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Elevated B.C. radiation levels considered no threat to health

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From the Globe & Mail – March 29, 2011

by Mark Hume

Increased levels of radioactive iodine have been detected in seaweed
and rainwater samples in British Columbia and a scientist from Simon
Fraser University says the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan is
clearly the source.

Krzysztof (Kris) Starosta, an associate
professor in the department of chemistry at SFU, said levels of the
radioisotope iodine-131 have risen, but are not a health concern.

Perry Kendall, British Columbia’s provincial health officer,
reinforced that view, saying the levels detected by SFU are “minuscule …
very, very tiny,” and are nothing to worry about.

He said the levels are “about one-millionth” the dose that would be of concern.

“We’re looking at very low levels of radiation here,” Dr. Kendall said.

Dr.
Starosta agreed the levels are low, but he said they did climb over
several days of testing as Japanese nuclear workers struggled to bring
the damaged reactor under control.

“As of now, the levels we’re
seeing are not harmful to humans,” Dr. Starosta said. “We have not
reached levels of elevated risk.”

He said the radiation is being
carried across the Pacific to North America by the jet stream, strong
wind currents that blow west to east high in the atmosphere. While most
of the radioactivity falls out over the ocean, some of it has reached
the West Coast where it is being deposited with rain. It is mixing with
seawater and accumulating in seaweed.

The rainwater samples
containing iodine-131 were taken at SFU’s campus on Burnaby Mountain and
in downtown Vancouver. Seaweed samples were collected in North
Vancouver near the Seabus terminal.

Samples taken March 16 and
March 18 did not show the signature for iodine-131, but it did show up
in tests on March, 19, 20 and 25.

The radioactive substance is
measured in “decays of iodine-131 per second per litre of rainwater,”
which is expressed as becquerels or Bq/l.

On March 18, the level
was zero, but on March 19 it was 9 Bq/l and on March 20 it was 12 Bq/l.
On March 25 the level was 11 Bq/l.

In Japan, a health warning was
issued recently when iodine-131 levels reached 210 Bq/l in drinking
water. The Japanese standard for iodine-131 in drinking water is 100
Bq/l if the water is to be consumed by an infant, and 300 Bq/l if the
water is to be consumed by an adult.

“The only possible source of
iodine-131 in the atmosphere is a release from a nuclear fission,” Dr.
Starosta said. “Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, thus we
conclude the only possible release which could happen is from the
Fukushima incident.”

He said iodine-131 will probably continue to
show up in B.C. for three to four weeks after the Fukushima nuclear
reactor stops releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Iodine-131
has been detected in rainwater at several locations in the United
States in the past few days, but far below levels that would raise
health concerns.

Dr. Kendall said health authorities will continue
to monitor the situation, but it appears the fight to control the
damaged reactor in Japan is being won, and even a worst-case scenario
wouldn’t threaten Canada.

“My sense is that it’s coming under
control. The amounts of radiation that were being emitted last week are
probably not going to be measured again, unless something absolutely
disastrous happens,” he said. “Health Canada and the [Radiation]
Protection Branch … have modelled with the U.S. other scenarios. They
modelled one where a couple of the nuclear reactor cores melted down and
three of the spent fuel-rod containments melted down – and even then we
are at such a distance away, and there is such a volumetric dispersion,
that we’re not going to see levels of harm.”

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Sockeye Virus Cover-up: DFO’s stifling of research a case of déjà vu

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From the Globe & Mail – March 27, 2011

by Mark Hume

When a federal commission investigating the collapse of Fraser River
sockeye stocks heard recently that a Fisheries and Oceans scientist who
has done groundbreaking research was being silenced, it gave Jeffrey
Hutchings a bad case of déjà vu.

“Your recent articles on DFO’s
muzzling of Dr. Kristi Miller remind me of similar attempts by DFO to
stifle the imparting of science from government scientists to other
scientists and to the Canadian public,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Prof. Hutchings, a widely respected fisheries scientist, holds the
Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation & Biodiversity at
Dalhousie University, in Halifax. In 1997, he, Carl Walters from the
Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia and Richard
Haedrich, Department of Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland,
set off a media firestorm with a paper that ripped DFO for suppressing
controversial science.

Writing in the Canadian Journal of
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, they outlined two cases – the collapse
of Atlantic cod stocks and the diversion of the Nechako River, in B.C. –
in which they maintained research was stifled because it didn’t conform
to political agendas.

