Tag Archives: Health and Environment

Clark Govt Backtracks on Committment to Cosmetic Pesticide Ban

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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/

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Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler

The Cost of an Oil Spill in Burrard Inlet: $40 Billion…For Starters

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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 explain below. But let’s keep in mind:

  1. There is no such thing as “cleaning up” an oil spill. Most “clean ups” get about 10 percent of the oil spilled, like the way a 3-year-old “cleans up” milk spilled on the kitchen floor.
  2. There is no price to cover the soul of this region, the promises of indigenous rights, the food we take from this water, the childhoods on our beaches, the families of creatures and forests of fauna, the identity of this city and region, our heritage, and our dignity. There is no price for that.

Economic costs of an oil spill

The Aframax tankers now using Vancouver Harbour carry up to 700,000 barrels of bitumen, the deadliest crude oil on Earth. To estimate the costs of responding to such a spill, one must examine comparable costs for similar accidents. One method uses the historic “costs/barrel” for responding to oil spills.

The Exxon Valdez spilled 270,000 barrels, about one-third of an Aframax tanker. The Alaska tourism industry lost 26,000 jobs and $2.4 billion immediately – and another $2.8 billion over the next decade. Total loss for tourism alone: $5.2 billion. Ouch.

British Petroleum set aside $20 billion for clean up and compensation in the Gulf of Mexico, but Credit Suisse estimated total BP liabilities of $37 billion, just for cleanup and injury claims.

So, who pays this cost? Exxon has been in and out of court for 23 years over the Exxon Valdez spill, and still hasn’t paid its liability claims. BP is fighting injury claims, but in Vancouver Harbour there may be no such company that would even accept liability. The oil companies – Shell, Syncrude, Sinopec – and pipeline company Kinder Morgan have already indemnified themselves and would decline liability once the oil is on a ship. The ship owner has liability by Canadian marine law, but these days oil tankers are owned by obscure numbered companies with few assets, in slippery jurisdictions, where they can and literally do disappear overnight in the case of serious accidents.

The response costs would fall to Canadians – municipalities, the Province, the Federal government – that is, to the people. Imagine a $40 billion Canadian bill to mop up 10% of a marine and economic disaster, while our schools and social programs disintegrate.

Bitumen’s abrasive personality

Consider a 500,000-barrel bitumen oil spill in Burrard Inlet, 70% of an Aframax tanker. Globally, there has been an oil spill of this size about every 18 months worldwide for the last 40 years.

Bitumen (tar from tar sands) is a particularly dense, toxic version of crude oil. It has to be mixed with some thinner petroleum product to even move through a pipeline, whereby the pipeline industry calls it “dilbit” – for “diluted bitumen.” Something like arsenic diluted with vinyl chloride.

In July 2010, a 30-inch bitumen pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy – that other pipeline outfit angling for the BC coast – burst, spilling 20,000 barrels of tar sands bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The challenges of dealing with the heavy, sinking bitumen shocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which Mitchell Anderson wrote about in the Tyee.

Costs of even partial cleanup soared to more than ten times historic crude oil costs. “I don’t think anyone at the state level anticipated that,” said EPA Incident Commander, Ralph Dollhopf. “I don’t think anyone at the EPA anticipated that. I don’t think anyone in industry anticipated that.”

Bitumen, diluted with solvents such as condensate or naphtha, separates in the marine environment. Volatile gases – toluene and the carcinogenic benzene – rise into the air, causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, coughing, and fatigue among the local population. One may fairly assume all other animals that breathe air experience similar symptoms.

After the Kalamazoo River spill, the toxic fumes remained for weeks and could be smelled up to 50 kilometres away. A major Aframax spill in Burrard Inlet – 25-times larger than in Michigan – would likely require evacuations in the lower BC mainland and islands. Clean up crews would battle toxic fumes as they watched the bitumen sink below their skimmers.

Bitumen contains sulphur, paraffins, asphaltics, benzenes, and other toxic compounds. Animals and plants are suffocated and poisoned. The die-off starts at the foundation of the food chain, obliterating the vital mudflat biofilm – the bacteria, diatoms, and mucopolysaccharides that provide a high-energy food source for shorebirds in Burrard Inlet and Georgia Strait. As the bitumen moves with wind and tides, it kills all bottom life, mixes with the intertidal sediments, and kills shellfish, ocean plants, fin fish, and marine mammals.

On top of this, the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”) in bitumen, dissolve in the water. Two years after the Michigan spill, 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River remained closed to fishing, swimming, or even wading in the water.

