Monday, February 11, 2019
KEEP THE SHEEP CONTENTED & QUIET
Ministry of the Environment Standard operating procedure 101: minimize and downplay the damage. Especially if you yourself don't know the severity of the damage, always understate it. You might get lucky. Eventually everything gets spilled or dumped in our society. Airplanes full of people and cargo, trains full of crude oil (Lac Megantic), and trucks full of gasoline, diesel fuel or jet fuel. Oh and less we forget boats of course. Big boats full of bunker C go to the bottom slowly leaking their fuel into waterways.
Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Landowner says environmental damage from Mill Creek fuel spill is worse than thought". The landowner states that recent rains have spread the jet fuel via flooding onto land around the creek which could kill acres of old growth trees in addition to the damage that has impacted fish, otters, ducks and salamanders. He believes that the fish will be severely impacted and "if it kills all those trees , that's the whole damn system gone."
Last Wednesday, a month after the spill occurred oil booms were still being added to a branch of the creek where the smell of fuel was still strong. Even more troubling an oily sheen could still be seen on the creek water,in that area, days later.
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Mill Creek is a very complex cold water watershed (Nestles use the aquifer under Mill Creek for it's water)unlike the Gig as you call it. The bad thing is this time of year with freeze thaw and flooding only makes cleanup worse so it is not a total MECP issue but just the environmental conditions that have determined how and where cleanup is done. I thought with your exposure that you would understand that rather than lash out. Try working in these conditions around water. It is not a picnic and trust me on 19 years of my being in operations and doing that.
ReplyDeleteAgreed it is a complex watershed. You know it and I know it. Are you suggesting that the MECP (MOE) don't know it? The spill occurred in January and freeze/thaw conditions combined with rain and flooding this time of year no longer is unusual. Perhaps the MECP might have taken that into consideration before advising citizens that the environmental damage was limited.
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