Rebels to the Pebble is a group from Dillingham, Alaska who are asking for public support to save Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine.
“Our area is even more fragile because of our reliance on the salmon, not to mention the rest of the delicate ecosystem. Also, glacial gravel, the soil here, is very permeable. Chemicals travel fast underground through the soil. Chemicals don’t need to travel into the surface water by waterways to contaminate the water where the fish are. The amount of water that Pebble will use to run the mine per year, 35 billion gallons water, is more than the city of Anchorage uses per year.”
Bristol Bay has the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world and it is integral to the Alaskan economy and way of life. One of the ways they are raising awareness is to tell retailers not to buy gold from Pebble Mine as part of the Dirty Gold campaign.
Please sign their petition at www.rebelpebble.com/sign-this-petition.html. Another good site to learn more about this project is Our Bristol Bay.
Tags: bristol bay, dirty gold, sockeye salmon
Last roll for Kitimat's pulp mill
The last roll of paper has been made at Eurocan Pulp and Paper in Kitimat BC.
Several prospective buyers are allegedly showing interest in buying it but who?
Will it be Sinar Mas, the parent company of Asia Pulp & Paper? Sinar Mas has shown interest in acquiring the Mackenzie Pulp Mill which went through some challenging times what with the dubious acquisition by Worthington Industries and chemical spill crises.
Sinar Mas, has been on the environmental radar for quite some time and its environmental practices have been condemned by many environmental organizations. Both WWF and Greenpeace have campaigns against the destruction of rare orangutan and tiger habitats in Indonesia where it has been undergoing a massive clearcut campaign in order to produce palm oil. As of December 2009 Unilever finally agreed to suspend their contract with Sinar Mas.
If you want something light-hearted and quirky to inspire yourself to do green things, like ‘walk the walk’ or ’stay grounded’ and ‘easy on the meat’ check out the videos at www.dothegreenthing.com
Subway sandwiches are often touted as being healthy fast food, but are they really?
Bnet.com has an interesting article which you might want to read before you order. First of all, the bread is made with sodium stearoyl lactylate and ammonium sulfate, which are used as a dough conditioners, and azodicarbonamide, a bleaching chemical most commonly employed in the production of foamed plastics. Not exactly like home cooking.
Their meat is something else as well. In order to get that meat like flavour, Subway uses autolyzed yeast extract and hyrolyzed corn gluten which are supposed to act like flavour enhancers. This way when they process the meat, a little bit goes a long way.
What is in your food?
Tags: dough conditioners, fast food, flavour enhancers, subway sandwiches
Here is a really good video that talks about the effects of climate change on the mountain pine beetle population. These tiny little beetles normally are killed off during cold winters but British Columbia hasn’t seen cold weather for over ten years now. As a result, the mountain pine beetles are multiplying at an exponential rate, killing pine trees with the potential to spread to Canada’s boreal forest.
Migrating pelicans on Fish Lake
Last July I wrote a post about the struggle the First Nations were having trying to save their lake, Tzenzaicut Lake also known as Fish Lake (situated about 125 km southwest of Williams Lake, BC) from being “used” as a dumping ground for the Prosperity Mine, a gold and copper open pit mine. As I mentioned in the post, they have to do a lot of digging and leaching with chemicals in order to extract the ore from the gold and copper deposits.
Big Onion Lake
Although the mining company, Taseko Mines Ltd, acknowledged the destruction of Fish Lake, they passed the provincial environmental assessment last week and “Taseko is extremely confident that EA approvals will be granted by both levels of Government.”
Taseko Mines requires at least 4,200,000 m3/year of groundwater pumped from deep aquifers. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency questioned where is Taseko going to get all that water? So, if they’re using the lake which is full of water as a tailings pond, what are the local indigenous people going to drink, where is the water for them? Their wells will run dry at this rate.
“According to the proponent, excavation of the open pit will entail dewatering of this aquifer (Fish Lake) regardless of any need for water balance supplementation.”
Fish Lake will not be the only lake affected. Several lakes including well known fishing hotspots Big Onion Lake, Prosperity Lake and Wasp Lake will also be harmed. These flow into the Taseko River which is a tributary of the Chilko River.