After a bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet, the toxins would contaminate the entire marine ecosystem from Seattle to Campbell River, and beyond. Most of this damage could not be “cleaned up” at any price

Show me the money

Cleanup: According to the US EPA, historic U.S. crude oil cleanup costs have been about $80/gallon ($3,400 per barrel). The added problems with tar sands bitumen – toxic gas, sinking sludge, and soluble hydrocarbons – push costs up. The Kalamazoo River spill by Enbridge cost 10 times the traditional crude oil clean up costs – about $35,000 per barrel. Comparatively, the cleanup response to a 500,000-barrel bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet would be:  $ 17 billion

Tourism losses: “Tourism is dead,” said Charlotte Randolph, president of the Lafourche Parish in Louisiana, after the Gulf Oil spill. “We’re dying a slow death.” Oxford Economics estimated the Gulf region’s tourism industry would lose $7.6 to $22.7 billion over 3 years. Tourism dropped by 35 percent in some Gulf regions. Economist Sean Snaith, from the Institute for Economic Competitiveness in Florida, estimated that Florida alone would lose $11 billion in business activity job losses. BC brings in $14 billion annually in tourism, and we could lose half of this for 2-4 years, so added to the clean-up costs would be the tourism loss to BC over several years, on the order of: $ 20 billion

Fishing: “I’ve been fishing in BC since 1973,” says B.C. fisherman Ron Fowler, a Pacific Salmon Commissioner and Director of the Area-F Trollers Association. “If we get an oil spill anywhere in these waters, it would wipe out every fishery we have, shellfish, salmon, herring, and the plankton that they feed on. An oil spill would move with the wind and tides and devastate the intertidal zones.”

The BC fishing industry wholesale value is about $1.2 billion per year. An oil spill on the coast could destroy a large portion of this for 3-4 years and some shoreline intertidal fisheries for a decade or more. A 40% fisheries loss in the first year could be expected, with recovery to perhaps 10% loss within five years. The potential fisheries loss over several years is in the range of: $ 1 billion

Health costs: Oil companies, public, and private workers during the Exxon Valdez spill described health effects that forced them from the area and into hospitals. Some first responders in Alaska still suffer from the toxic intake. Bitumen is worse. In Michigan, the volatile benzene and toluene caused nausea, dizziness, headaches, coughing, and fatigue to some 60% of the local population for weeks after the spill. The health department encouraged an evacuation within a mile of the river. As with other oil spills, there will be a spike of cancer and other diseases. A 500,000-barrel bitumen spill in Burrard Inlet would likely cause a mass evacuation and severe health impact for over a million people. The costs could easily reach:$ 1 billion

Lost Time: The lost time for families, students, workers, business owners, and  others in the lower mainland and up to 50 kilometers way, likely farther up the Fraser River past Fort Langley, and south past Whiterock, would be massive. Given our normal tides and winds, the crude oil would be in Nanaimo, Sechelt, and the Southern Gulf Islands within a few days. The lost time for hundreds of coastal communities would likely reach at least millions of person-hours at a cost of another: $ 1 billion

Port losses: An oil spill would disrupt Port of Vancouver shipping business. The Port contributes over $2 billion in direct revenue per year and over $4 billion in direct economic output. The port generates some 30,000 jobs (~ $1 billion annual wages & salaries). Shipping could be virtually stopped for months and disrupted for several years, so the costs would be on the order of: $ 1 billion

So there it is, in round figures: a $41 billion price tag for an oil spill, with no one to accept liability except a renegade shipping company in Somalia or the Cayman Islands.

Vancouver and BC brand value: The “Beautiful BC” and “greenest city” reputations would be lost. How much is that worth? Billions more. Stanley Park would be devastated. How do we put a price tag on that? The lost reputation and destroyed ecosystems – if we could even place a dollar-cost on these losses – would double the $40 billion direct costs to make the loss more like $80 billion.

This is the aggregate risk that the Vancouver region must accept if it wants to be the Tar Sands Oil Port in exchange for some tugboat jobs, port fees, consulting gigs, and payoffs.

Normal spillage

All oil ports have oil spills. Most oil spilled into the world’s bays, harbours, and marine environments is “normal spillage,” acknowledged by the industry as a routine “expense,” which they write off as a tax deduction.

Oil terminal workers have admitted that they spill oil virtually every time they load a tanker. Every time. Normal spillage includes routine leaks and spills along pipelines and at refineries, tank farms, and terminals. This constant drain of heavy hydrocarbons into the marine environment kills the intertidal life and other marine species. Try going east of Second Narrows, near Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Terminal and find a healthy clam or crab.

