Trade Deal Treason
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Environmental News from BC and the World Shuswap Flooding • Geiger Counting at Red Rose Mine • Pesticide Guide Special Issue on TOXICS September - October 2012 Newstand Price $4.95 Trade Deal Treason Chemical Kids Pink Ribboned to Death Canada’s POP Strategy Fizzles Bill C-38 Impacts Oil Spill Update wilderness wildlife & matters Purchase a Wilderness Committee calendar and be part of our campaigns to protect threatened wilderness and wildlife. Check out our beautiful greeting cards, books and posters online. call 604-683-8220 today! Bulk orders available! Only $15.95 WILDERNESS COMMITTEE Visit WildernessCommittee.org Mention this ad when you call us and receive a discount! Sustainably importing organic products from Farmer to Family! Rooibos, Green Rooibos, Honeybush & Chai Gourmet Sea Salt and Spices www.gatheringplacetrading.com 250 935 6993 WaterShed Sentinel September-OctOber 2012 Watershed Sept-Oct 2012 Sentinel Vol. 22, No. 4 Health & Toxics 12 Since Silent Spring In 1962 Rachel Carson sounded the warning about the impacts of pesticides and other manmade chemicals on human and environmental health. Fifty years later, we look at some of the most recent research on toxic chemicals and health and ask: Are our governments doing enough to protect us? Edited by Miranda Holmes 13 Protecting Children Dr. Bruce Lamphear on the neglected legacy of Rachel Carson 16 Persistent Organic Pollutants Fe de Leon and Olga Speranskaya examine how Canada’s Strategy on POPs has fizzled 19 Asbestos, Still Killing Canadians Mae Burrows on Canada’s national shame The Land 20 Pesticide Residues in Our Food 10 Shuswap Flooding Analysis 22 Bill C-38, The Death of the Environment Jim Cooperman says it isn’t only rain that by Dr. Darryl Luscombe provokes the flooding 24 The Chronic War on Cancer by Devra Davis 29 Protect the Watershed of Comox Lake 26 I Hate Pink by Judy Brady Strathcona Park boundaries could be expanded to protect the lake 6 Oil Spills, Dilbit Spills & Health Dr. Riki Ott talks about oil spill impacts on all life Society 8 Red Rose Mine 30 Jumbo’s Wild Politics Dave Stevens takes our Geiger counter on a long Sudden provincial approval of the Jumbo Glacier hike up to the abandoned Red Rose mine on Resort came as a surprise in BC, after two Rocher deBoule mountain near Hazelton decades of political stalemate, but, even more surprising, the Jumbo deal and the Canada-EU trade deal (CETA) could both expire together, at Cover Photo from the ballot box Jumbo Wild Rally in Nelson 2004, News & Other www.dougpyperphoto. com 3, 5 News Briefs, 7 Pipelines Update 22 4, 27 Letters 36 Wild Times Joe Foy on cutting old growth Not a Subscriber Yet? Look for the Printed on Enviro 100, post consumer recycled, subscription form FSC®-Certified paper, with vegetable inks. inserted for your convenience 20 September-OctOber 2012 GUEST EDITORIAL Watershed Sick, Stupid and Sterile One of the most shocking statements I’ve ever heard was made by Sentinel Judy Brady (see her article on page 26) at a breast cancer forum in the Editor Delores Broten mid-1990s. Discussing the way in which persistent organic pollutants Publisher Watershed Sentinel (POPs) bioaccumulate in fatty tissue, Brady pointed out that women, Educational Society unlike men, had a means of expelling these contaminants: through lacta- Associate Editors Don Malcolm Miranda Holmes tion. Yes, Brady said, breastfeeding can help a woman reduce her risk of Graphic Design Ester Strijbos developing breast cancer, but at what cost? What cost indeed? Circulation Manager Susan MacVittie In September 1962, Rachel Carson’s ground-breaking Silent Spring Special Thanks to Norleen Lillico, Arthur was published – a clarion call about the perils of pesticides. Soon after- Caldicott, Anicca de Trey, Jim Cooper- wards the indiscriminate spraying of DDT on farm fields and suburbs in man, Gloria Jorg, Norberto Rodriguez de la Vega, Mike Morrell, Clara Broten, the US ended, followed in 1972 by an outright ban on its manufacture Kathy Smail, Ray Woollam, the writers, and use. Forty years later, DDT’s metabolite DDE can be found in the advertisers, distributors, and all who send bodies of 95% of Americans. These chemicals persist. information, photos, and ideas. Deep For decades, the standard test manufacturers had to pass before new thanks to our Board of Directors: Anicca chemicals were allowed into the marketplace was whether or not the de Trey, Alice Grange, Mike Morrell, Pam Munroe, Norberto Rodriguez de la Vega, chemical would kill more than one person in a million. (Aside from how Susan Yates, and Fay Weller. preposterous this hypothesis is, as Peter Montague of the Environmental Published five times per year Research Foundation has pointed out, if regulators knew the name and Subscriptions $25 one year, address of this unlucky person, releasing the chemical would be pre- $40 two years Canada, $35 US one year, meditated murder.) Electronic