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Feb 2000
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June 15-30 1999
June 1-15 1999
April 1999
March 1999
November 1998
March 1998

Erickson Chlorination Update

On June 4 defendants and blockaders were elated that their concerns would be heard in a judicial hearing initiated by the Erickson Water Users Society. The motion for an injunction to stop the blockade at Erickson was denied in Cranbrook Supreme Court. Dr. A Larder, Medical Health Officer, East Kootenay Community Health Service Society, has been trying to force the Erickson Improvement District to chlorinate since April 30. On May 13 Dr Larder sent a letter lifting the "operating permit" of the EID and also initiating ticketing (fines) at a rate of $345 a day. On May 25, Corky Evans, in an interview with media stated he fully endorsed a decision by the EID to seek as injunction and anticipated that the people of Erickson would soon fall into line behind their Trustees in obeying the "law". We support the efforts of the residents of Erickson to protect the quality of their water.Erickson Water Action Grioup

Chlorine Free Zone

So far none of the water supplies on Perry Ridge are chlorinated but if the government has its way this may change. Several creeks in the Slocan Valley have applied for Community Watershed status, in part because of the slightly increased protection to the watershed under the Forest Practices Code. Recently, the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the designation of community watersheds. This memorandum will require that water users comply with the Save Drinking Water Regulation. Under this regulation the Chief Environmental Health Officer has the power to force chlorination of the water supply.

The situation in Erickson is an example of this regulation being enforced. Currently the Sierra Legal defense is challenging this law. Another factor in the Erickson situation is that there is logging planned for their watershed. If the water supply is chlorinated this will disguise any increase in contamination. This will make it difficult to prove that logging has damaged water quality.

Landslides Destroy 41 Homes

Above normal precipitation during the past five years exceeds the 58 year average by up to 65%. This caused a recent slide near Olympia, Washington, destroying 41 homes. The Association of Engineering Geologists in Washington State asked Frank Baumann of Baumann Engineering, Squamish and four other geotechnical engineers to do a field report on this slide. The findings of the scientists are a wake up call to our valley. The terrain involved in the slide was "very similar to (our) situation - silty sandy gravel overlying glaciolacustrine deposits"...what Perry Ridge Risk Assessment would label LOW to MODERATE terrain..."inconsequential". The results of the slide were devastating to the homeowners. One home was cut in half. All the homes have been evacuated until the slide stabilizes. The estimated cost to make the land inhabitable again is 53 million dollars...the average cost per home is 14.6 million dollars. If this resulted on equivalent Low to Moderate terrain on Perry Ridge, one has to ask the question...Is logging Perry Ridge going to be profitable when the cost of logging it may be 14 million dollars per home for those destroyed? MOF works for you, the taxpayer. Are we going to allow them to lose money on this scale, and destroy our water in the process?

Forest Ministry $67 million logging our watersheds

The Ministry of Forests figures indicate the public is losing money logging the Nelson Forest Region. The loss has skyrocketed from about $7 million in 1994/95 to about $67 million in 1998. During the last 15 years the taxpayers have lost over half a billion dollars on logging in this region. But the estimated 1998 subsidy is the highest it's been since 1985.

The cost of logging our watersheds goes beyond the Ministry of Forests' loss. Patrick Slaney, manager of the province's Watershed Restoration Project has stated that

"No more than 1/3 of the roughly 1,000 watersheds affected by logging will be restored. The rest of the watersheds will be left to fend for themselves."

Forest Renewal B.C. was a program designed to fund silviculture, watershed restoration and job transition strategies. Through the government Innovative Forest Practices Agreement the local forest corporations, Slocan Forest Products, Kalesnikoff, Atco and Riverside have received a $1.7 million Forest Renewal B.C. grant guaranteed for the first year. This money is to help industry try to find wood to maintain their cut. The corporations are receiving the funds not for renewal but to help plan more logging. As of March 31, 1999 the job transition money has been cut.

There have been four slides in the last four months in this area. With this dismal record, water users everywhere should be demanding financial and ecological accountability.

WORDS FROM THE WOODS

"We are overcutting what is the long term sustained yield.">

"We don't have to choose between jobs and trees. If our forest industry was managed properly, we would have plenty of both."

"1 in 10 plant and animal species are at risk of extinction in British Columbia. Logging is recognized as one of the leading threats to species."

"Over the past 25 years the portion of the GDP contributed by the timber industry has declined, from 11% to 8%."

PROBLEMS WITH CHLORINATION OF WATER

Chlorine is a very active disinfectant. It is cheap and the technology to get it into the water pipes simple. This explains its widespread use instead of safer but more expensive disinfectants such as ultra-violet light and ozone.

Chlorine kills most bacteria in the water pipe system. Unfortunately, iodine, chlorine and some portable water filters are not effective against cryptosporidium although filtration is the primary line of defence against it. When chlorinated water is used as a drink straight from the tap, it seems reasonable to suppose that it continues to disinfect the digestive tract, perhaps destroying useful internal bacteria, enzymes, hormones, and vitamins. Such direct effects of chlorinated water in the human gut have not yet been researched. But the indirect effects, when chlorine combines with carbon compounds in water, have been identified in many scientific studies as the cause of serious health problems.

Several decades ago it was discovered that chlorine reacts with bacteria and other bits of organic matter in water to create hundreds of toxic substances. In fact when any of the four halogens--fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine--are combined with carbon from organic matter they produce dangerous compounds such as PCBs, DDTs, chlorofluorocarbons, chlorobenzene, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl bromide. The chief contaminants of chlorinated drinking water are the trihalomethanes, also called organo-chlorides, one of which is chloroform. As discovered by tracing PCBs and DDTs in animals and humans, organo-chlorides are stored in the body's fatty organs and tissues where, though ingested in small doses, they bioaccumulate over the years or "biomagnify." They are implicated in various human diseases.

A study of about 5000 people in Ontario, reported in 1995, showed that long-time users of chlorinated water have an increased risk of bladder and colon cancer. (A health tip: Diallyl sulfide, found in garlic, inhibits the development of colon cancer in laboratory animals). "Between 10 percent and 13 percent of all bladder and colon cancers in Ontario may be attributable to long-term exposure to chlorinated surface water." Other research supports this finding.

Warming Globally; Impacting Locally

By burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas and by destroying forests, civilization is conducting an uncontrolled experiment on itself, the consequences of which could profoundly affect the social and economic well being of current and future generations. There is increasing confidence in the link between such activities and global warming, although important questions remain about the latter's scope, effects, and how we adapt.

How Climate Change Will Impact British Columbia