This Inlet once fed the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsawwassen people, who retain rights to this unceded territory. “When the tide is out, our table was set,” recalls Rueben George, Sundance Chief of the Tsleil-Waututh, the indigenous People of the Inlet. Second narrows, the traditional waters of the Tsleil-Waututh, is a sacred place that provided food for many generations. That food resource is already virtually eradicated from the normal spillage from the oil refinery and terminal on Burrard Inlet. “We’ve had enough of seeing our waters destroyed,” says Rueben George. “Second Narrows is sacred to us. Our creation stories go back to this channel of water.”

What price would one place on this? What price for the obliterated natural livelihood of indigenous people, our regional heritage, our marine and intertidal ecosystems, our coastal economy, and our community identity and pride in the sea? There is no way to protect these values and real wealth of this region if Vancouver becomes the tar sands oil port. The only way Kinder Morgan can indemnify the land, water, creatures, plants, and people of Burrard Inlet is to return our pipelines and our public policy to this region and to its people.

As Rueben George said on Earth Day: “We’re doing this for Kinder Morgan’s children too. They deserve a world that is rich and wild and that provides food to people and a place to walk with your children. We’re doing this for their children too. Not just ours.”

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Gitga’at First Nation Report Oil Spill in Great Bear Rainforest – Sunken US Army Boast Leaking Bunker C Oil

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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/

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Pennsylvania Doctors Barred from Revealing Toxic Chemicals Used in Fracking to Patients

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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

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Fukushima Radiation Found in Kelp on California Coast

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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

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Photo: Anne Sherrod

The Bee’s Needs

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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. (Last winter, south and central Vancouver Island bee keepers lost 80% of their colonies.)  To stay in business they are now importing bees from New Zealand.

There is as yet no definitive scientific explanation for why the bees are dying – or simply disappearing – but there is a great body of evidence to suggest the culprit is a family of insecticides called neonicotinoids, which are now widely used in agriculture worldwide.

It’s been known since these chemicals came onto the market in 1995 that they were  extremely toxic to bees. Tragically, as with so many of the highly toxic chemicals regulators have allowed to be chucked into our environment since the 1950s, it was only after the fact that independent scientific research began indicating quite how bad the problem is.

Long story short: It now seems likely that exposing bees to this family of insecticides compromises their immune systems and is roughly the equivalent of deliberately giving them AIDS.

How did Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) and other regulatory agencies around the world allow this to happen?

Simple: The primary information considered by the PMRA is provided by the manufacturers who make millions of dollars from their patented chemical compounds. As if this process wasn’t suspect enough, even when the studies provided are deemed insufficient, PMRA may provide temporary or conditional registrations.

Research by Anne Sherrod of the Valhalla Wilderness Society reveals that increasing commercial use of products based on imidacloprid (a particularly worrying neonicotinoid) has been based, since 2001, on registrations deemed “temporary pending further studies”.

According to the PMRA, imidacloprid has been actively under re-evaluation since 2009. However, Access to Information Act requests to the agency have produced no evidence to support this claim. Meanwhile, imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid products continue to be widely used on vegetables, fruit, nuts and grain.

The PMRA points out that these lethal products must come with labels warning farmers not to apply the insecticide when plants are in flower or bees are nearby. This vacuous mitigation ignores the fact that these systemic insecticides are absorbed into every part of the plant, including the pollen and nectar. Despite their well-documented threat to bees, the PMRA justifies approving these products because of their “value” to human food production.

In the U.S. more than a million people have signed a petition demanding a neonicotinoid insecticide ban. Similar action is being demanded in New Zealand.

Canada needs to catch up. Yes, we can all email our MPs, demanding immediate action to protect bees. We can also voice our concerns about the threats to bees posed by the PMRA to Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

And while we’re waiting for the politicians, we can each do our bit by thinking about bees when we are planting our gardens. Even apartment window boxes can help. (Helpful hint for those of us who need to be bee-friendly and deer-proof when we plant: Catmint, coneflower, foxglove, sunflower, lavender, sage, thyme and yarrow all fit the bill.)

These little yellow and black creatures are perhaps nature’s greatest gift to humanity and yet we’re allowing corporate greed and what amounts to regulatory malfeasance to threaten them with extinction. Seriously, are we out of our minds?

Miranda Holmes is an associate editor of Watershed Sentinel magazine. For more information on this topic, go to www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/disappearance-bees-and-pesticide-link.

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“Flawed” Pro-Asbestos Study by McGill Researchers Questioned

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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

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Kinder Morgan’s Latest Oil Spill in Abbotsford Raises Concerns About the Company’s Planned Pipeline Expansion

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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

 

 

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Time to Call Cancer Foundation on its Enbridge Sponsorship

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The BC Cancer Foundation is ready for your concerns over accepting title sponsorship from controversial oil pipeline builder Enbridge for this year’s annual “Ride to Conquer Cancer” (make that the “Enbridge 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).