They argued that, on the East Coast, DFO
silenced scientists who warned Atlantic cod stocks had been devastated
not by seal predation, but from overfishing. And, in the West, they
stated that DFO rejected research that showed an Alcan plan to divert
the Nechako River would damage Chinook stocks.

In both cases, they
wrote, hard-working scientists had their findings suppressed by DFO
managers who didn’t want to see research that clashed with political
goals.

“We contend that political and bureaucratic interference in
government fisheries science compromises the DFO’s efforts to sustain
fish stocks,” Mr. Hutchings and his colleagues wrote.

When the
article came out, it created headlines, sparking a national debate on
the role of science within government. DFO officials denied stifling any
researchers. But the article, quoting internal DFO memos, showed
scientists had been “explicitly ordered … not to discuss ‘politically
sensitive’ matters … with the public, irrespective of the scientific
basis.”

Earlier this month, the Cohen Commission of Inquiry Into
the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, saw an e-mail by Dr.
Miller in which she complained about being kept away from a workshop
because her DFO masters “fear that we will not be able to control the
way the disease issue could be construed in the press.”

Dr.
Miller, who suspects a virus is killing millions of sockeye salmon in
the river, had a paper published in the prestigious journal Science
earlier this year. But she has not been allowed to talk to the press
about it.

“By preventing Dr. Miller from speaking to the media and
from participating in non-DFO controlled meetings/workshops, DFO is
inhibiting science,” Mr. Hutchings said in his e-mail. “This action, so
evidently lacking in openness and transparency, is regrettably
consistent with the objective of controlling the information that public
servants are permitted to disseminate to the public.”

Dr.
Miller’s situation also inspired Alan Sinclair, a retired DFO scientist,
to write: “Your recent article reporting that DFO put a gag order on
Dr. Kristi Miller’s research on disease in sockeye salmon is very
disturbing. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common in DFO
and other Federal Ministries with large science components. I encourage
you to follow up on this and make Canadians more aware of what’s going
on.”

But following up while Dr. Miller is locked away from the
press won’t be easy. She isn’t due to testify before the Cohen
Commission for several months. Until then, Canadians can only wonder
what she discovered – and why she was silenced.

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Fish farm sues activist Don Staniford for defamation

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From the Globe & Mail – March 24, 2011

by Mark Hume

A heated battle between an anti-fish farm group and the aquaculture
industry is headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia over attack
ads that equate farmed salmon with cancer-causing tobacco.

Mainstream
Canada, the second-largest aquaculture company on the West Coast, is
seeking damages for “false and defamatory postings” and seeks to have
the offending material removed from the websites, Facebook accounts and
Twitter feeds of Don Staniford and his organization, the Global Alliance
Against Industrial Aquaculture.

Mainstream Canada announced the lawsuit in a press release on
Thursday, and Mr. Staniford responded by releasing a copy of a letter he
sent to Mainstream’s parent company in Norway, Cermaq ASA, in which he
says he welcomes the chance to debate the issue in court.

“GAAIA
takes Cermaq’s complaint extremely seriously and very much welcomes the
opportunity to expand upon why we honestly and firmly believe that
‘Salmon Farming Kills,’” states the letter, repeating one of the
anti-fish farm slogans to which Mainstream objects.

Laurie Jensen,
Mainstream Canada’s communications and corporate sustainability
manager, said the company is not concerned the lawsuit might give Mr.
Staniford and his campaign more publicity.

“It’s not about the
media,” she said. “It’s about the fact that these guys have crossed the
line. The comments there are so insane and libellous that we just can’t
not do anything any more.”

Ms. Jensen said the anti-fish farm
campaign has drawn complaints from the company’s employees, customers,
suppliers and from some first nations, which are partners in aquaculture
operations.

“They are saying somebody’s got to do something about
this – and if not us, then who?” she said. “So that’s what it’s about.
We can’t let this continue. Enough’s enough.”

Mr. Staniford said the lawsuit is an attempt by the company to silence its harshest critic.

“This
is an example of the Norwegian government trying to shut down free
speech,” he said, noting that the GAAIA website was taken offline after
the Internet service provider was advised of the lawsuit by the company.

Mr.
Staniford said he hopes to have a new site up soon, and that he will
use it to continue his battle against fish farms and to raise legal
defence funds.

