GreenWatch

  B. McPherson Disposal by dispersal is not the answer. The power of united people was evident on Monday night. Nanaimo City Council voted to tell Wheelabrator that they weren’t welcome in the city or in the Regional District. This is the culmination of hard work and determination on the part of citizens concerned with the ramifications of building a modern garbage burner in the city. The pressure has been steady since last July when the Board of the Regional District voted to tell Metro Vancouver that a waste to energy facility in the district was not welcome. Some on the city council kept Wheelabrator and Sea Span’s hopes alive until finally spiking it Monday with a unanimous vote. The councillors and mayor have been inundated with thousands of letters urging them to forbid the incineration of garbage in our environs. The Friday preceding the council meeting saw a well-organized, peaceful protest march of a couple of hundred marchers. Bear in mind that Nanaimo City...

Check out Burning Issues . The web site spells out what is going on. There's a ground swell of resistance building to keep this antiquated method of making garbage disappear -- into the air for you to breathe and into landfills full of toxic materials. In your own areas go green by reducing, reusing and recycling. Detroit has a garbage incinerator. It's a waste to energy facility. Take a look at how their neighbours like it. You can read about Detroit residents' experience here

B. McPherson Want a little dioxin with your breakfast? The Metro Vancouver area is a predatory polluter. For years the City of Vancouver has shipped their waste to other places. Whether it is sewage released into the ocean or garbage, it is consistently moved to someone else’s back yard. The Iona Island and Lion’s Gate sewage treatment plants are primary treat plants. Iona the largest of the treatment plants spews over 500 million litres of poopy water a day into Georgia Strait. A standard Canadian wastewater test places ten rainbow trout into a tank of undiluted effluent; if less than half of the fish survive, the plant is said to have failed the test. Primary treatment facilities reduce the oxygen requirements of effluent by approximately 30% – just enough for half of the fish to survive. This is the treatment employed at the Iona facility. - See more at: The Dependent  When the tourists come to town, when the wealthy in their million dollar condos, the old mon...

B. McPherson People are gradually waking up to the fact that the most precious resource we have is water. Without it life as we know it would not exist. Along with that realization is the knowledge that water is a finite resource. Many of the world’s people do not have access to clean abundant water. Here on the west coast of Canada many refer jokingly to the ‘wet coast’ because of the teeming rainfall in winter. Few realize that much of the east coast of Vancouver Island has a true Mediterranean climate with sparse rainfall in the summer months. As the world’s climate changes there is increasing uncertainty in the reliability of the rainfall or that the snow pack on the mountains will be sufficient to supply ample water to the people and the environment. The City of Nanaimo is a small, sprawling town that looks to expand its population. Currently there is enough water to supply about 100 000 people and their households. Aging infrastructure and expanding population ar...