If you are an avid angler or have kayaked along the Taseko River, please contact:
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Prosperity Panel Secretariat
160 Elgin Street
Place Bell Canada
Ottawa ON K1A 0H3
Telephone: 1-866-582-1884
Email: Prosperity.Review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca refer to CEAR reference number 09-05-44811
Tags: big onion lake, fish lake, fishing hotspots, taseko mines ltd, wasp lake, williams lake bc
Stikine River
If you read yesterday’s post, you will be interested to know that this photograph, voted International Picture of the Year in its category, accompanied the article Wade Davis wrote for the National Geographic magazine, titled: “Deep North: The Stikine River”. Photograph by Sarah Leen.
Tags: international picture of the year, national geographic magazine
Imperial Metals at Coyote Creek
The controversial Red Chris mine will go ahead. The Red Chris mine is exempt from the recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada which says that the federal government requires environmental studies on mining projects.
The question is, what about the other projects in the area known as the Sacred Headwaters? This area is at the confluence of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers – three major rivers that are vital fish bearing habitat. Several native groups such as the Tahltan protested against these mining projects, but most of the media has been focused on their battle against Shell Canada.
Where Stikine, Nass and Skeena Rivers meet
Will the federal government require that these other projects go through environmental assessments? What will be the impact of using streams and lakes as tailing ponds?
The noted ethnobotanist, Wade Davis did a story for National Geographic on this area:
The only other place I know where such a wonder of geography occurs is in Tibet, where from the base of Mount Kailas arise three of the great rivers of Asia – the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra – vital arteries that bring life to more than a billion people downstream. Revered by Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, Kailas is considered so sacred that no one is allowed to walk on its slopes, let alone climb to its summit. The thought of violating its flanks with industrial development would represent for all peoples of Asia an act of desecration beyond all imagining. Anyone who would even dare propose such a deed would face the most severe of sanctions, in both this world and the next.
In Canada, we treat the land quite differently. Against the wishes of all First Nations, the B.C. government has opened the Sacred Headwaters to industrial development.
To read more about this area, go to www.sacredland.org/klabona or www.firstnations.de/mining/tahltan-klabona.htm
Milk in Canada is getting more expensive to buy and more expensive for cheesemakers and others in the dairy industry. Why is this a concern? Food security is a green issue.
Currently, Canada does not have a national framework to deal with the dairy industry. Unlike the U.S., Canada has a quota system which used to work fine until the industry started to squeeze out a lot of small processors. While the U.S. ensures a free market approach for its dairy farmers, there are several ways in which they are subsidized in case they cannot sell all the milk they produce.
Saputo has been using imported dairy solids to make cheese for more than 30 years. Using modified milk helped lower production costs which enabled them to have 35% of the market share at the expense of locally run cheese makers. As an example, Armstrong Cheese used to be made in Armstrong, BC employing over 70 people and relying on milk from local dairy farms. Saputo bought them out and closed down the plant, but you can still buy something called “Armstrong Cheese.” This scenario is being played out all across the country.
With fewer places to sell their milk and the prices for milk beyond their control, dairy farmers face an uncertain future now that the WTO has ruled that the quota system constitutes an export subsidy for dairy products. This ruling resulted in the reduction of the Canadian export program. Claiming that milk is priced too high, companies like Kraft, Saputo and Parmalat continue to pressure for more imports of blends in the case of butter oils or caseins reducing the need for Canadian milk.
If you want to know more about what’s going to happen to our supply of food, visit www.farmsandfood.ca Provincial milk prices are to be re-calculated February 1, 2010.
Have you ever been printing something and instead of two pages the printer churns out ten? Just because of some silly margin or something. All that good recycled paper gone to waste!
Time to try GreenPrint (www.printgreener.com) which allows you to quickly deselect pictures or extra text before printing, telling you exactly how many pages will be printed. You can even make a pdf instead. As an added bonus it keeps count of all the pages you’ve saved from the printer.
The software is free to download from their website.
