Environmental News from Georgia Strait, British Columbia, Canada and from the World
Index & Home Page		Search this site
Environmental News from Georgia Strait in British Columbia, Canada and from the World

---

Go to: Watershed Sentinel home page    Go to: Reach For Unbleached! home page

---

EDITORIAL

---

Black Masks

George Woodcock, the great Canadian anarchist writer and literary critic, writing in the aftermath of the FLQ crisis, first opened my mind to the political evil of terrorism, as something which is inherently anti-democratic in its attempt to impose on other people by force.

Now so-called "anarchists" in black masks, lauding "Direct Action," endanger the lives and hard work of hundreds of thousands of people at the assorted anti-globalization demonstrations. Violent demonstrations are an invitation to paint all opposition as mere hoodlums, in the great media battles for the people's hearts and minds. The political acumen of folks who want to take on the global forces of capitalism and militarism by breaking windows may leave something to be desired.

Also, to many ordinary people, the black masks themselves are an echo of other terrors, and not a path to follow. But worse than that, there is no way to tell who a black masked figure is. Any cop, agent provocateur, or lowly insurance scam operator can put on a black mask and trash the joint. In whose interests? How many, on what payrolls, behind those ugly angry black masks?

At the same time, we don't think the bureaucrats and politicians who are delivering us up to the global corporations like lambs to the slaughter need to have any fear for their personal security.

If Gandhi were here, I am sure he would say, "Take off your masks. Sit down in a peaceful assembly of resolute fellows. Join the clear and honourable path of change."

If the democratic rights of free speech and free assembly are now anti-American and thus anti-democratic, if the police batons strike, the censors howl, and pink slips fall like rain, so be it. We will know, in our grief, that the end-game is near and we shall overcome.

* Delores Broten, Whaletown, April 2002

---

So Quotable

"We need to re-establish the connection between politics and pay cheques in our members' minds that makes our relationship to the NDP so critical."

* Jim Sinclair, President, BC Federation of Labour, letter to the Vancouver Sun, May 23, 2002

---

Welcome

Welcome to the readers at fifty new locations which are receiving 3,500 copies of the Watershed Sentinel as part of our Youth Talks program. We hope you will let us know what you like about the magazine, and what you would like to see within these covers.

* Please email dbroten@rfu.org

---

Your Signature Counts!

It's not to late to register with BC Elections so you can sign the Proportional Representation petition. Every signature counts, so check out the web site, www.freeyourvote.bc.ca for the location of a petition drive near you. Your signature counts toward making your vote count too!

---

OPINION

---

Words from the Chilcotin on
How to Survive the Blizzard
By Dave Neads

---

NEWS

---

Great Bear Rainforest Deal Still On
by Delores Broten

Gut Gut Gut
BC Liberals go on Sustainability Spending Spree

GSX Review to Include Emissions
End-use Emissions Included in Gas Pipeline Review

---

Light Shines Green for Conservation

---

Albertans Back Kyoto

---

TAKING CARE OF WATER

---

The Salish Sea
Pulling the Plug on Pollution
By Delores Broten

---

FEATURE

---

Global Justice for the G6B
Since the September attacks,
the G8 meeting in Alberta in June will be
the first big test for protesters and for civil liberties.

On June 26 and 27, 2002, the leaders of the world's most industrialized countries, the Group of Eight (G8), will meet in Kananaskis, Alberta. They will make critical decisions that will have global impact. The army and police will be in full attendance. Organizing by global justice advocates throughout Alberta and the virtual village has been extensive. There will be a peace vigil in Calgary, and a Labour/family march June 23rd. Direct actions are also expected to be ongoing through the G8 meetings. For information on the actions, meetings, and ongoing organizing, go to www.g8.activist.ca A G8 counter conference, the G6B (Group of 6 Billion) will be held in Calgary June 21-25, offering a forum to discuss ideas and solutions that will promote economic activities that are beneficial to people living in all parts of the world, but that also reflect full respect for human rights and the environment. Speakers range from Matthew Coon Come to Stephen Lewis and David Korten, along with many from Africa and Asia. Pre-registration advised. * International Society for Peace and Human Rights, www.peaceandhumanrights.org Contact: Lynn Foster, Ph: (403)202-0638; Email: fosterlf@shaw.ca; University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4

Ruckus Society
Nonviolent Direct Action
by John Sellers

The Ruckus Society is an interesting community of activists, a unique critter out there in the world of non-governmental organizations, because we don't have specific campaigns that we work on. We're much more of a support organization. We do our best work and are most rewarded by being of service to different movements in environmental and human rights struggles, fair trade, and labour issues.

Our specialty is the use of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. Nonviolent direct action is any kind of action that people take to intervene with a perceived injustice. It could be something as simple as signing a petition or writing a letter or something as profound as hanging off a bridge to stop a nuclear aircraft carrier from coming into port. Civil disobedience is the conscious disobeying of unjust laws. Lots of people confuse those terms or use them interchangeably.

The centerpiece of Ruckus Society is a programme we call Action Camp, a four-to-six-day dynamic learning experience. We camp out in either a beautiful wilderness area or in the fringes around cities, with anywhere from 100 to 200 people. We teach theoretical workshops in skill areas such as basic training in nonviolent direct action, the use of nonviolence, the history and strategic use of confrontational nonviolence, media for direct action, campaign strategies, direct action planning, scouting and reconnaissance, communications, and political theatre. We also spend half our time in physical, hands-on training, teaching technical tree climbing, blockading, and - something we are most well known for - our urban climbing techniques. We also do a lot of role plays to try to bring as much realism in to camp as possible, so folks get an initial perception of what an action is going to be like in the real world.

