TREATING THE HERITAGE GRAND RIVER TO SEWAGE

This is the dirty little secret that politicians, developers and immigration proponents prefer to hide. Growth degrades the environment. This planet is overpopulated now. Despite this, because a few people can make lots of money by constantly expanding our population; the rest of us (and the environment) pays the price. It's a vicious circle and it's been out of control in Canada since the Second World War. Under the guise of "humanitarianism" this country has literally been flooding our streets with more and more people. Yes they are consumers. Yes they purchase cars, homes and all the accoutrements of the good life. They have helped expand the domestic canadian market exponentially. To what avail? Most of our manufacturing jobs have left to the very same low wage countries that these people came from in the first place. The rest of the world is still and always will be a much larger market. These manufacturing jobs have fled to bastions of progressiveness such as Bangladesh. Saturday's Record advises us that 112 people have died in a factory fire there.

On average once a week there is a spill or bypass of partially treated sewage into the Grand River. I've got news for regional planners and politicians. Do you think that even fully treated sewage is good for the river? Are you nuts? This heritage river allegedly is getting cleaner with more fishing, possible swimming and river view properties at a premium. Meanwhile due to both sheer volumes of sewage multiplied by greater and larger storm events the Galt STP has spilled or bypassed sixteen times this year. Do you really want your kids swimming downstream from there? These storm events, wait for it, are also caused by man made sources. Again too many people pursuing an unsustainable lifestyle on too small a world. Spreading them out won't solve the problem. Fewer births than deaths over the long term will.

There have been 296 sewage discharges since 2007 of which 186 are accidental spills and 110 are deliberate bypasses of treatment when the plants have been overloaded. In order of shame by number of discharges is Guelph first, Galt second and yes ELMIRA third. There is lots of blame to go around from federal officials and too much population growth too quickly to municipal officials not maintaining a strict separation of rainwater from the sanitary (sewage) sewers going to the Sewage Treatment Plants. Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record gives us all the gory details: "Sewage spills a struggle for region". As bad as it is for the natural environment here can you imagine being 100% dependent on the Grand River for drinking water as the City of Brantford is ? Gee you don't suppose health issues there including much higher than average incidences of various cancers are relevant do you?