Mr. Staniford, who is based in B.C., said he formed
GAAIA recently to go after fish farms internationally, and that the
organization “has supporters globally.”

Mainstream, which produces
25,000 tonnes of farmed fish annually in B.C., states in its claim that
Mr. Staniford and GAAIA defamed the company numerous times in a
campaign launched in January that ran in three segments, under the
titles “Salmon Farming Kills,” “Silent Spring of the Sea” and “Smoke on
the Water, Cancer on the Coast.”

The notice of claim lists more
than 30 slogans the company finds defamatory and says the anti-fish farm
campaign “employs graphic imagery that links the defamatory words and
Mainstream to tobacco manufacturers and cigarettes.”

It states
that tobacco products are known to be harmful to human health and
alleges the campaign clearly implies that Mainstream’s products “kill
people … make people sick … are unsafe for human consumption … [and
that] Mainstream is knowingly marketing a carcinogenic product that
causes illness, death and harm.”

The GAAIA campaign is aimed at
“Norwegian-owned” fish farms in general, but the claim notes that the
Norwegian government owns 43.5 per cent of Cermaq ASA, so the link to
Mainstream is obvious.

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Researcher suggests ‘salmon leukemia’ is to blame for decline of Fraser sockeye

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From the Globe & Mail – March 20, 2011

by Mark Hume

Of all the theories heard so far by the Cohen Commission, the most
intriguing involves new research by a molecular scientist who is
pointing to the possibility of an epidemic of salmon leukemia.

Kristi
Miller hasn’t been called to testify on her research yet, but her work
is already causing a buzz at the inquiry, in part because it seems an
effort has been made to keep it under wraps.

Dr. Miller has not been available for media interviews, even though
she recently published a paper in the prestigious journal Science.
Usually, Fisheries and Oceans Canada promotes interviews when one of
their researchers gains an international profile for groundbreaking
work. But when Dr. Miller’s paper came out earlier this year, all
requests for interviews were denied.

She will be called before the
Cohen Commission, probably toward the end of the summer, when the
hearings begin digging into the possible role of disease in the decline
of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.

Brian Wallace, senior
counsel for the commission, will likely probe the full extent of her
research at that time, but if he doesn’t, Gregory McDade, a lawyer
appearing at the hearings for a coalition of conservation groups,
certainly will.

Mr. McDade signalled his deep interest in Dr. Miller’s work recently in questioning two witnesses.

When
Laura Richards, Pacific regional director of science for DFO, testified
last week, he asked her about a series of e-mails that suggested Dr.
Miller was being muzzled.

In a Nov. 2009 e-mail to Mark Saunders,
manager of salmon and freshwater ecosystems division, Dr. Miller said
she was being kept away from a science forum.

“Laura [Richards]
does not want me to attend any of the sockeye salmon workshops that are
not run by DFO for fear that we will not be able to control the way the
disease issue could be construed in the press. I worry that this
approach of saying nothing will backfire,” she wrote. “Laura also
clearly does not want to indicate … that the disease research is of
strategic importance.”

Dr. Richards testified that Dr. Miller had somehow misinterpreted things, and that there was no intent to silence her.

Mr. McDade also asked Scott Hinch about Dr. Miller’s work.

Dr.
Hinch is principal investigator at the University of British Columbia’s
Pacific salmon ecology and conservation lab, is the architect of some
remarkable research into why so many sockeye die in the Fraser River
before spawning, and is a co-author with Dr. Miller on the Science
article.

Dr. Hinch testified that some years more than 70 per cent of the sockeye die in the river, en route to the spawning grounds.

“And
that would make this problem the single greatest problem in terms of
loss of salmon of any that you’re aware of,” said Mr. McDade.

“Oh, yes,” answered Dr. Hinch.

“So we could be looking at losses of over three million fish in some years?” asked Mr. McDade.

“Yes,” replied Dr. Hinch.

Mr.
McDade then quoted the Science article, which hypothesizes the mass
mortality of salmon in the Fraser “is in response to a virus” that
infects fish before river entry.

“You agree with that statement?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Dr. Hinch.

“So
this purported virus, if it in fact exists, goes a very substantial way
towards … explaining the whole of the en-route loss?” he was asked.

“It could. And that’s why it got published in the journal Science,” replied Dr. Hinch.

