Mount Polley Mine Spill Guar- the Fracking Bean Alberta Deer Going Crazy
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Environmental News from BC and the World Artists for Conservation • Getting to Zero Waste SpecialMining Issue November-December 2014 Newstand Price $4.95 Mount Polley Mine Spill Guar- The Fracking Bean Alberta Deer Going Crazy HOT TOPICS HOT Cycle to the Sacred Community Garden Promote sustainable farming. Solar Panels Reduce energy consumption. DEVELOping OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN ANY EV Charging Stations Reduce harmful LANDSCAPE. vehicle emissions. Positive transformation within any community or environment requires active strategy, planning, and implementation skills. An applied education from Royal Roads University can help you create constructive change through a variety of sectors, including municipal planning, environmental management and sustainable systems. 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Visit royalroads.ca/environment or call 1.877.778.6227 Publication Name Watershed Sentinel Created By RRU Brand Creative / AT Booked By Cossette Send Files To [email protected] Material Deadline Oct 5, 2014 RRU Contact Brad Tribbeck Size 6.88” x 9.25” 250.391.2600 ext. 4788 Colour 4c [email protected] Watershed November- December 2014 Sentinel Vol. 24, No. 5 Special Feature: Mining 18 Oceana Gold versus Clean Water Meet the Company suing El Salvador for the right to poison its water 20 Democracy in the Pits How Harper has set up international development assistance to serve mining companies 22 Open for Justice Accountability for Canadian companies abroad 23 Mount Polley Spill 26 The End of China’s Coal Boom and Vancouver Island update First Nations Health & Toxics 6 Paddle to the Sacred 5 Fukushima Encore Beyond Boarding goes to the source 12 Antibacterial Chemicals 29 Reckoning with Reconciliation Bev Thorpe tells us that triclosan and Andrea Palframan on the Grace Islet graves triclocarban are ubiquitous in products 30 Pulling Together 32 Zero Waste! First Nations in the courts to stop Enbridge It’s not waste until someone throws it away Energy News & Other 8 The Little Bean & the Fracking Giants 36 Wild Times Joe Foy on Dasiqox Tribal Park Joyce Nelson explains that without the guar bean, 3, 15 News Briefs the gas fracking industry could come crashing down 4 Letters 14 Lemon Creek Spill Gas in the creek; citizen lays Fisheries Act charge 17 Attending the People’s Climate March Land & Wildlife 11 Artists for Conservation 34 Bad News Bambi 23 Kevin Van Tighem warns of a mad deer epidemic Cover Photo by Wu Di Greenpeace China Not a Subscriber Yet? Printed on Enviro 100, post consumer recycled, Look for the subscription form FSC®-Certified paper, with vegetable inks. 18 inserted for your convenience EDITORIAL Watershed We Hate to Ask We really do, but this fall we have mailed all our subscribers asking Sentinel for a little extra support. We only do this every two years, because all of Publisher Watershed Sentinel us in the social change movement are flooded with requests for help. Educational Society But we do publish this little magazine on a barebones budget, pretty Editor Delores Broten well embarassingly small, and we are struggling to expand our coverage Managing Editor Susan MacVittie of what is happening in the communities across the land. Only by em- Associate Editor Don Malcolm Graphic Design Ester Strijbos powering communities to take action can we affect the inexorable move- Renewals Manager Dawn Christian ment to extract every last resource out of nature, out of watersheds, out Special thanks to David Kattenburg, Caro- of homelands, and into someone’s pocket. line Sturdy, Karen Birch, Patricia Robison, And resistance is indeed growing, from the shores of Vancouver to Arthur Caldicott, Gloria Jorg, Dyane the Prairies and beyond. People are coming to understand that the eco- Brown, Norberto Rodriguez de la Vega, nomic drivers of destruction must be brought under community control. Kathy Smail, Ray Woollam, the writers, advertisers, distributors, and all who send We know the Watershed Sentinel helps make that sea-change which information, photos, and ideas. is slowly swelling under our feet, and we want to continue to serve you, Deep thanks to our Board of Directors: our readers, with the news as it develops, online and in print. Anicca de Trey, Alice Grange, Mike Delores Broten, Comox BC, October 2014 Morrell, Norberto Rodriguez de la Vega, Susan Yates, and Lannie Keller. Published five times per year. Innocence Lost, or Lessons Re-Learned? Subscriptions: Canada $25 one year, “No sooner had some commentators declared the loss of Canadian inno- $40 two years; US $35 per year, cence, [after the attacks in Montreal and Ottawa in October] than others were Electronic only $15 a year protesting that we’ve long since crossed that threshold. The FLQ crisis of 1970 Distribution by subscription, and to brought soldiers into the streets, not just of Montreal, but in Ottawa, too. The Friends of Cortes Island and Reach for bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 brought home for many Canadians that Unbleached! Free at Vancouver Island their country wasn’t insulated from international terrorism.