this month demanding that Kinder Morgan pipeline company carry full liability to cover the costs of an oil spill in our Vancouver Harbour. The request is just common sense but demonstrated very uncommon courage in the public political realm. So, how much liability would Kinder Morgan – the now notorious ex-Enron billionaires from Texas, who bought BC Gas and flipped it for the pipelines – need to carry to indemnify our city from the ravages of an oil spill? Well, for starters, some $40 billion, as I will explain here."
Read this blog post from Andrew Frank on reports from the Giga'at First Nation of Hartley Bay, BC, that oil is leaking up from sunken US Army Transport boat into Grenville Channel in the waters of the Great Bear Rainforest. (May 2, 2012)
HARTLEY BAY, BRITISH COLUMBIA (May 2, 2012) – The Gitga’at Nation of Hartley Bay is reporting an oil spill, between two and five miles long and 200 feet wide inside the Grenville Channel, not far from the proposed tanker route for the Enbridge Gateway pipeline. The spill was spotted by a commercial pilot and reported to the Gitga’at Nation and the Canadian Coast Guard yesterday evening.
A Coast Guard landing craft from Prince Rupert is on its way to the spill, and expected to arrive by 12pm. The Gitga’at are sending their own Guardians to take samples and have chartered a plane to take aerial photos of the spill.
“If this spill is as big as the pilots are reporting, then we’re looking at serious environmental impacts, including threats to our traditional shellfish harvesting areas,” says Arnold Clifton, Chief Councillor of the Gitga’at Nation. “We need an immediate and full clean-up response from the federal government ASAP.”
Heavy oil, known as “bunker c” is thought to be upwelling from the USAT Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, a U.S. army transport ship that sank in 1946 with 700 tonnes of bunker fuel on board. The Canadian government has been saying it would remove the oil and munitions from the ship since 2006, but with no results.
“Right now we’re focused on getting a handle on the size of the spill and the clean-up that’s required,” says Clifton. “But this incident definitely raises questions about the federal government’s ability to guard against oil spills and to honour its clean-up obligations. As a result, our nation has serious concerns about any proposal to have tankers travel through our coastal waters, including the Enbridge proposal.”
Read more, see photos: http://andrewfrank.ca/2012/05/02/oil-spill-reported-in-the-great-bear-rainforest/
Read this story from Mother Jones on a new law that will bar doctors from revealing to their patients the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing that may be affecting their health. (March 23, 2012)
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction—but they won't be able to share it with their patients.* A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will "gag" doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.
Pennsylvania is at the forefront in the debate over "fracking," the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. Recent discoveries of great reserves in the Marcellus Shale region of the state prompted a rush to development, as have advancements in fracking technologies. But with those changes have come a number of concerns from citizens about potential environmental and health impacts from natural gas drilling.
There is good reason to be curious about exactly what's in those fluids. A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/03/fracking-doctors-gag-pennsylvania
Read this article from the LA Times (published here on the Seattle Times website) on a newly published study that found radioactive particles in sea kelp off the coast of California following the meltdown of several nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan last year. (April 9, 2012)
LOS ANGELES — Radioactive particles released in the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were detected in giant kelp along the California coast, according to a recently published study.
Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz about a month after the explosion, according to the study by two marine biologists at California State University, Long Beach.
The levels, while most likely not harmful to humans, were significantly higher than measurements prior to the explosion and comparable to those found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to the study published in March in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Giant kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera, is a particularly good measure of radioactive material in the environment because it accumulates iodine, researchers said. They wrote that radioactive particles released into the atmosphere, in particular radioactive isotope iodine 131, made its way across the Pacific, then was likely deposited into the ocean during a period of significant rain shortly after the meltdown in Japan.
The highest levels were found in Corona del Mar in Orange County. Researchers wrote that the levels were probably highest there because the kelp is also exposed to urban runoff, which may have increased the amount of rainfall it received.
The study's authors said that while the effect of radioactive material in kelp is not well known, it would have been consumed by organisms that feed on the kelp such as sea urchins or crustaceans. Certain species of fish, including opaleye, halfmoon or senorita may be particularly affected because their endocrine systems contain iodine, according to researchers.
"Radioactivity is taken up by the kelp and anything that feeds on the kelp will be exposed to this also," Steven Manley, the study's lead author, said in a statement released by the university. "It enters the coastal food web and gets dispersed over a variety of organisms. ... It's not a good thing, but whether it actually has a measurable detrimental effect is beyond my expertise."