“So
the Miller paper has hypothesized a purported virus but hasn’t named
it. … But in your discussions, you’ve talked about salmon leukemia as a
possible name for that?” said Mr. McDade.

“That was Kristina Miller’s offering, yes,” said Dr. Hinch.

“And have you heard that referred to by fish farmers as fish AIDS?”

“ I haven’t heard of that, no,” said Dr. Hinch.

“ But as a form of immune suppression?” asked Mr. McDade.

“Yes.”

Dr.
Miller won’t testify for months yet and she remains banned from giving
any media interviews. But her research, which could explain why up to
three million salmon a year are dying in the Fraser, is already
reverberating at the Cohen Commission.

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Excellent Report by Globe & Mail: Meltdown looms as errors mount at Fukushima nuclear plant

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From the Globe & Mail – March 15, 2011

by Shawn McCarthy

The nuclear industry uses a “defence in depth” approach – having backups
for your backup systems – but cascading disasters and human error have
overwhelmed those safety systems in Japan and pushed the country to the
brink of a nuclear meltdown.

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station was clearly designed to
withstand the worst earthquake to hit the country in modern times, but
key backup safety systems failed under the resulting blackout and a
massive tsunami that inundated the area.

That’s left a razor-thin margin of error for emergency crews working
under enormous stress to prevent a meltdown that could spread radiation
across their homeland. They’ve survived catastrophic natural disasters
and explosions at the plant, but the failure to close a pressure gauge
could lose the war.

The see-saw battle to regain mastery of the crippled plants has been
hobbled by some design shortcomings at the 40-year-old facility – though
the critical containment vessels appear to be intact. And there is a
residual lack of trust in its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company
(TEPCO), which has an unfortunate history of hiding trouble from the
public.

But the fundamental question is whether the global nuclear industry
designs reactors to withstand a “perfect storm” situation, in which
multiple calamities and human error conspire together to create what the
industry calls a “low-probability, high-consequence event.”

Former nuclear regulator Linda Keen said the industry is often inadequately prepared.

“In my experience, I found the nuclear engineers extremely optimistic,”
said Ms. Keen, former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

“They’re optimistic about everything: how fast they’re going to do
things, the cost, the idea of whether you are going to have an accident
or not.”

Ms. Keen – who chaired an international safety panel during her tenure –
said that the industry can be too fixated on individual threats and
unprepared to cope with the multiple disasters that are unlikely but can
occur.

“It’s pretty clear that in Japan they didn’t do the proper planning for
the backup power. … There were ways of providing more defence in depth
for that facility.”

In fact, the Japanese are noted for their diligent approach to possible
natural disasters, including preparing the population to participate in
the response or evacuate quickly when necessary.

“When it comes to preparedness to a large catastrophic event, there is
no society on the planet that is as prepared as Japan,” said Stephen
Flynn, a former disaster planner in the White House and now a
Washington-based consultant.

“They’re the gold standard. When it comes to earthquakes but also
general civic preparedness, it’s deeply part of their experience.”

Mr. Flynn agreed, however, that even high-risk industries often fail to
properly prepare for the cascading effects of multiple disasters. Such
was the case at the Fukushima plant, where emergency power systems were
left dangerously exposed to flooding from a tsunami.

One problem, Ms. Keen said, is that the Fukushima plant is 40 years old
and doesn’t have the same level of protection – thickness of outer
containment walls, for example – as a modern plant.

At the same time, its owner, TEPCO, created suspicion among Japanese
over safety issues unveiled in 2004, when the company’s top executive
had to resign in a scandal over doctored safety tests.

Ms. Keen said nuclear utilities and governments often down play the
threat of contamination from an accident in the hopes that problems can
be overcome.

Industry insiders insist that the nuclear fraternity places an enormous
premium on safety, knowing that a serious accident can throw up major
hurdles to the development of new plants.

“Our industry is known for being on the conservative side of design,”
said Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive at Ontario’s Bruce Power and a
board member of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, which was
set up after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

But he acknowledged that the placement of diesel generators on the
grounds outside the reactor building left them dangerously exposed to a
tsunami, which was three metres higher than the plant had been designed
for.