This past Thursday, reporter Stephen Hui published a leaked internal memo from the BC Cancer Foundation on The Georgia Straight’s blog. The document was a draft list of talking points (scroll down) formulated to deal with the building backlash over the fundraising partnership between the Foundation – which is the fundraising arm of the BC Cancer Agency (a provincial department) and not to be confused in any way with the Cancer Society – and Enbridge Inc.

I first wrote an exposé on the “Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer” in The Common Sense Canadian last November, titled “Oil, Cancer and Bicycles”

Interestingly, a number of the sample questions listed in the memo – to which optimal answers are supplied – were copied and pasted directly from my list of emailed questions to the organization last Fall, while others are very similar. For instance (copied or similar phrases in bold):

  • Their talking points question: “Are you concerned that Enbridge is using the BC Cancer Foundation to green wash or soften its public image in BC?”
  • My original question to them: “[Are] you concerned that Enbridge is using the BC Cancer Foundation to greenwash or soften its public image in BC in light of all the controversy its proposed project has generated?”
  • Their talking points question: “Given that the monies raised by the BC Cancer Foundation are going to a public body, the BC Cancer Agency, essentially Enbridge is providing funds to the provincial government, can you disclose the amount?”
  • My question: “Given these monies raised by the BC Cancer Foundation are going to a public body, the BC Cancer Agency, I have to ask you the specific amount of Enbridge’s financial contribution to the Foundation with regards to this event.”
  • Their talking points question: “How can you accept money from Enbridge, they are a cancer-causing organization? [It’s been proven that Benzene, found in petroleum products, is a carcinogen]. Would you accept money from a tobacco company?”
  • My question: “Is it hypocritical to accept sponsorship from a known cancer-causing company?”

The “best practices” responses provided are a study in the corporate PR art of deflection. You can read them yourself here, but of note to me was the layered responses to the key question – namely, how can you take money for cancer research from a company whose products cause cancer? (I won’t go into that point in detail here – you can read the basis for this contention in my original article – suffice it to say there is considerable evidence that oil and its byproducts cause cancer at various stages of its life cycle). Here are the instructions from the memo – picked up after the initial response isn’t working:

[If pushed on the Benzene/cancer causing questions] I’m not an expert in environmental factors as they relate to cancer. What I can tell you is that the Ride raises more money than any other cancer fundraising event in Canada and these dollars are supporting research with direct impacts on cancer outcomes in this province and across our country.

[If pushed. Verbal answer only] Nationally, Enbridge is in a three year sponsorship agreement for the Ride, which is helping to invest more dollars from the event into critical, live-saving research. The BC Cancer Foundation collects event related feedback from our Ride participants and the public, which will help us to inform future plans and agreements.

In other words, whatever you do, DO NOT ACTUALLY ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

I had also asked the Foundation whether it felt it was “problematic to be associated with such an unpopular company and project in BC?” (i.e., the controversial proposed Northern Gateway pipeline). The talking points response: “Ride participation for 2012 is on track to set a new record with over 3,000 riders. This event is very personal to these individuals because they are survivors or are honouring loved ones who have been taken by Cancer.”

And yet, they’re clearly concerned enough to go to the trouble of formulating an internal strategy for dealing with Enbridge blow-back. To date, to my knowledge, only my original column, a subsequent excerpt published in Common Ground Magazine, and the aforementioned Georgia Straight blog have drawn attention in the media to this issue. But with the enormous media focus and public awareness the battle over Enbridge’s pipeline is generating as we speak, that may be about to change.

I suggest it is time for the BC Cancer Foundation to put those talking points to use. After all, practice makes perfect. It is time for the organization – linked through its sole client, the Cancer Agency, to the BC Government – to hear from the public about its deplorable choice to provide a very unhealthy company a platform to greenwash its image at such a pivotal moment in its campaign to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

So go ahead and phone in or email your questions and concerns – and watch for those copied and pasted talking points! (You may even try reading along with them when they go into a given script – I know that one, that’s talking point #8 – my favourite!)

Lest I be accused of being down on cancer research in general, I’ve done a little research of my own – into alternatives to the Enbridge Ride.

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” – described on the organization’s website as “a one-day cycling event from Kelowna to Delta BC to raise funds for cancer research through as an Independent Fundraising Event for the Canadian Cancer Society.” (emphasis mine) The organization also boasts that 100% of the funds raised from the ride go directly to cancer reserach, something few cancer reserach initiatives can claim.

And they don’t take money from Enbridge.

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BC Government to Review Fracking for Impacts on Human Health

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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/

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