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Articles from Watershed Sentinel Sep-Oct-2012-Vol22-No4

Watershed Sentinel - September October 2012

Health & Toxics

12 Since Silent Spring
In 1962 Rachel Carson sounded the warning about the impacts of pesticides and other man made chemicals on  human and environmental health. Fifty years later, we look at some of the most
recent research on toxic chemicals and health and ask: Are our governments doing enough to protect us? Edited by Miranda Holmes

13 Protecting Children
Dr. Bruce Lamphear on the neglected
legacy of Rachel Carson

16 Persistent Organic Pollutants
Fe de Leon and Olga Speranskaya examine how Canada’s Strategy on POPs has fizzled

Shuswap Flooding Analysis

Shuswap flooding and impacts of development & clearcut logging.

by Jim Cooperman

Preface

Federal and provincial government staff operate under a gag order that restricts the flow of information to the public. Communication staff manufacture the only information allowed to be disseminated. Consequently, it is difficult for the

Oil Spill Specialist Dr. Riki Ott: A Message of Warning and Hope

A Watershed Sentinel Comox Valley report by Delores Broten

Photo of Riki OttOn a hot Friday evening in August, a packed audience at the Native Sons Hall in Courtenay BC listened spell bound and sometimes close to tears to marine toxicologist Dr. Riki Ott. In an event sponsored by World Community, Ott was describing the long term impacts to fish, mammals, and humans from the Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Gulf, and Kalamazoo River oil spills.

Ott, who was a commercial fisher in Cordova Alaska as well as a trained scientist, was in a unique position when Prince William Sound was hit by the Exxon Valdez oil spill 23 years ago. She described how the response to the spill was nothing like what had been promised by the oil companies before the port was opened.

She talked about how any spill response actually collects, at the most, 15% of the spilled oil, which

Pesticide Residues in Our Food - What Does It Really Mean?

Photo by Paula Rodriguezby Miranda Holmes

For the past eight years, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has been analysing the pesticide testing done by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
EWG’s annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination for 45 popular fruits and vegetables, measuring the contamination in six

Protecting Children from Pesticides - the Neglected Legacy of Rachel Carson

Creative Commonsby Bruce Lanphear

At the turn of the 20th century, the greatest threat to the health of children was infectious diseases, like cholera, tuberculosis and typhoid.
The development of vaccines and antibiotics played an important role in reducing deaths from infections, but the single greatest factor in reducing death rates and improving life expectancy was altering the environment to make it inhospitable to infectious agents: providing

CETA Trade Deal and Jumbo Resort Proposal

Photo by Lucas Jmieffby Joyce Nelson

Ever since the BC Liberal government surprised residents of BC’s Kootenays with its March 20, 2012 approval for the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort, people have been asking: Why now? After all, the Jumbo Resort proposal has been around since 1989 and has been successfully opposed by local people for

Bill C-38 - Its Deadly Affects on the Environment

Bill C-38 Affects on Environmentby Darryl Luscombe

Bill C-38, The Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, received Royal Assent and became law in Canada on June 29th, 2012. The Omnibus Budget bill is the most targeted  attack on democracy, the environment and environmental advocates by any Canadian government in history.

The Chronic War on Cancer

by Devra Davis

By the turn of the 18th century, the path-breaking Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini had documented more than three dozen different cancer-prone professions. At that point the disease was still uncommon and usually lethal.
Ramazzini did not know which specific part of the job caused which maladies, but he knew that people in many different jobs were subject to risk, including miners of coal, lead, arsenic and iron, metal gilders, chemists, potters, tinsmiths, glassmakers, painters, tobacco workers, lime workers, tanners, weavers, coppersmiths, mirror makers, painters, sulphur workers,

I Hate Pink - The Goods on Breast Cancer Awareness Month

by Judy Brady

It is estimated that over 22,000 women and men in Canada will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and nearly ten times as many in the United States.
Almost a quarter of these people will die.

Ever since it dawned on me that having been swaddled in a pink blanket set me on a course of considerably more limited choices than those available to the baby wrapped in a blue blanket, I’ve been wary of anything that comes in pink. But in October it’s impossible to avoid pink. Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) is upon us and millions of little pink ribbons on millions of lapels exhort us to be “aware” of breast cancer.

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"This is it. It's done!" was the message in Alaska in 2008, 19 years after the Exxon Valdes oil spill.  Dave Janka, who runs Auklet Charters in Prince William Sound, ran his boat over to Smith Island to snap this photo.  Dave says, "It's far from done!"

W.L.M. (Bill) Wilson writes: 'Attached is my rewrite of Anne Feeney’s “Have You Been To Jail for Justice”. Anne granted permission to do non-profit performances of this Enbridge version.' Video by Ester Strijbos.