Action camp is an extremely dynamic and inspiring community. People of all ages come together to share responsibility, take care of one another, share skills and gifts, and gently push each other to do their best work. We get a lot of youth to these camps, and I think they're some of the most dynamic, energetic participants we get. Many of the skills that we share at camp can be directly applied to campaigns being led by young people. Whether they're interested in the environment, social justice, or fair trade, often times you see youth making the connections about globalization more powerfully than anyone because it's just so natural to them.

The Ruckus Society started out as a forest-specific organization, and we really didn't come out of the woods until 1998, when we did our first Human Rights Action Camp. Since that time, we have reached out to and been approached by so many different movements and diverse communities. It's really been an amazing growth process for us and has opened our perception of who we can be.

Part of the growth process has been the general recognition that until the movement accurately reflects the diversity of the greater society in which it exists, it's not going to be a successful movement. In fact, it may even be dishonest to call it a movement - a real movement - until it cuts across the race, gender, and class boundaries that have traditionally been divisive.

... It's not easy to deal with the institutional and personal racism that we have as white people in a society that's been constructed for our benefit to the exclusion of other people. It was an incredible learning experience, and in fact I think many people took away more from that camp than from any other Ruckus Camp.

In the ten years that I've been doing this work professionally, I've never felt better than I do right now. I think that the tide is turning. We're beginning to win. Certainly we're still seeing the loss of habitat and ecosystems and the continued suppression of people in marginalized communities around the planet. On a purely materialistic level, everything that we value is fading fast. It would be easy to get demoralized. But instead we're getting organized, and anyone with their ear to the ground can hear the not so distant thunder of our movement.

* Reprinted with permission from: Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century, by Neva Welton and Linda Wolf. ISBN: 0-86571-446-0, $25.95. Available at your local independent bookstore or directly from New Society Publishers, by phone (800)567-6772, or online www.newsociety.com

Starhawk "The G8 summit is the moment for the global justice movement in North America to return from the setbacks of 9-11 with renewed vigor and creativity. With strong support from the Canadian labour movement and thousands of union members coming to take action, it's an opportunity to reforge and strengthen alliances among broad sectors of the movement, and make the impact of global policies on working people a central focus. And with new wars on the horizon every day, ongoing violence in the Middle East and the far East, an invasion of Iraq on the Bush agenda, it's a vitally important moment to draw attention to the links between militarism and global corporate capitalism, to pry Canada away from backing the US drive for hegemony, to unite the movement for global justice with the movement for peace ... The moment is crucial enough, and the stakes high enough, that it is a worthwhile use of our resources to go there if we possibly can ... western Canada is where the beast has gone to ground, and where the central drama needs to take place. Come to Calgary and Kananaskis country if you can, and then bring the struggle back home with renewed energy and new alliances. * www.starhawk.org

---

The Boomers and the Bomb
Fallout From the BOMB Tests Headed Straight For BC
Vancouver Was a Known Hot Spot
NO ONE Is Checking the Health Impacts
By Frank Rotering

A recent US study has acknowledged for the first time that fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and early 1960s exposed the entire US population to radiation. Although levels were low, they were higher than previously suspected, and heavily concentrated in a number of "hot spots," including California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

While the study stopped at the Canada-US border, the radiation did not. British Columbia is in fact a known hot spot for radiation exposure. In 1994 three researchers from Health Canada issued a study which clearly illustrated BC's vulnerable position. They showed that most of the radioactive fallout during this period was deposited between 40 and 60 degrees north latitude. Vancouver, at 49 degrees north latitude, was right in the middle of the hot zone.

To see why BC was hit so hard after the nuclear tests, take a globe or world map and put your finger on the province. Now trace a line due west, across the Pacific Ocean. Where it first hits land, your finger will be at the Kamchatka Peninsula in the former Soviet Union, the Siberian outpost where many of the Soviet tests took place during the Cold War.

The fallout from these tests was picked up by the prevailing westerly winds and headed straight for BC. On arriving here a week or so later, the radioactive dust was stopped by our mountains and deposited with our frequent rains. To a lesser degree, the same happened with US tests in the South Pacific and with Chinese tests at Lop Nur in China's interior.

Once on the ground, the radioactive particles insinuated themselves into the food chain and drinking water. Cows grazed where the rain fell, contaminating their milk. Crops were coated and absorbed the fallout. The radioactive food and water were then ingested, mothers and children being most at risk.

"Baby boomers" were born in the two decades following World War II, when the atmospheric testing took place. This makes the boomers unique in a fundamental way. They are the only generation in history to have absorbed significant amounts of radiation while in their mothers' wombs. During infancy, no other generation has so extensively breathed radioactive air, played in radioactive rain, or consumed radioactive milk. As a result the boomers, especially those who grew up in BC, are unwitting participants in an unprecedented experiment in radiation exposure.

Red Fallout

On September 20, 1961 the Vancouver Sun ran a huge headline on its front page: "Red Fallout Soars To Record In Canada." Then, in smaller type: "No Hazard - at Moment."

These few words speak volumes about the early 1960s. A Cold War raged between the United States and the Soviet Union - the "Reds." As part of their escalating war preparations, the two sides repeatedly exploded nuclear bombs within their territories. Between 1945 and 1963, the two countries conducted hundreds of above-ground nuclear tests, each pumping massive amounts of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.

Scientists were ignorant then, as they are today, about what levels of radiation are safe. Despite this ignorance, government officials and university professors reassured people that the radiation posed no danger to health. More seriously, mothers were encouraged to continue feeding milk to their children.

As the tests continued, suspicions grew that fallout increased birth defects and the incidence of leukemia. Public outrage swelled, especially in the US. Huge protests were held in Washington DC, pressing for an end to American testing in the Nevada desert. In October 1958, Californians panicked when the Los Angeles health department reported that radiation there was 20% above safe levels.

