The View from Here by Jack MacAndrew (nitrates and fish kills)
Published in the Eastern Graphic and West prince Graphic
Wenesday August 6, 2008
THE VIEW FROM HERE...
by Jack MacAndrew
" We swam in it, we boated on it , we dug clams and we ate the clams. I wouldn't dare eat a clam out of it now . "....
Eleanor Cooke , talking about the Wheatley River.
Nor , Ms. Cooke , are you likely to find a living clam to steam.
One of the more surprising aspects of all the headlines about anoxic rivers, estuaries and bays recently appearing in the public prints , is that anyone should be at all surprised at what is happening .
On the other hand , not in the least surprising , is the extraordinarily lame response from the current Minister of the Environment , George Webster . As usual , Mr. Webster's Pavlovian response to queries about this smelly environmental mess , was to advise people not to blame farm runoff for the killing of the Island's waterways.
Sorry Georgie Boy - it just don't wash - so to speak.. As far back as a decade or more ago , and more recently in the current readings of Island groundwater , there is uncontrovertable truth to be faced. The fact is - when rivers , streams and brooks run through potato country , they end up loaded with nitrates: when they run through forested or fallow terrain , the readings are much lower , down where we should expect them to be .
This is not to place all the blame on potato farmers. Nor is it to ignore the other causes of nitrate loading of our estuaries and ponds .But the hard reality we must face is this - if we are going to practice potato or any other kind of monoculture on this Island , which requires continual boosting of the soil to produce a crop - then the destruction of our environment is inevitable - collateral damage is the operable phrase for the price we are going to pay.
The annual assault on our tender senses - the smell of rotting algae along our shores and riverbanks - is actually the least of our problems. What is infinitely worse , is the death of every form of invertebrate and other life , choked out of existence by the oxygen starved water and sandy bottom in which they formerly flourished.
In place of healthy marine environments spotted here and there with growths of eelgrass - we create barren deserts deceptively swathed in green , incapable of supporting life forms that provide feed and forage for other species higher up the food chain.
What is worse than that - is us.
We have been witness to this creeping destruction of our marine environment for a couple of generations now ; and we have not demanded of those we elect , that something be done about it.
We may , in fact , be at a point of no return , where nothing can be done about it.
We have witnessed the death of Stanhope Bay ; we watched as the North River died above the causeway;we listened ; we have seen the Mill River turn a milky green year after year ; and nodded in sympathy to the outrage expressed by Donna Lewis when their family owned oyster lease succumbed to smothering caused by nitrate overload
We have watched the non stop political and bureaucratic two step danced by those with the power to do something about it.
And we did nothing .
So they , them to whom we pass the power , did nothing.
Only a few , like Sharon Labchuk have spoken out. She put out a media release last week, and once again went to the heart of the matter - industrial agriculture.
Said Ms. Labchuk : " It's pointless to spend taxpayers money to study ways to reduce nitrates in river s when massive amounts of chemical pesticides are required by potatoes grown on an industrial scale . .....there is no solution to this problem except to shift to organic griculture . "
" Except for certain point sources of nitrates , like leaking septic tanks or manure piles , almost all nitrate pollution on PEI is caused by agricultural fertilizers. "
Ms. Labchuk's aim is dead on . She also isolates the very reason why nothing has been done about the killing of our rivers , ponds and estuaries ; and Nitrate Commission notwithstanding , it is almost certainly likely that this government will not be pushed by the Tory opposition to do anything about it either.
Check this for a dynamic response from the haplress Mr . Webster : " With improved nutrient management and with guidance from studies like the report of the Commission on Nitrates in Groundwater , we can gradually improve water quality so that these anoxic events become less common . "
Mr. Webster did not define " less common". Apparently he takes it as given that we will continue to allow riverkill by sea letttuce and other algae up to some level or other. Collateral damage in the war to save our environment.
Now that's not exactly a ringing call to environmental arms from the politician appointed by the Premier to safeguard the environment. Mr . Webster just can't seem to forget he was ( or still is ) a potato farmer; even as he admits ..." the trend ( anoxic poisoning ) is escalating . "
As of last Saturday , the total number of reported and confirmed anoxic waterways had reached 18 ; eighteen rivers dead or dying because we have been dumping nitrates into those waters in escalating tonnages . Who knows how many more are dead of dying but have not been reported to Mr. Webster's department of government.
Yes Mr. Webster , the trend is indeed " escalating ". Duh !
In Victoria , British Columbia they have their own infestation on the shores of Oak Bay . It's now treated as a normal annual occurence , like a whale migration past Vancouver Island , and residents near the shore are advised to expect wave after wave of fetid sulphurous stink.
That inspired poetess Rosalee van Stelten to pen the following verse :
sea lettuce
relentlessly the algae creep
on lapping tide
fed on the outfall
filling coves with wrinkled isles
archipelagos, mottled green
ropes that settle in tawny
hummocks, smothering
driftwood, rock and sand , choking
life beneath, fedid breath
of decaying cells fouling
fair autumn wind
That's The View From Here....