only $15 a year The chief concern for regulators was whether or not chemicals Distribution by subscription, and to Friends of Cortes Island and Reach for caused cancer in humans. This concern has certainly not led to a reduc- Unbleached! Free at Vancouver Island tion in the number of cancers diagnosed every year. The so-called “war and Vancouver area libraries, and by on cancer” launched 40 years ago by Richard Nixon, has, as Devra Davis sponsorship in BC colleges, universities, points out in her article on page 24, been a spectacular failure. It has also and eco-organizations. been unforgivable, because regulators in Canada and elsewhere know Member Magazines Assn of BC and Magazines Canada what they need to do. Instead of removing known carcinogens from the ISSN 1188-360X environment, they blame the victim for their lifestyle or simply the pov- For photocopy reproduction rights, contact erty forcing them to live in highly polluted homes. Access Copyright, 1 Yonge St. Ste. 800, In 1996 another ground-breaking book was published. Our Stolen Toronto, Ontario M5C 1E5 Future by Theo Colborn and Peter Myers detailed the wealth of scien- tific research highlighting the ability of many supposedly safe manmade chemicals to mimic hormones and – in impossibly minute doses – in- terfere with cognitive, reproductive and immune system development. Publication Mail Canada Post Agreement Put simply, chemicals in our environment are making us sick, stupid and PM 40012720 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: sterile. Watershed Sentinel Many doctors, as Bruce Lanphear explains on page 13, have no Box 1270, Comox doubt that the increase in many previously seldom (or never) seen child- BC, Canada V9M 7Z8 hood ailments is the result of chemical contamination. Ph: 250-339-6117 As the distinguished scientist Paul Ehrlich has asked, 50 years later Email [email protected] what would Rachel Carson say? http://www.watershedsentinel.ca Disclaimer: Opinions published are not neces- Miranda Holmes, Gabriola Island BC, August 2012 sarily those of the publisher, editor or other staff and volunteers of the magazine. WaterShed Sentinel September-OctOber 2012 NEWS Around The World Compiled by Susan MacVittie US Reactors Frozen EU Ship The US Nuclear Regulatory Fuel Laws Commission (NRC) has put a hold on A new European 19 final reactor licensing decisions in crackdown on pollu- response to the landmark Waste Con- tion from ships will fidence Rule decision of June 8th by require billions of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. dollars worth of in- Circuit. vestment by shipping firms on filter Commercial fishing by US and Mexi- The NRC action was sought in technology and by refineries on up- can vessels is the primary threat. a June 18, 2012 petition filed by 24 grades to produce cleaner fuels. EU A floating robot has been de- groups urging the NRC to respond rules have already forced ships to cut ployed to track great white sharks in to the court ruling by freezing final sulphur emissions in harbours. the Pacific as part of efforts to under- licensing decisions until it has com- —Reuters, August 18, 2012 stand the giant predators. The “wave pleted a rulemaking action on the . glider,” which from above looks like environmental impacts of highly rad- Sea Ice Melting a yellow surfboard, picks up signals ioactive nuclear waste in the form of The US National Snow and Ice from tagged fish up to 1,000 feet away spent, or “used,” reactor fuel storage Data Center reports that sea ice in the in the ocean and then sends their po- and disposal. The groups noted that Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a sitions to researchers via a satellite most US reactor projects were already record small size and keep on melt- transmitter. sidetracked by problems, including ing. The amount of sea ice in the Arc- Scientists have only a hazy un- an inability to control runaway costs, tic is a potent global weather-maker, derstanding of where great white and the availability of far less expen- sometimes characterized as the sharks swim in the oceans. sive energy alternatives. world’s air conditioner. The decline —Reuters, August 16 and 18, 2012 —Beyond Nuclear, Inc et al, of Arctic sea ice has happened faster August 7, 2012 than projected by the United Nations EU Unemployment Rises Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Unemployment in the European Turkey Rejects GM Change five years ago. Scientists Union continued at over 11% in July, In view of public opinion and un- say these are clear signs of climate at the same time as inflation also rose, favourable reaction from non-govern- change spurred by human activities, threatening even more jobs. The prob- mental organizations, Turkey’s food notably the emission of heat-trapping lems, now spreading to northern Eu- trade body, the Federation of Food greenhouse gases including carbon ropean countries like Germany, are in and Drink Industry Associations, has dioxide.