American chemist Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel prize winner, estimated in 1958 that tests conducted until then would cause one million people to die from leukemia. This number, he said, would rise to five million if the tests continued. When a sharp rise in radioactivity was detected in children's teeth and bones, Pauling and 2,000 other scientists petitioned the US government to stop the testing. President Eisenhower rejected this initiative, prompting Pauling to take his campaign to the international stage. He gathered 9,000 signatures from scientists in 44 countries, then presented the petition to the United Nations.

This worked. In August 1963, the US, Soviet Union, and the UK signed a treaty that banned above-ground nuclear tests. France and China were not at the table and continued atmospheric testing until China exploded its last bomb in 1986.

During their reign of terror, the tests produced two sharp peaks in global radiation levels: one in 1957-58 and the other in 1961-64. The first peak resulted from the initial phase of heavy testing by the US and the Soviet Union. Radiation then plunged as the two superpowers voluntarily suspended their tests. In 1961, during the Berlin Crisis, the Soviet Union unilaterally ended the moratorium and resumed its detonations. The US quickly followed suit, driving global radiation to new highs. After the 1963 treaty was signed, environmental radiation declined rapidly and never again approached these nightmare levels.

Hot Rain Falls on Vancouver

While fallout descended on the province, BC residents were bombarded with conflicting advice from the experts. Dr. Gordon Shrum, head of UBC's Physics department, admitted in 1956 that fallout could scatter around the globe, and that prolonged testing could harm human health. However, as a vigorous proponent of nuclear technologies, he repeatedly insisted that current levels of fallout were much too low to impair human health. Shrum rejected claims that thousands would die from fallout as "mainly propaganda."

When "hot rain" fell on Vancouver in 1958, causing radiation to increase to 150-to-175 times normal levels, Shrum said there was "no need to worry." But a physicist in Shrum's own department, Dr. G.M. Griffiths, was deeply concerned about the radiation levels in BC due to the heavy rains here. Siding with Griffiths was Dr. James Foulkes, head of UBC's pharmacology department. Foulkes rejected claims by some scientists that in small doses, radiation does no harm to humans.

In 1959, BC mothers were confidently advised by Dr. Harold Copp, of UBC's Physiology department, that they should continue to use milk. Copp said he would personally keep buying milk because the level of radioactivity it contained was "far, far below the danger level."

Two government figures also offered assurances about the safety of radiation levels. Waldo Monteith, Health Minister in the Diefenbaker government, said categorically that, "... current supplies of fluid milk are safe for public consumption." Peter Bird, head of Canada's radiological protection agency, stated with similar conviction that radiation never reached dangerous levels in Canada.

Health Indicators

The health of BC residents is among the best in the world, and it improves year by year. BC's health statistics over the past century show rates of death and disease going rapidly down, while life expectancy moves steadily up.

Infant deaths in the first year of life -- the infant mortality rate -- is now less than four per 1,000 live births in BC. It was 60 per 1,000 live births in 1920. Even more dramatic is the reduction in maternal mortality rates. In the 1920s, about six mothers died during childbirth for every 1,000 live births. Today the number is virtually zero. Life expectancy for babies born in BC today is almost 80 years, an increase of 16 years since 1920. Clearly, these figures and many others are cause for rejoicing.

But during this period of rapid improvement there is a puzzling exception. From about 1960 to 1980 several health indicators in BC, particularly those relating to infant mortality, improved at a slower pace than before or after.

One example is the rate of infant mortality due to congenital anomalies [See chart on page 19]. Congenital anomalies are physical or mental defects, present at birth, that arise from abnormal development of the fetus. This rate declined by an average of 4% per year before 1961, then fluctuated around the same level until 1980. After 1980 the historical decline resumed.

A similar pattern holds for stillbirths, which refers to fetuses that have reached 20 weeks of gestation and weigh at least 500 grams, but are born lifeless. The rate of stillbirths in BC declined rapidly until 1962, then failed to improve until 1973, when it resumed its downward trend.

These examples might be dismissed as statistical aberrations in a small population, but the pattern in BC was repeated elsewhere. In the US the impact on infant mortality occurred earlier and struck with greater force.

A 1968 study of US infant mortality rates cited a sharp decrease from 1900 to 1950, but noted a levelling off after 1950. The report concluded that "a fundamental change had occurred." In 1984 an international symposium on infant mortality found a marked slow down in infant mortality improvements between 1950 and 1970 in Sweden, West Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Evidently, something happened across much of the northern hemisphere, starting around 1950 and petering out in the 1970s, which adversely affected public health. Officially, no one knows what it is. The most prominent hypothesis links the slow down in public health improvements to the radiation from the atmospheric bomb tests.

The scientists associated with this controversial idea include Ernest Sternglass, Arthur Tamplin, Karl Morgan, Thomas Mancuso, Carl Johnson, John Gofman, and Jay Gould (not to be confused with biologist Stephen Jay Gould). Sternglass, a Professor of Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, sounded the alert in his 1972 book, Secret Fallout. He described his discovery of relative health degradation wherever fallout landed or nuclear power plants vented radioactive gases.

Sternglass recounts the experience of Professor Herbert Clark and his radiochemistry class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York in April 1953. The students' Geiger counter readings were extremely high -- up to 1,000 times the normal level. Two factors were found to be responsible: a 43-kiloton atomic bomb test in Nevada two days earlier, and heavy rainfall in New York the night before.

In 1968 Sternglass wrote a paper on the New York incident for Science magazine. This paper was rejected by the editors, prompting Sternglass to delve into New York's public health statistics to address their objections. He was looking for leukemia data in the three counties around Rensselaer, but also recorded infant mortality data for the area. To his surprise, these statistics showed that the historical improvement in infant mortality came to a virtual halt in the 1950s, when the Nevada tests began.