The loss of the diesel machines meant crews had to turn to battery
powered generators to keep pumps operating to cool the reactor cores.
Since those have given out, the workers have been using hoses to douse
the reactor cores with sea water. That process resulted in a buildup of
steam that requires venting, spreading low-level radiation, and the
creation of hydrogen that caused explosions in at least two – perhaps
three – of the outer containment buildings.

Harried crews have also apparently made some costly mistakes.

At one point, an air flow gauge was accidentally turned off, blocking
the flow of water into the reactor. As a result, fuel rods in
Fukushima’s No. 2 reactor were exposed and began to melt.

In another incident, crews did not notice the remaining diesel generator
had run out of fuel, interrupting the water flow for precious moments.

Mr. Hawthorne said the emergency crews are operating under the most dire
conditions. Two of their colleagues were lost and presumed drowned
while outside checking for earthquake damage when the tsunami hit.

“The only thing left standing in this area is the plant – you don’t know
where your family [is], you don’t know what’s happened, but you have a
job to do and you have to stick on it.”

Costly missteps at Fukushima Daiichi

Backup generators susceptible to tsunami: The plant
designer prepared well for an earthquake, but backup generators and fuel
tanks were located on lower ground, leaving them vulnerable to a
tsunami that might be expected to occur from a massive offshore temblor.

Lack of adequate battery power: When some diesel
generators needed to cool the reactor core failed, the crews resorted to
battery powered pumps. But the batteries had an eight-hour lifespan,
and the plant was not equipped with enough extras to maintain cooling
efforts.

Poor communication: The Japanese head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency complained of not getting timely or
detailed information, as have domestic news media. As a result, the
population is uncertain and panicky at the potential threat.

Running out of fuel: Water levels in No. 2 reactor fell after the diesel pump ran out of fuel and workers did not notice quickly enough.

Checking the gauges: Air pressure inside No. 2 reactor
rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was accidentally turned off. That
blocked the flow of water into the reactor, leading to the water level
dropping and the exposure of the fuel rods.

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Briony Penn: Wham BAM, thank you TAM – Who Really Owns BC?

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From Focus Online – Feb, 2011

by Briony Penn

Wham BAM, thank you TAM

Corporate mergers raise questions about who really owns BC

I used to report on the colourful species that inhabit this part
of the world, but those articles are diminishing with their populations.
Now I’m as likely to report on the colourful CEOs of companies who are
doing their best to liquidate these last “distressed assets.” It’s quite
a challenge, as one has to be able to follow the ever-changing mergers,
selloffs and vertical integrations that the big players concoct through
Byzantine-like structures and deals. 

One also has to be able to remember three-word acronyms which often
change. To follow the money in this region right now, the most important
ones to be aware of are BAM and TAM. Look out your window anywhere from
Crofton to Sooke and you’ll be gazing at a piece of real estate owned
in some fashion by BAM or TAM.

Mr Martin J. Whitman, the founder of Third Avenue Management (TAM),
runs his empire out of New York; a few of its minor assets have included
Western Forest Products, Timberwest, and Island Timberlands through
 associations with another roving predator of distressed companies,
Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) under CEO Bruce Flatt. 

TAM and BAM form a many-headed hydra that has been devouring most of
the private forestlands on southeast Vancouver Island. These distressed
asset managers live in the skyscrapers of New York and Toronto from
which they “manage” thousands of hectares of forest in the Capital
Region. We rely on these forests for water and are now having to buy
them back from BAM/TAM at great expense.

If you travel around British Columbia, you’ll gaze upon many other
TAM assets. In fact, fully one quarter of BC’s public harvesting
rights—over 10 million cubic metres of Crown forest—are now under TAM’s
controlling interest through their acquisition of huge chunks of BC’s
biggest forest and pulp companies, including Canfor and Catalyst. As
pressures to privatize crown assets continue, the companies with
existing leases to resources will be best poised to secure title to the
land underlying those resources.

TAM, working alongside Jimmy Pattison (who is also a board member of
BAM), has majority share ownership in Canfor. Pattison and Whitman
joined together in 2007 to vote in their own slate of directors,
including TAM men like Amit Wadhwaney, an ex-Domtar forest products
analyst who heads up the TAM International Value Fund, and Ian Lapey,
Whitman’s future successor (they are not on the board now, though
Pattison is). The same sort of thing went on with Catalyst. The typical
pattern is: close down facilities, consolidate, liquidate assets, avoid
taxes (as happened in Crofton), try and exert influence on the political
system, wait out the process of privatization and then sell.

