Procastinate - still no action to save Lake Winnipeg

Procastinate - still no action to save Lake Winnipeg

Postby Oscar » Wed Jan 11, 2017 8:57 pm

Procrastinate

[ http://enterprisenews.ca/Enterprise_Vol9_Issue02_LR.pdf ]

The Interlake Enterprise January 11, 2017 - page 4

Our Governments continue to procrastinate on the needed action to save Lake Winnipeg.

Yes, Jim Mosher, it needed to be said, and you presented it so appropriately. (Sadly looms another of many bad years for our Great Lake, re: Editorial, Interlake Enterprise , 4 Jan. 2017.)

Kicking the can down the road won't solve the problem and governments "sunny ways" won't solve it either. Manitobans and Lake Winnipeg deserve better!

The only way to fix this situation is through political honesty, hard work and making tough choices and sticking to them. Our future and the future of all our waters depends on this action.

The Lake is not polluting itself! As long as four decades ago and more, Scientists, Eve Pip, David Schindler and John Vallentyne openly expressed their concerns about what they could visualize taking place.

Nobody paid attention. It would never happen. But it has happened! Now, Lake Winnipeg has won the "Threatened Lake of the Year Award", (2013) a testament to bad, short sighted and ill-informed decisions taken by our government(s) over the years.

It will take a hell of a lot more than just 'money' to save our Lake.

However, it seems none of our governments, at whatever level they represent, want to know that, for they skirt around the issues that are responsible for the pollution problems. They hope for a miracle cure and allow destruction simultaneously, all in the name of advancement and economic development.

In fact, the comments in the editorial clearly explain that the brand name of Sustainable Development of Minister Cox is counter- productive. The government's interpretation of sustainable development is more destructive than constructive.

"Sustainable Development" What does this actually mean?

Many years ago, Brandon University Professor, J. Dolecki, speaking from the perspective of contemporary economics …. explained. "Sustainable development means that we can continue, as in the past, to rape, pillage and plunder the environment; we just call it something nice so that we feel good about what we're doing".

We know that promoters, corporate executives and government officials commonly use the word 'sustainable' to soften the unknown consequences of certain development proposals.

Lake Winnipeg has been declared as the most polluted fresh water lake in the world. What a shameful example and cost we bear to conduct ourselves in the name of opportunists development that pollutes our most vital and life resource…Water.

On Feb. 18, 2003, Steve Ashton, as Conservation Minister, announced a commitment to reduce the contribution of nitrogen and phosphorus and to restore nutrient conditions to those that existed prior to the 1970's. Hollow Words.

Fourteen years later, has there been any improvement? I say NO, as I believe the conditions have worsened and steadily escalated. Yes, this merry-go-round has been spinning for more than 50 years.

There has to be action with a determined will of the people and governments to Save Lake Winnipeg and our water sources. The continual rhetorical propaganda that we have been subjected to has the effects of a placebo, and the lake has literally been studied to death.

I, along with many Manitobans, have been voicing grave concerns about Lake Winnipeg and how the algea situation has amassed in the past years. I do not live close to these waters, but feel a moral responsibility to help this wondrous body of fresh water. I have been led to believe from seniors who have lived in the lake area all their lives that during the study and construction of the Hecla cause-way, many people spoke out and recommended a bridge.

Reasons being that this groyne obstruction will not permit the nutrient rich waters to flow freely. Consequently soil erosion today continues to wash away shorelines as the trapped waters continue their onslaught to become free.

Then of course, one must also consider the reaction of the lake waters with the building of the Jen-Peg dam and how this has contributed to the abundance of nutrient enrichment that nourishes the algea. Scientific studies have determined that the measured outflow of nutrients is only a third of the measured input. A 66% retention is a disastrous overload. This and other studies ultimately led to the 2011 Save the Lake Winnipeg Act. An Act of good intensions, but seemingly dormant and ignored.

It will not be possible for Lake Winnipeg or any of our water sources to survive, as long as politics keeps playing the deceitful role of paddy-caking the needed efforts of recovery.

Wherever possible, nutrient pollution must be eliminated.

John Fefchak,
Virden, MB.
204 748 2521
Oscar
Site Admin
 
Posts: 9079
Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm

Return to Factory Production of Animals

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

cron