Low Level Radiation

In 1991 Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman published Deadly Deceit: Low-Level Radiation, High-Level Cover-Up, which summarized the findings of this dissident group of scientists. The book also discussed the global health effects of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.

The key idea in Deadly Deceit concerns the relationship between dose (radiation received) and response (health damage). The authors' hypothesis is that extremely low levels of radiation can cause significant health damage if this radiation is applied to sensitive internal organs over a long period of time. Higher levels of radiation applied in the same manner will increase the damage, but at a progressively slower rate.

Radioactive isotopes from fallout or nuclear power plants impact the human body in precisely this fashion. These substances enter our bodies through the food chain, settle in our bones, and irradiate our internal organs at low levels and over long periods.

Conventional nuclear thinking is based largely on the brief, intense, external radiation that results from direct exposure to a nuclear blast. Much of the data for this model comes from studying the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts in 1945. Generally, a linear dose-response relationship is assumed, with no threshold for health damage. This implies that at low levels of radiation, health damage is negligible.

Gould and Goldman Summarize the Different Views This Way:

"Despite the warnings of Rachel Carson, Linus Pauling, and Andrei Sakharov, there is nothing in the century-long experience with brief exposures to high intensity X-rays and radiation to prepare physicians to understand the distinctly different biochemical mechanisms involved in internal low-level radiation. Once radioactive fission products come down in the rain and enter the food chain, immune systems become vulnerable to free radicals by means quite different from the destruction of DNA by high-level radiation. This was not known by many of the nuclear scientists who developed the atomic bomb, and by biologists concerned with genetic damage."

The "free radicals" mentioned by Gould and Goldman are modified oxygen molecules. Such molecules have gained an electron from their collisions with radioactive particles in the body. With an extra electron, normal oxygen becomes negatively charged and highly dangerous to human cells. These radicals are attracted to the cell membrane and dissolve their major constituent, lipid molecules. If the cell is unable to repair the damage, it will die or survive in mutated form. Free radicals are particularly dangerous when they attack the blood cells of the immune system or the cells of the hormone system.

For the most sensitive members of a population -- the very young and very old, and those suffering from immune-related diseases -- the Gould-Goldman hypothesis suggests a damage response approximately 1,000 times greater than the conventional assumption. Such a difference, if it proved accurate, would make a mockery of current radiation standards and practices.

Gould and Goldman fear that the boomers, especially those in rainy, exposed areas like BC, have been most severely affected by radiation from the bomb tests:

"Further research is urgently needed to evaluate the hypothesis that low-level radiation from fallout is a significant factor in the baby-boom generation's immune-system damage. . . . If the hypothesis is correct, postwar immune-system damage would be greater in areas that were hit most heavily by fallout in the rain from the atmospheric bomb tests."

The boomers are part of a health-conscious generation. Most have quit smoking, powerfully driving down the incidence of lung cancer, at least among males. Exercise has become more common, as has a healthy diet. These factors will allow many boomers to experience a long life and a vigorous old age.

For an unknown number, however, the damage to their immune systems from early exposure to radiation could come back to haunt them. Strontium-90, lodged deep in their bones, has been irradiating sensitive organs for up to five decades. This insidious assault may now start taking its toll. Despite advances in medicine and more enlightened lifestyles, cancers and infectious diseases could increasingly claim its boomer victims as weakened immune systems capitulate.

In a belated effort to answer its critics, the US government has concluded the first phase of what may become an extensive study of Cold War fallout exposures and their health effects. When asked about Health Canada's plans, a Ministry spokesperson said that, "We are still actively studying this issue, and we have not ruled out a complete re-assessment of fallout levels nor a comprehensive assessment of the health effects on Canadians."

Boomers and others concerned about the health effects of radiation should pressure the federal government to move forward aggressively with these assessments, for at least three good reasons.

First, boomers could add years to their lives if they recognize the danger and are tested regularly for cancers and immunity-related diseases.

Second, the effects of low-level radiation are intensely disputed. If more data is collected, perhaps a scientific determination can replace the almost ideological schism that currently exists.

Third, Canada could use the data to reconsider its standards and policies regarding radioactivity in foods, especially milk.

Climate and geography once conspired against BC, exposing the province to perhaps the highest fallout levels in the world. This misfortune now gives us an opportunity to improve our public policies and to help resolve some important mysteries about low-level radiation exposure.

* Frank Rotering, 53, is a computer instructor and writer, with a particular interest in public health issues. His father died from leukemia in 1978 at age 56.

* References

Archives of Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Victoria Colonist
Chart #2: BC Vital Statistics Agency, Statistics Canada
Deadly Deceit: Low-level Radiation, High-level Cover-up, Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 1991
A Retrospective of Fallout Monitoring in Canada, E.G. Letourneau, D.P. Meyerhof, and B. Ahier, Health Canada, 1994
Infant, Perinatal, Maternal, and Childhood Mortality in the United States, Sam Shapiro et al., Harvard University Press, 1968
Proceedings of the International Collaborative Effort on Perinatal and Infant Mortality, Volume 1, National Center for Health Statistics, 1984
The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age: The Hidden History, The Human Cost, John May, Pantheon Books, New York, 1989
Secret Fallout: Low-level Radiation from Hiroshima to Three-mile Island, Ernest J. Sternglass, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1972, 1981

Conventional views:
www.unscear.org: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
www.cnts.wpi.edu/rsh: Radiation, Health, and Science
www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/rpteb: BC Radiation Protection Branch

Critical views:
www.ccnr.org: Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
www.radiation.org: Radiation and Public Health Project
www.llrc.org: Low-level Radiation Campaign

---

---

Government Ignores Impact Of Eating Hot Milk

The massive release of radiation from the Chernobyl accident in April 1986 clearly demonstrates the polarized interpretations of radiation exposure and its health effects. There are three main areas of difference:

• The impact of ingested radiation
• Average dose received versus high end exposures
• Variation in vulnerability especially for the very young and very old, and for those with compromised immune systems,

A rough consensus is that the Chernobyl explosion and fire released 200-300 million curies of radiation into the atmosphere, likely thousands of times the amount released at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in 1979. This radiation blanketed the globe, with Vancouver receiving almost three times the Canadian average. In May 1986 the radiation in Vancouver's milk shot up to a level not seen since the early 1970s.