Whitman’s investment mantra is “Safe and Cheap.” He coined it after
the war when he discovered there was a lot of money to be made buying
distressed companies in sectors hit by recession; liquidating and
consolidating; then waiting it out for the rising market. The philosophy
is stated this way on TAM’s website: “We believe the cheaper you buy,
the greater the potential investment reward and the cheaper you buy, the
less the inherent risk.” 

What was Whitman’s inspiration? His biography states: “When he
encountered a timber company rich with assets [aka forests] but no
visible earnings power he realized there was a better way.” One assumes
the “better way” is to liquidate the forests prior to selling the land
when real estate prices are rising. In southeast Vancouver Island, there
has never been so much timber removed from these forests so quickly. 

We shouldn’t be surprised that our province attracts such companies.
Who could resist British Columbia, a great little banana republic on the
doorstep of America that meets all those great investment criteria?
Safe? For sure, there are no Zapatistas here. And cheap? Once you’ve
creamed the forest off the top, you have free real estate that can be
sold. Moreover, we have a provincial government that seems easily swayed
by corporate investors.

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Cohen Commission: Study Rules Out Usual Freshwater Habitat Suspects in Sockeye Decline

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From the Globe & Mail – March 11, 2011

by Mark Hume

A federal judicial inquiry that is trying to find out why sockeye
salmon in the Fraser River are in decline has been told that whatever is
killing them, it is not one of the usual suspects.

While mining,
logging, hydro projects and other industrial developments in the
watershed are degrading habitat quality, none of them can be blamed for
the precipitous drop in sockeye stocks, states a science report done for
the Cohen Commission of Inquiry Into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon.

Marc Nelitz, lead author of a study that looked at the impact of a
variety of human activities, said while the number of adult sockeye has
dropped dramatically over two decades, the survival of juvenile salmon
has remained stable.

“The collection of all that evidence leads us
to conclude it’s unlikely the freshwater environment is playing a
role,” Mr. Nelitz said Thursday, testifying to the Cohen commission.

The
report did not reach a definitive conclusion, but Mr. Nelitz said “the
weight of evidence” clearly indicates whatever is killing the fish is
doing so outside the Fraser environment.

“Based on the evidence it
seems most likely that changes in the physical and biological
conditions in the Strait of Georgia have led to an increase in mortality
during marine life stages,” the report states. “Specific mortality
agents include lack of food, freshwater and marine pathogens, harmful
algal blooms and other factors.”

The report did say it is possible
“a non-lethal stressor in the freshwater environment is causing
mortality during a later life stage,” but if so, it wasn’t identified.

Mr.
Nelitz, a systems ecologist with the environmental consulting firm ESSA
Technologies, said the research team looked at the impact of forest
harvesting activities, the effect of a massive pine beetle infestation
that has altered hydrology by killing off vast tracts of forest, the
storage of log booms in the estuary, large- and small-scale hydro
projects, urbanization, agricultural development and water use.

It
has long been known those activities degrade fish habitat to varying
degrees – but the relatively steady survival rate of young salmon in the
Fraser eliminates them all as suspects in the mystery the Cohen
commission is trying to unravel.

Bruce Cohen, a British Columbia
Supreme Court justice, was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper
after only about one million sockeye returned to the Fraser in 2009,
when more than 10 million fish had been expected. That marked the low
point in 20 years of decline, although there was a dramatic and
unexpected rebound last year, when more than 28 million sockeye
returned, providing the biggest run since 1913.

The Cohen
commission, which has ordered a dozen scientific reports and is holding
evidentiary hearings in Vancouver, is trying to figure out why sockeye
stocks are so unstable, and why they have been declining for so long.

Mr.
Nelitz said the study did not look at the cumulative impact of
activities along the Fraser, nor did it examine saltwater habitat. Those
issues are under separate study.

The report said more information
is needed on the early life stages of salmon, and it called for better
estimates of juvenile abundance, for more information on the survival
rates of young salmon over winter, and for studies on the period when
smolts migrate down the Fraser and go out to sea.

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Shades of Green: The Pursuit of Happiness

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Perhaps the pursuit of happiness was never such a good idea. But, in 1776, this objective from the French Enlightenment seemed to be convincing enough that it was incorporated into the Constitution of the newly formed United States of America as a founding principle.