The researchers also analyzed kelp from Sitka, Alaska, for comparison, but did not find radioactivity. The kelp there may not have been exposed to the same degree because of atmospheric patterns.
Read original article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017944368_japankelp10.html
When the final tally is done on humanity’s many post-Industrial Revolution screw ups, it is likely that the top of the list will be: They let the bees die. Consider this: According to a 2010 UN Environmental Programme report, some 100 crop species provide 90% of food worldwide. Nearly three quarters of these crops depend for their existence on pollination by bees. This process, which has succeeded for millennia, is now under serious threat. Every winter since 2006 when the term colony collapse disorder (CCD) was coined, commercial bee keepers in Canada have been losing an average of 30% of their bees.
Read this report from CBC.ca on criticism of a study produced by McGill University researchers that minimizes the health impacts of asbestos. (Feb 2, 2012)
A major 40-year study on asbestos safety completed by a group of scientists at McGill University is flawed, lacks transparency and contains manipulated data says Dr. David Egilman, a professor at Brown University, health activist and longtime industry critic.
The study, which followed the health of 11,000 miners and mill workers in Quebec between 1966 and the late 1990s, is used by the Chrysotile Institute — a lobby arm funded by, overseen and closely associated with both Liberal and Conservative governments — to promote the use of asbestos overseas.
According to Egilman, as the dangers of asbestos became better known in the 1960s, the industry decided to do its own research and hired Dr. John Corbett McDonald at McGill University's School of Occupational Health. Industry documents obtained by CBC News showed it wanted to conduct research similar to that in the tobacco industry, which stated that "Industry is always well advised to look after its own problems."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/02/01/asbestos-study-mcgill.html
Read this story from The Vancouver Sun on the recent oil spill at Kinder Morgan's Abbotsford tank farm and why it rasises concerns about the company's planned pipeline and tanker expansion in the Lower Mainland. (Jan. 25, 2012)
ABBOTSFORD -- A crude oil spill at Kinder Morgan’s Abbotsford facility on Tuesday should serve as a wake-up call about the inherent risks associated with the energy company’s proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline, according to a national environmental group.
“This should be a reminder to people that there is a very serious risk of oil spills when you’ve got oil pipelines and oil tankers,” said Ben West, a Vancouver-based healthy communities campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
Abbotsford residents first reported to police and fire service a strong oil smell as early as 4:30 a.m., according to Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald.
Police investigated and determined it was coming from Kinder Morgan’s Sumas terminal site, in the 4100-block of Upper Sumas Mountain Road.
The spill was in a “containment area” and the only threat to residents was that of “nuisance odours,” said Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Lexa Hobenshield.
“We have placed foam on the oil, which should dissipate the odours significantly,” she said. The cleanup is expected to be completed sometime today, Hobenshield said. It is not known how much oil was released.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/spill+Abbotsford+tank+farm+raises+concerns+over+pipeline+expansion/6045480/story.html
The BC Cancer Foundation is ready for your concerns over accepting sponsorship from Enbridge for this year's annual "Ride to Conquer Cancer". They even have a handy instruction sheet preparing their staff to deflect your tough questions and subdue your outrage. I should know - I helped draft it (well, sort of)...Readers who wish to continue supporting cancer research through a cycling activity may choose to divert their funds from the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer to the "Ride2Survive" - a BC-based charity whose proceeds go 100% to cancer research.
Read this story from The Globe and Mail on the BC government's decision to launch a review into controversial oil and gas practices, including hydraulic fracturing and flaring to determine what impacts they may be having on human health. (Jan. 3, 2012)
The B.C. government has launched a review to determine if controversial practices by the oil and gas industry such as fracking and flaring pose a threat to human health.
“We want to do this so we can all have some peace of mind,” Peace River South MLA Blair Lekstrom said Tuesday.
Premier Christy Clark promised a review during a public meeting in Fort St. John last March in response to a question from Lois Hill, a hay farmer who lives on top of the Montney Shale gas field near Dawson Creek.
“It’s a start,” Ms. Hill said Tuesday. “We had asked for something much broader, but I’m hopeful that we can turn this into something we need to happen.” She wants a formal registry of residents who have suffered adverse health effects because of exposure to toxic gases. Some northeastern B.C. residents have blamed sour gas leaks, for example, for severe health issues ranging from cancer to depression, but it’s a link that industry has not accepted.
Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/bc-launches-review-of-oil-and-gas-industry-practices/article2290621/
|
|