Canada's government agencies down play the possibility of serious health effects. Health and Welfare Canada has concluded that the increased risk of cancer from Chernobyl radiation is well below one-in-10-million over a lifetime. The response from BC's Radiation Protection Branch (below) demonstrates the same viewpoint.

Gould and Goldman, on the other hand, point to significant increases in both total mortality and infant mortality in the US after the arrival there of Chernobyl radiation. Their assessment is that, "... the Chernobyl accident may signal the true danger of low-level radiation to all forms of life."

Rather than speculate as to which interpretation is correct, we can check the infant mortality statistics for BC and Canada to see if they support Gould and Goldman's claims.

Given BC's high level of radiation exposure after Chernobyl, infant mortality should have risen perceptibly. Given the fact that BC received considerably more radiation than the rest of Canada, this increase should be greater than Canada's as a whole. Let's consult Statistics Canada and look at the facts.

From 1971 to 1985 BC's infant mortality rate decreased annually -- 14 consecutive years without a break. In 1986 it rose, and in 1987 it rose again. The 1985 level of 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births wasn't improved upon until 1990, when it dropped to 7.2. If you plot the trend line, you see a conspicuous bulge in BC's infant mortality rate during this period. (There is also a smaller bulge in 1994 and 1995.)

The record for Canada prior to 1986 is similar - 14 consecutive decreases from 1971 to 1985. The improvement then stalls: the 1986 rate is 7.9, the same as 1985. After this brief levelling off, the decline continues. Canada's trend line thus mirrors BC's, but in a much more moderate form.

A lay person can reasonably conclude that infant mortality statistics in BC and Canada are consistent with the Gould/Goldman hypothesis. This means that, barring unknown causal factors or a remarkable statistical fluke, Chernobyl radiation killed infants in BC, and killed them at a faster rate than in the rest of Canada.

---

BC Radiological Protection Branch Responds

"The principal radiation dose to Vancouver residents from the Chernobyl accident occurred during May and June 1986. The amount received was about 1.6 microsieverts. Radiation levels returned to normal by the end of June. This radiation dose was small and can be compared with the levels that British Columbians receive from natural radiation each year (between 870 and 7560 microsieverts) depending on where you live in the province. Also, British Columbians receive on average about 940 microsieverts per year from medical X-rays. No link between the natural background radiation and child mortality has been established, so we would not expect to see any increase from the much lower radiation dose from Chernobyl fallout in Vancouver.

"The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) 2000 Report states, for the residents of the contaminated of Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus, that ". . . apart from the increase in thyroid cancer after childhood exposure, no increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality have been observed due to ionization radiation." This is for the most highly exposed populations who were close to the nuclear reactor site, where the doses received were many thousands of times higher than the levels received here in BC or elsewhere in Canada and the US.

"In attempting to link variations in the statistics for childhood mortality with an incident such as the Chernobyl accident, other causes of such variations need to be thoroughly evaluated to ensure that false associations are not generated."

* David Morley

---

FEATURE

---

Looking Forward
Spiritual Warriors and Healing Change
by Martin William Fournier

"In Western culture, we live with chronic anxiety, anger, and a sense that something essential is missing from our lives, that we exist without a soul. What could be wrong with us? I believe Western culture is suffering from 'Original Trauma,' caused by the systemic removal of our lives from nature, from natural cycles, from the life force itself. This removal began slowly with the introduction of agriculture (about three hundred generations ago) and has grown to crisis proportion in technological society (which began only about five generations ago). With it comes the traumatic loss of a sense of belonging on the Earth." * Chellis Glendinning

I believe this "Original Trauma" has now reached a pinnacle of anxiety, fear, guilt and depression in North America since the events of September 11. This truth can be seen in downtown cores across North America; they are strange mosaics of sad and "busy" individuals propelled by stress amidst a cacophonic hush-hush rustling of shopping bags and subdued coffee talk.

Beyond the fulfilment of our three basic needs, food, water, and shelter, we have become a society of bored and spoiled individuals constantly craving the next mental stimulation. We are consumed with anxiety in the absence of busyness, fearful of peaceful silence. We are afraid to stop and examine our motivations for so much purposeless and random activity. And while we live this posh life in North America, two billion human beings each day cannot fulfil the basic conditions for a healthy life. Poverty here is only relative to resource hoarding and greed, not real scarcity. The real gap between the world's poorest and richest is now 80% to 85% for the poor, against 15% to 20% for the rich, according to most world wealth distribution indexes, leaving most of the Western populations at the top echelon while the rest are scraping the bucket and resenting their conditions. Let's face it, we live a life that many nations and individuals around the world would literally kill to experience.

As September 11 has recently shown us, we must now choose a side. Are we willing to envision a world that isn't entrenched in competitive resource wars for oil, agricultural expansion, water, and natural resource extraction? Are we going to "wage war" for destruction and patriarchal servitude or are we going to "wage war" for peace and cooperation? We now have two choices. To be complacent and let fear engulf us or to acknowledge truth and courageously join the vanguard of positive change.

To embrace change won't be easy. Chogyam Trungpa, a famous Buddhist monk, writes in Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior, about the discipline required to enter the fray of change as spiritual warriors:

"The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well. Without that heartfelt sadness, bravery is brittle, like a china cup. If you drop it, it will break or chip. But the bravery of the warrior is like a lacquer cup, which has a wooden base covered with layers of lacquer. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break. It is soft and hard at the same time."