… Canadians need and Vancouver area libraries, and by sponsorship in BC colleges, universities, to find a way to talk about this week’s attacks that doesn’t pretend it’s the first or and eco-organizations. worst event in our recent history that falls under the the broad heading of violent extremism.” Member Magazine Assn of BC and Magazines Canada —John Geddes, Maclean’s,October 24, 2014 ISSN 1188-360X At the ’Shed Publication Mail Canada Post Agreement Calendar Offer: Once again our friends at the Wilderness Committee PM 40012720 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: are helping us out with a fine calendar to inspire you. Our special gift offer of a calendar, a one year subscription along with a gift card, is a seasonal deal of beauty and information for you or your friends and family. Available now. Missing a Copy? If you are missing a copy or a bundle, please let us know and we will make it right. Email [email protected] Watershed Sentinel Finished Reading your copy? We love to hear from folks who leave their Box 1270, Comox old issues of the magazine in offices, coffee shops, or waiting rooms. Word of BC, Canada V9M 7Z8 mouth is often the way that other people hear about us, and that keeps those Ph: 250-339-6117 precious subscriptions flowing. Email [email protected] http://www.watershedsentinel.ca Disclaimer: Opinions published are not neces- When you want your message to reach thousands of concerned sarily those of the publisher, editor or other and active readers, please contact us for our ad rate sheet at: 250-339-6117 staff and volunteers of the magazine. www.watershedsentinel.ca or email: [email protected] Next Issue Ad Deadline: December 16, 2014 Watershed sentinel november-december 2014 NEWS Around The World Compiled by Susan MacVittie Fracking Fingerprints Peer reviewed research published in Environmental Science & Technol- Online peition via the Rainforest pristine coral reef and open ocean ec- ogy announces a new forensic tool Action Network: www.ran.org/tell_ osystems in the world. The monument that can distinguish fracking waste- klk_leave_collingwood_bay_now now protects important foraging areas water pollution from contamination —Rainforest Action Network, for tropical seabirds and provides re- that results from other industrial October 22, 2014 covery zones for tuna and other fishes processes – such as conventional oil that are heavily exploited across the and gas drilling. The tracers track two Banning Plastic Bags Pacific. elements, boron and lithium, which In October, California banned — The Marine Conservation Institute occur naturally in shale formations. plastic bags, the first state to do so. Ocotber 21, 2014 When fracking fluid is injected under- Across the US, more than 150 cities ground, those two elements are natu- and counties are implementing bans Biopiracy Bill rally released along with oil, and the or fees to reduce the estimated 100 bil- The Foreign Investment Promo- fracking fluid then becomes enriched lion plastic bags used in the US each tion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with the elements. When the fluid year. The energy required to make 12 between Canada and China was comes back to the surface, they have plastic bags could drive a car a mile. signed in September without parlia- an isotopic fingerprint that is differ- — www.ecowatch.com, October 7, 2014 mentary debate. The trade deal will ent than any other type of wastewater, have important implications for re- including wastewater from conven- Cherokee Ban Fracking source development. If the provinces tional oil and gas operations. The Eastern Band of Cherokee decided to change the rules on hy- — www.thinkprogress.org Indians has declared a ban on frack- draulic fracturing of shale gas to pro- October 21 ,2014 ing in North Carolina. tect water or to reduce methane leaks, Until June, there was a statewide those changes could be contested by Unethical Palm Oil moratorium on the controversial prac- Chinese investors as unfair and a vio- In May, the National Court of tice, but the state legislature lifted that lation of their expectations at the time Papua New Guinea ruled that Ma- and added a clause that forbids local they invested. laysia-based palm oil giant, Kuala governments from outlawing the ex- — www.thetyee.ca, September 24, 2014 Lumpur Kepong’s (KLK) claims to traction method. The Eastern Band of a 38,350-hectare forest in Colling- Cherokee also join several other tribes Open Source Seeds wood Bay were null and void. KLK across the US that have taken a stand Open Source Seed Initiative has was forced to give up two leases on against fracking.