HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1980-12-10, Page 7washed out many miles from their original source. These
pollutants continued to be en-in-lifted from these stacks
despite the well kpown effects of acid rain and the
availability of pollution control measures. At power
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PLACE F
A City. Puzzle
To the Editor:
The Lucknow: Midget hockey team
dirorn page 6 concern, research and awareness of and their management wish to thank
bit' guitar scratchers vocifering their their invisible audience. the Lucknow: and District Lions Club
pain and kindergarten state of mind
.with delirious convulsions.
To the poets and refined gentlemen
of FM 102, Wingham, Ontario, ,my
sincere and grateful thanks for their
Ashfield township considered..:
for liquid waste :dispOsal. r4te..
Letters to the
for their donation of new hockey
Yours truly, uniforms.
Your interest in local minor sports, is
A. Joe Legrand, greatly appreciated.
Lucknow.
The Lucknow Midgets.
4.
Lachnow Sentinel, Wednesday, December 10, 1080—rage 7
rain:. The stilent crisis
BY PM" :WtagRi
Waterloo Public Interest. Group.
Anti* of Acid Rain; The Silent Crisis,
Between The Line, i980
In recent years acid rain-a legacy of industrial waste- ,
has taken a terrible environmental, toll. Some of the
World's finest lakes and rivers Can no longer support life,
They are biologically dead. Former Federal EnvironMent
Minister -Sohn Fraser has said that acid rain "is the most- -
serious environmental probleni Canada has ever faced."
Responsible for acid rain are sulphur and nitrogen
Oxides released from ore smelters, coal-fired generating
stations, automobiles; and oil and gas refineries,
Combining with water vapour in the air to form solutions
of acid, these gases have increased the acidity of rain by
as much as 40 .times the natural level. In the most
extreirie example yet recorded -- a storm in Scotland in
ON- the rain Was.acidic e-quivalent of vinegar pH
2,4.
.Once a source of, new life,, raindrops are now awesome'
agents of destroction. Rendering 140 Ontario lakes
lifeless to date, destroying major Canadian. salmon
rivers, sand eliminating fish from 170 lakes in the
Adirondack Mountains of New York ,State, acid rain is a
(Inlet, insidious killer. In fact; as Dr. Harold Harvey of
the University of Toronto explains:' "There is no muss,
there is no fuss, 'there is no smell.. The fish quietly go
extinct...They simply fail to reproduce and become less
and less abundant and older and lolder, until' they die
But the effects of acid rain are not limited to the
aquatic environment. r
While eliminating life from 'lakes and rivers,: acid rain
is quietly but just as seriously threatening forests and
crops. Swedish scientists recently concluded that visible
scars on• leaf surfaces and damages to nitrogen nodules
occurs to plants exposed to acid , rain, while the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency demonstrated effects.
of acid rain on tomatoes and apples.
Human health is also threatened by this silent crisis.
The U.S. Council on Environmental Quality has
estimated that "the health- related problems directly
attributable to acid. precipitation are costing the country
$2 billion annually." Extrapolating from this U.S. study,
the report ,of the Standing Committee on Resource
DeVeIopment in. Ontario , estimated that "comparable
1 I
the. coMpanY refused to adopt the proPosal, 'claiming it
,of Canadian sulphur dioxide gases; The, giant 'NCO was ',`uneconomical".
superstack in Sudbury alone produces'one per cent of the Sources of acid rain have continually cited the threat.o
world's Vital' annual emissions of sulphur from both piofits and growth if forced to ertvest in P9iintien
natural and man-made sources, while the Noranda controls. INCO chairman Walter Curlook said in June of
smelter• in. Rouyn-Noranda; Quebec, emitted a stagger- this year, "It. is our position that (pollution control)
ing 700,000 tons of sulphur dioxide in '1978--about measures should not be imposed at the risk of threat,
two-thirds. the INCO total. On a continental scale, , ening entpleythent and future growth."
fuel burning power ,4'platit's -are responsible 'for-a-major-- 7: Undonbtedly 7the-installation- control -
portico of sulphur and nitrogen oxides: U.S. utility equipment or p011ution-free prodection processes Will be
expensive. But funds are available. According to Jack
Doman of the Ontario Ministry of Envirbnment, ",there
is no queitionin my mind that industry in Canada has the
funds to undertake pollution abatement specified by our
nitrogen oxides have caused significant environmental Ministry."' Unfortunately the funds are not being used;
daage in localized areas for several decades, Years ago Donnan explains, "from the company's point of view m
it became obvious that the 'release of these pollutants there are always better and more productive uses for,
could' not continue without harm spreading further '
'afield.
For those who operated many of the polluting sources,
the obvious was not "`economical".. As Gus Speth,
Chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality
has said, 'instead of expending the necessary money and
effort to remove sulpluir , and other pollutants from their
emissions, (operators of polluting sources) decided to farm crops, fishing and tourist operations, and perhaps
most frighteningly, human health. We all rely, on the
fdrests, soils and lakes as the basis of our life support
systems. And we are only beginning to understand the
p011utants was considered too expensive, so the compan- significance and extent of this dependence.
ies looked instead to' the winds for an answer, Tall We are slowly realizing that the ultimate fate of our
smokestacks were construci.ed to disperse the gases high environment and fateof our own species. are one and the
into the atmosphere where they would eventually be same. By our future choices we must let it become Clear
that the health and , welfare of people and the environ-
ment take precedence over, the profit and growth
imperatives of the past. We can allow the crisis of acid
rain to remain silent no longer.
