Friday, August 30, 2024

A GOOD OPINION PIECE IN YESTERDAY'S K-W RECORD

 It was written by Susan Koswan and titled "Dealing with all the messes that get left behind". Essentially the article describes how racialized, marginalized and poorer people are more likely to be affected by the siting of landfills, sewage treatment plants etc.. In other words local councils won't stand for building a toxic waste incinerator in say Beechwood or Westmount areas of Kitchener-Waterloo but other locations are always possible. 

Ms. Koswan also references numerous sites in Ontario including Waterloo Region in which local residents end up dealing with environmental messes. Totally avoidable messes by the way if either the letter or the spirit of the law had been upheld. It was not courtesy of local councillors, regional councillors, the province of Ontario and even sometimes the Federal government. Ms. Koswan hits most of the Region of Waterloo contaminated sites without actually naming a single company.  She also missed the site across the road from the Middleton Wellfield. The company is Canadian General Tower. Other regional polluters include Ciba-Geigy, Northstar Aerospace, Sunar, Canbar, coal tar sites on Regina St. in Waterloo and Gaukel St. in Kitchener, Deilcraft, Electrohome, Varnicolor Chemical in Elmira along with Nutrite and Uniroyal Chemical (now Lanxess). There are at least two others in Elmira not even counting the contaminated gas stations. Those two continue to be shielded from public scrutiny. 

Nice to have friends in high places isn't it? 

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