We talk with Art MacKay, a now retired biologist, about his research on the water quality of the St. Croix Estuary, between Maine and New Brunswick, and how a pulp mill’s effluent dumped in the river affected water quality and killed its commercial fisheries.
Late last year Alton Gas applied to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (NSUARB) for a renewal of its approval to construct an underground hydrocarbons storage facility. As part of the NSUARB review interested parties were asked for submissions. This is the submission of Dale Andrew Poulette, Mi’kmaq water protector.
This weekend we feature an interview with Ralph Wheadon, who became a Provincial Forest Ranger for the area above St. Margaret’s Bay in the early fifties. He talks about fighting forest fires, log drives down the Ingram River, and the changes (not for the better) he has witnessed over his long career. “”If we don’t have logs, if we don’t have timber, I worry about our watersheds. And I am really concerned, as a lot of people are, about cutting that biomass stuff down…”
“Many fishermen I know, in addition to being fishermen are educated professionals, ranging from various engineers to geologists; recently I’ve heard our objection for the proposed pipeline by Northern Pulp … described as: ‘the fishermen’s objections are based on emotion, not science’. I take offence to that and actually, my objections are based on science specifically,” writes John Collins.
“Northern Pulp’s proposal “to dump 62 million litres per day of treated waste into the rich fishing grounds of the the Northumberland Strait … is not any kind of a solution; it would be an environmental calamity,” writes Guysborough resident Ray Bates..
Scott Neigh, through his weekly Talking Radical podcast, provides a centre stage to activists, their causes, and the how and why of their strategic approaches. Scott always kindly allows me to repost a podcast if it is of particular relevance to Nova Scotia Advocate readers. Earlier we featured his eye opening interview with El Jones on organizing vulnerable prison populations and the responsibilities that brings, and an interview with water protectors Dorene Bernard and Rebecca Moore on the mess that is Alton Gas. This week we present Scott’s interview with Marilyn Keddy and Peter Puxley of the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia,, about the threat of offshore oil exploration to climate change and fisheries, and about the challenges of organizing in rural Nova Scotia.
The most recent pedestrian fatality, at Gottingen Street, the fourth of this year, involves once again unforgiving infrastructure for those on foot which should have been mitigated during recent efforts to remodel it, writes Martyn Williams.
Larry Haiven on a proposed development at Spring Garden and Robie, an impressive facade failing to hide four towers of 30, 26, 20 and 16 storeys on a single city block. “Using a bit of heritage as the fig leaf for rampant and unheeding development is becoming the latest shell game in Halifax,” writes Haiven.
The province is proposing that lands near Coolen Lake, straddling Lunenburg County and HRM, be clearcut. The targeted lands contain one of the oldest remaining forests in the Maritimes, let alone Nova Scotia, a post on the Healthy Forest Coalition Facebook page states .
Judy Haiven looks at three Halifax developments in different stages of completion, and three developers who’ve managed to get what they want from the city – and give almost nothing back. How do they pull it off?