Our battle is a planetary spiritual one, a meeting of might between exploiters and nurturers, a life without or within nature, the choice between a steadfast denial of our sad condition, or the acknowledgment of a pressing need for healing change. Once we decide to empower ourselves, we come home. We awaken in our communities.

Our most powerful weapon is the Joy of Genuine Action; the expression of our commitment to generate life in its various forms. Our motivation for change becomes sentience growth (life growth in all its forms) within Mother Earth's Womb.

In order to contribute to sentience growth our first task as spiritual warriors is to regain personal and intimate control of our food supply so that we can be nourished from the humility that comes with growing and connecting with our food source; we can be nourished from a position of reverence rather than one of exploitation. Food is our basic spiritual sustenance for groundedness. It is our main antidote, along with sincere participation, to stress. It is time that we reclaim our food supply so that we break free from exchanging our vitality (creativity), the true currency on this planet. It is time that we feed our spirits to in turn generate economic, social and environmental wealth that serves the community of Earth.

The ones among us who have land in our communities can, for example, enter into cooperative agreements with the less fortunate to let them use a portion of their "ornamental" lawns to grow food. In exchange for "renting" their green patches they could in turn receive a portion of the produce for personal consumption. In each community, we can already find permaculture and organic agriculture specialists ready to help us enrich our knowledge of food production and land stewardship.

Once we are fed, the next task is to reclaim our collective capacity to invest in our potential. This process begins with the removal of community incomes from the central banking corporate institutes entrenched locally, and the reinvestment of capital into communal and decentralized institutions such as credit unions. Once the community is off the "corporate grid," local projects can be funded to create local employment. Such local projects should involve the fast growing alternative energy sector (solar, wind, and tidal).

Once energy is generated locally, committed individuals can get together with engineers and green business investors to design sustainable enterprises and industries, such as hemp clothing manufacturing, bio-materials for packaging, etc. Engineers and green business people can also begin collaboratively brainstorming for the design of economically viable recycling centres where excess metals, plastics, cardboard, glass and high value recyclables can be sold for production at rates cheaper than resource extraction, effectively reducing the community's reliance on "cheap" corporate products.

As locals reclaim their economic potential, political and social activities flourish. For example, an awakened earth-centred neighbourhood can form sustainability councils to legislate corporate power and support environmentally and socially friendly business. A socially beneficial activity can be the creation of cooperative forms of social services such as home-based day care centres located in the community. As more communal forms of social services arise, a new form of capital, social capital, can be quantified for food and housing. People can "socially volunteer" and create products and services in exchange for life's basic necessities.

Once a community of spiritual warriors is food-sufficient, energy sufficient, self-employed, and politically, socially, and environmentally functional, creativity is catalyzed. For example a human development service economy sector could emerge where spiritual teachers, massage therapists, healing arts practitioners, musical teachers, and philosophical counsellors could flourish to fulfil a need for individual creative development. As more individuals come in touch with their artistic power they could either stay and enrich the community or go on to other communities to teach others how to reclaim self-sufficiency.

We also have to remember that suffering is part of the journey, and that without it we will not learn. Inevitably, as the human species creatively self-designs new ways of existence, and as the natural balance is restored, Earth's human populations will stabilize. Humans will come to see death as a natural and inevitable process. This acknowledgment will be a fundamental shift in Western culture; the replacement of materialist values as fulfilment with values of blessedness for the opportunity to be alive and its reverential and joyful expression.

There is no telling how creative we will be in freeing ourselves from the limitations of our conflicting "globalized" consumerism ideology. The only certainty we have is that a brave new journey has begun and that we must trust that sincerity will be our guide.

* Sources:

Glendinning, Chellis. "Recovery from Western Civilization," in Deep Ecology: Readings on the philosophy and practice of the new environmentalism by George Sessions, Shambhala Publications, 1995.

Trungpa, Chogyam. Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, 1984.

* Sponsored by Youth Talks at the Watershed Sentinel, with thanks to the Department of Canadian Heritage. Youth Talks offers opportunities for young writers to get their work into print.

---

BC Oysters Face Cadmium Challenge
Canada's toxic policies fail again.
Health Canada's risk assessment says BC oysters should be consumed "in moderation"
but no one told the local shellfish farmers or communities about the advice
by Delores Broten

Background In 1999, shipments of oysters from British Columbia were turned back from the Hong Kong market because they exceeded limits on cadmium for imported shellfish. In 2000, testing of farmed oysters around Georgia Strait by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed that some BC oysters were extremely high in cadmium and the mean cadmium content was one third higher than Hong Kong standards. Fisheries and Oceans Canada began to study the issue, published a report by George Kruzynski on the web (http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas/), and held an international experts workshop on the problem in March 2001. Clams do not bind cadmium to their tissue like oysters and scallops do.

British Columbia's oyster aquaculture industry has built itself from the ground up, overcoming many problems as it has developed from low income back-breaking beach operations based on wild seed, to a mechanised deep water culture. Today the BC industry is worth about $15 million and employs over 1,000 people, exporting two thirds of the product to the United States.

The BC government is in the midst of an aggressive plan to expand the shellfish aquaculture industry by 10% a year for a decade, to provide government revenues and rural employment. In a classic but small- scale BC land use conflict, those plans are being challenged by local neighbourhood organizations and the Alliance for Responsible Shellfish Farming. Many neighbours find the visual, noise, and garbage impacts of a newly-mechanised oyster industry unacceptable in rural residential bays. Growers respond that they are hard-working people trying to make an honest living.