health oats within the province could tie abeut 80, Million Plants "fine gas' desillphurization technology,.,,oVer
dollars per year." several years of operation has demonstrated increasing
The environmental and social: costs, of acid rain are reliability and levels of:performance in removing up to 90
escalating rapidly, yet polluting sources continue to per cent of sulphur dioxide eminissions," says the IL S.
pump Millions of pounds of sulphur and nitrogen, oxides Environmental Protection Agency Implementation of
skyward. During 1975, over 30 million tonnes of sulphur
dioxide and 24 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides were
released 'from man-made sources 'into the Mirth
American atmosphere, 13y far the largest sources of acid
causing polhttnutr-in-C-afiada are a
smelters, which'release 45 per cent of the 5.0 million tons
companies have nearly quadrupled their output of these ,
pollutants over the' past 25 years. ,
Acid rain is not a new phenornenan; it is simply 'a
different manifestation of an old problem. Sulphur and
available cash than pollution. abatement.'
Yet, as a result of deciSiens not to implement the
available pollution contrel measures, the environmental
damage caused by acid rain eScalates. Many of the
world's finest lakes and rivers are now lifeless and
thousands more are in immenent danger of sharing the
same fate. Acid rain has also' inflicted costly damage on
society through its attack on buildings, automobiles,
solve the air pollution problem...by the out of sight, out
of -mind approach." .
Equipment that removed or prevented the release of
• 4
this Control measure has, however, been very slow with
• companies continually citing the, cost as a dete.rrent;
Technology to curtail pollution output from smelters
also exists, During 1975 loco developed a plan to reduce
iremissions-of-sulphur-by-ever-21000-tons-per-days.
Clues 24.0n the city's outskirts
Across • 25.The opposite of short
1.Where pedestrians walk Down
-7.They live in-sewers- -- - -----
9.Big trucks are called .... 1.Where food is bought
10.A traffic sign 2.Slower than a run
12.Another -word for coach 3.Street
4.W hat merchants own 13.V/here planes land
5.Another word for cab 14.A padlock needs one
6.A fast thoroughfare 15-It has seven days
8.High rise 17.Keep them on leashes
20.Property go to 11.Another word for avenue
the government 12.Where money is kept
21.Where one borrows books 16.Where sick people go
22.Where goods are sold 18.A sky
23.The surface on roads 19.Tourists look at
2. )
By Murray Gaunt
Environmental issues are very much in the news again
this week.
The South Cayuga liquid waste disposal site continues
to be a very hot political issue in the Legislature. The
opposition parties are demanding an environmental
assessment hearing the Minister steadfastly refused to
grant such a hearing. The matter, however, has been
referred to the Resources Development Standing
Committee for hearings likely to commence some time in
January. According to the McLaren Report Huron
County, specifically Ashfield Township, was considered
as an optimum location for such a disposal plant..
However, the Ministry has now withdrawn from •0that
proposal and has opted for the South Caytiga site.
In Harwich Township, the Ontario Divisional Court on
Tuesday squashed both a bylaw prohibiting the dumping
of industrial liquid and hazardous waste in Harwich, and
also the province's provisional certificate granting Ridge
Landfill Corp. the right to dump such waste in the
township. It did, however, grant the township the right to
have an environmental hearing-into provincial approval
of the dumping of industrial liquid waste, and it appears .
that procedures for a new certificate will have to be
followed by Ridge Landfill if they wish to continue to
operate the landfill site. The Environment Ministry and
the company, had proposed to build a $3 million plant for
solidification of industrial wastes.
Dioxin in Lake Ontario
A new report of a four month investigation has shown
that the Niagara Falls, New York area is the most
environmentally contaminated in North America due to a
combination of leaking hazardous waste dumps,
chemicals escaping from factories, buried explosives,
radiation, and raw sewage. Toxic wastes have been
found as far away as Toronto and Kingston. Dioxin from
sources in Niagara, the most poisonous substance made
by man, has been detected in herring gull eggs
indicatinga that dioxin has spread through the lake's
waters and is still seeping from old chemical dumps into
• the Niagara River.
The Ontario Environment Assessment. Board in a
decision released Friday, recommended a $2 million
project be approved for a treatment plant for liquid
industrial wastes in Ajax. This was done in spite of a
contrary recomniendation. from three members of the
board who conducted public hearings on the scheme last
spring. Ajax Council Monday night re-affirmed the
town's official opposition to the waste plant. The
Ministry of the Environment however, has suggested
that the matter be reviewed and it now appears, as if the
project is in jeopardy.
The controversy over documents pertaining to Re-Mor
Investments continues in the Legislature. Last week a
warrant was issued to the. Consumer and Commercial
Relations Ministry to hand over documents in the case, in
order that the justice committee could investigate the
role of the Ministry in licencing Re-Mor only 13 days
after another of Mr. Montemurro's companies was
ordered into receivership. Liberal MPPs favour
publication of certain documents, with reservations as to
which documents could be released without prejudicing
any future court cases.
After intensive negotiation among all three parties the
Ontario Government finally agreed to produce all the
documents to Re-Mor as well as two other companies but
only six MPPs, 2 from each party, will get a chance to
look at them. The arrangement averted a crisis for the
government which could have resulted in Consumer and
Commercial Relations Minister Frank Drea being, check
for contempt of the House. The documents are supposed
to be released early next week.
(c) 1980 Canada Wide Feature Service Ltd.
by MacKay Fairfield Tate
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