Happiness as an objective should have been suspect from the beginning. The serious pursuit of it arose out of the emotional exuberance of 18th century Baroque that then became the decorative frivolity of Rococo. Justification for creating these two aesthetic styles in Western civilization seemed more closely related to extravagant indulgence than temperate responsibility. The music of both periods was sublime – Bach evolved into Mozart – but the pursuit of happiness itself came from the apex of decadent aristocratic life, before its privileges were shaken by the seismic revolutions in America and France, and the subsequent political shocks that radically altered Europe’s social structure.

This history is the primary reason why happiness should be doubted as a founding principle for any country. Happiness is essentially frivolous, superficial and ephemeral. It is not as profound, solid or reliable as contentment, tranquility or cooperation. As an objective, happiness is restless, uncertain and fickle, hardly suitable for a new America that prided itself as the living political embodiment of the Enlightenment’s high principles. But this obsession with happiness does begin to explain the present financial dilemma facing the United States and those other countries that have modelled their economies on the naive optimism underlying the dubious ideals of unfettered capitalism and boundless consumerism.

One of the financial legacies of the unrestrained pursuit of happiness is debt. The US budgetary deficit for 2011 is $1.6 trillion. Its national debt is $14.3 trillion and counting. The US government’s budgetary strategy is frozen in a stalemate between two mutually incompatible paths to happiness: the Republicans refuse to increase taxes to reduce debt while the Democrats refuse to relinquish the social programs that are too costly for the present tax regime. Unless this impasse can be broken, the annual US deficit is expected to increase to about $10 trillion by 2021. By then, the US will have spent as much as $200 trillion on miscellaneous programs and entitlements that can only be financed by borrowing. The burden of debt will eventually become more than the country can bear and the result will be financial and political collapse. Traces of this process are already occurring in many US states.

In The Empire of Debt, Jason Kirby (Maclean’s, Feb. 14/11) refers to the Harvard economic historian, Niall Ferguson, who notes that in recent centuries the empires of the Spanish, French, Ottoman and British all collapsed under the weight of excessive debt. When the cost of servicing their debt reached 50 to 60 percent of revenues, and when interest rates rose as investors lost confidence in the security of their loans, the collapse of these empires occurred as quickly as 15 to 20 years.

A survey of 26 of the major industrial economies of the world – excluding only China – indicates an epidemic of ascending debt. Recent massive infusions of cash to Iceland, Ireland and Greece have avoided default on loans and averted a global financial crisis. But from Australia at 40 percent of its GDP to Japan at 210 percent, the debt situation of the world’s major economies looks gloomy – the US sits at 100 percent of its GDP while Canada, at 83 percent, is burdened with record high consumer debt. Japan owes $11.98 trillion, just short of 1 quadrillion yen. Its economic structure, the third largest on the planet, is described as a “Madoff scheme” that is doomed to fail.

The seriousness of all this debt is usually excused by the argument that expanding economic activity reduces the debt-to-GDP ratio, thereby decreasing the seriousness of any deficits – if the economy continues to expand faster than the debt then the burden of debt seems to shrink.This is the thinking used to justify deficit and debt. But such logic fails when considering that any particular economy could contract, a clear possibility given that countries exist in competitive relationships with each other, that global financial structures are inherently unstable, and that finite natural resources are not perpetually available to fuel ever-expanding economies.

This is the darkening shadow that hangs over the entire global financial system. Our economies and our lifestyles are founded on the monetary security of a system built entirely on precarious trust and rash optimism. When stresses such as political unrest, oil shortage, crop failure or climate catastrophes are added to the unstable intricacies of globalization, then the prospects seem increasingly uncertain and sobering.

Many human aspirations are laudable – if the aspirations are wise. But the pursuit of happiness may be the most elusive and empty of all aspirations. Indeed, the root cause of the multitude of crises we are now encountering – from financial to environmental – may be this superficial aspiration. Our imaginations have linked the unfulfillable quest for happiness with materialism and consumerism, an association that the machinery of economics is obligingly exploiting to its own impersonal ends. The result for us is frenzied effort, perpetual restlessness, eternal dissatisfaction and the mindless exploitation of Earth’s biosystems beyond sustainability.

Perhaps we should accept that the pursuit of happiness has overreached the reality of limits and utility, and that we urgently need a replacement that is more nourishing, substantial and promising.

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