Further, biologists are starting to examine the ecological impacts of the industry on foreshore and bird habitat, a shock to an industry which has always prided itself on its environmental sustainability. In areas like Cortes Island's Gorge Harbour, the tension has been aggravated by an industry-sponsored study purporting to show the feasibility of massive expansion. In rural communities, it is never difficult to arouse social animosities, fought out with outrageous accusations and tedious zoning battles. The government's appointment of Brian Kingzett, a grower and advisor to the BC Shellfish Growers' Association (BCSGA) as the gatekeeper for public comment on a new Code of Practice for the industry has not inspired confidence. The Alliance for Responsible Shellfish Farming calls it a "clear conflict of interest."

In the midst of these issues, in early February 2002, Health Canada issued a risk assessment advising that "regular consumers, including fisher persons or subsistence eaters" limit their consumption of British Columbia oysters to twelve a month for adults and one and a half for children, due to high cadmium content. Because cadmium is slowly accumulated and stored in the liver and kidney, Health Canada focused on the long-term local consumer.

For retail customers, "consumption in moderation, as part of a well-balanced diet, of a mix of commercially-sold oysters" containing the coastal mean of 2.6 parts per million cadmium "would not pose an imminent health risk to adults." Consumption at the retail level by children might be assessed as "problematic" except that most children don't eat a lot of oysters, and their cadmium intake (and storage) will be averaged over a lifetime.

Cadmium is a toxic metal, which threatens world food supply in rice or other staples. The World Health Organization has established an estimate of safe consumption levels for cadmium, a Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake, of 490 micrograms per week for a 70 kg. man, and less for smaller people, eg.) 350 micrograms for a 50 kg. person. Twelve Pacific oysters a month, every month, containing the mean amount of cadmium, plus the cadmium in other food, would put a 70 kilogram adult very close to the advisable consumption for cadmium. Health Canada calls 12 oysters four and a half servings (!)

Accumulation of low levels of cadmium, some of which is retained in the liver and kidneys, can be tolerated, but high levels of consumption can sometimes lead to kidney and lung impairment, bone frailty, possible nerve and brain impairment, and reproductive problems for male development. Many of these effects for human health are disputed, probably because there is variability between species and groups of people. There is no disagreement that inhaled cadmium is almost certainly a human carcinogen.

Health Canada noted a high variability in test results from different locations along the BC coast, which means that many oysters are low in cadmium and perfectly fine, while others have so much cadmium in them that two or three would contain the weekly suggested limit for cadmium ingestion.

Cadmium is absorbed in minute amounts from most of our food, such as rice and potatoes, at levels of between one fifth to three quarters of the World Health Organization estimated tolerable weekly intake on a long term basis. In 1994, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act Priority Substances report on Cadmium and its Compounds, after examining food and air issues, reported that "several lines of evidence indicate that members of the general population in Canada are exposed to cadmium compounds in amounts that are at or near those that have been associated with mild effects on the kidney." A more recent UN assessment agrees, "There is only a relatively small safety margin between exposure in the normal diet and exposure that produces deleterious effects."

The crux of the toxics policy failure in Canada is this: Three months after the Health Canada risk assessment was sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), no one has informed the local populations, small growers, or doctors along BC's coast, of Health Canada's advice to "take it easy" on the oysters.

Klaus Schallie of CFIA which asked Health Canada for the risk assessment, has drawn up a "multi-stakeholder committee" of federal and provincial government representatives and the BC Shellfish Growers Association to discuss the "communication strategy" for telling the public. In toxics policy lingo, this is called the risk management stage. As of the end of May, Schallie planned for that committee to meet to start discussing how to communicate the problem, "in a month or so." In fact, a wide circle of bureaucrats and scientists already know about the risk assessment.

The only folks not "in the loop" are those whose health is most likely to be affected -- local people eating oysters, some of them off particular beaches and rafts which may be hot spots for cadmium contamination -- and new investors, including First Nations, who are being encouraged to enter the industry as part of government-driven economic growth.

The concern expressed by most government bureaucrats, in particular those at CFIA, and the provincial Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fish, is to preserve the market for Pacific oysters. Most of the bureaucrats have evolved defensive but not particularly scientific arguments why the BC coastal public should not yet be informed of the risk assessment. The various arguments range from lifestyle, "I personally eat a lot of oysters and I'm healthy," to historical, "The First Nations ate lots of native rock oysters and they were ok."

Of course, the old stand-by is always, 'It's not our responsibility,' with the finger being pointed back to CFIA. Only Fisheries and Oceans agrees that shellfish advisories for recreational harvesting are part of their mandate (for example they run the Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning warning hotline) but the cadmium issue presents new challenges because the bureaucratic ball is in CFIA's court.

BC Ministry of Health Doctor Ray Copes, only recently informed of the problem, suggested that some local research would be a good start, since cadmium absorption depends on individual nutrition, zinc and calcium levels, age, and sex. "If very little gets in, you don't have a problem, and we don't have that information." Copes emphasized that public health was his mandate, but pointed out that, although cadmium does certainly have chronic toxicity effects on long term exposure, it is "a problem, not an emergency."

The BC government considers the issue of cadmium-contaminated product to be irrelevant to its lease expansion plans and so far is not even considering cadmium measurements as a site feasibility criteria. The US provides a prime market for BC shellfish, and their allowable levels, at 3.7 parts per million, are almost twice as high as those at the Hong Kong border (2 ppm). Inside Canada, there are no restrictions on cadmium levels. Therefore, the provincial government foresees no problem.

The BCSGA, whose consultant is shellfish grower Brian Kingzett, appears to have been trying to keep the lid on news about the cadmium levels. Kingzett complained to their superiors that scientists who spoke by invitation of Friends of Cortes Island to a community meeting in January were guilty of unprofessional conduct and fear-mongering. The BCSGA first agreed to participate and then withdrew from research that the scientists at Fisheries and Oceans and several BC universities had been planning for over a year.

The scientists think a "grow out" experiment, at many different sites by various methods, with regular sampling every month, will tell them when and where in the oysters' life, the cadmium enters. This information could allow growers to site or time their operations to avoid high cadmium inputs. For example, some (clearcut) watersheds may be leaching high cadmium from exposed rock, or beach versus in-water life cycles might change the cadmium uptake, or it may occur only at certain times of the year, with certain plankton blooms or at particular oyster ages.

When BCSGA withdrew from the research, funding from an aquaculture development fund was lost. The research is now stalled, partially done. [BCSGA did not respond to a request for a statement about their position on cadmium for this article.]

That the research was able to proceed at all was due to the co-operation of individual growers along the coast, who want to get to the bottom of this problem. Many members of the shellfish industry have been proactive in working for clean water and they are proud of their environmental record. The Cortes Island Shellfish Growers' Co-op, whose 55 independent members are clear that ignoring the problem will not make it go away, are serious about wanting more information. "We are joining the search for answers," says spokesman Cec Robinson, "because we want to do the right thing. I want to know what is the best way to grow oysters to avoid cadmium uptake."

Some Numbers on Cadmium
Hong Kong Import Limit:	2 ppm (parts per million)
USA Import Limit:	3.7 ppm
Canadian Limit:	None
Codex Alimentarius Limit Under Discussion: (Note: unlikely to pass due in part to new objections from Canada who says it is not economically feasible, and therefore beyond Codex mandate.)	1 ppm
BC Coastal Mean, Year 2000 survey:	2.65 ppm (one half more - highest approx. 5.5 ppm, one half less - lowest about 1.5 ppm )
BC Coastal Average, Year 2000 survey:	2.89 ppm (approx.)
World Health Organization (WHO) Provisional Weekly Tolerable Intake for life long exposure:	7 micrograms per week per kilogram of body weight (eg. 490 micrograms/week for a 70 kilogram adult)
Canadian estimated average dietary intake from food (circa 1994):	approximately 103 micrograms per week (same 70 kg. adult)
Smokers, one pack of cigarettes daily:	add 26 to 35 micrograms a week
1 BC oyster at 2.6 ppm and 40 grams weight:	104 micrograms

In Other Countries Northern European countries have moved to control cadmium releases. Levels in the population and the North Sea are falling. Air pollution controls are capturing airborne cadmium. Sweden, Finland, Denmark and others control the amount of cadmium allowed in fertilizer, and Sweden taxes fertilizer based on its cadmium content. Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands strictly regulate the amount of cadmium in plastics and Sweden bans its use as a stabilizer in plastic.

Missing medical data: Cadmium absorption is a complicated process, affected by many factors, from the type of cadmium compound to the amount of zinc, iron and calcium in the diet, which allow the body to eliminate the metal. The real impact on frequent oyster consumers is unknown. It is unknown whether oysters, not only delicious but also nutritious, with high levels of calcium, zinc and iron cause the body to process cadmium differently than other foods. Their frequency of consumption is also different than other foods. However, the Health Canada recommendation is solidly based on what is known at this time.

What causes it? Cadmium, a metal, occurs naturally in the environment often in association with zinc and other minerals. Industrial sources and uses include: zinc smelters like Trail, where airborne cadmium releases have been high; nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries; coatings, paints and plastics, including some of the PVC used in aquaculture; sewage outfalls and treatment plants, industrial effluents including pulp mill discharges, and storm water run off; phosphate fertilizers, which often contain cadmium by natural association, subject to run off and leaching; It seems likely, although not yet proven, that cadmium is being released into Georgia Strait from old mines and erosion due to development and clearcut logging. Significant amounts of cadmium are also already in sediments in some places, notably Cortes Island, and may be resuspended by aquatic life or upwellings. Preliminary studies, including US tests, suggest there may be an increasing concentration from south to north. The Pacific Ocean may cycle cadmium. Scientists also say cadmium in storm water run off from the Fraser Delta and from Puget Sound would travel to northern Georgia Strait. Some aquaculture equipment leaches significant cadmium from the PVC. Scientists down play apparently increasing cadmium levels based on historical samples, due to the lack of information about earlier sampling methodology.

In the wild: Colorado Ptarmigan In December 2000, scientists reported that more than half the white-tailed ptarmigans in a 10,000 square kilometre area of south-central Colorado, called the "ore belt," were suffering from cadmium poisoning. The birds had damaged kidneys and their bones were low in calcium. Many of the birds had fractures. The birds eat willow, which accumulates cadmium, as do some other plants. Cadmium is natural in the area, but abandoned mines may have mobilised more of the metal. * Oregon State University News, December 2000

Health impacts Known human carcinogen (International Agency for Research on Cancer). Reproductive toxin affecting male development (California Proposition 65 List). Cadmium stays in the body a very long time, and long-term exposure in food or water leads to a build up in the kidneys and possible kidney disease, lung damage and fragile bones. Test animals showed high blood pressure, low blood iron, liver disease and nerve or brain damage. These effects have not been shown in humans. Babies of animals exposed to high levels in food had changes in behaviour and learning ability and possible changes in birth weight and skeleton. Effects on human children are unknown. Some cadmium crosses the placenta, and can be found in breast milk. Some communities in New Zealand eat high cadmium shellfish with no apparent effect. Diets adequate in iron, calcium and zinc appear to lower cadmium absorption. (Oysters are also extremely high in those elements.) Women seem more vulnerable than men, perhaps because of low iron levels. Older people are less vulnerable. Japanese women on a poor post-war diet, eating rice grown on cadmium-contaminated ground, developed Itai-Itai ("ouch ouch") disease, characterised by kidney failure, muscle cramps and fragile, painful bones, especially in the spine and femur.