After talking with with civil servants at Environment and Climate Change Canada, local water protectors believe.that Alton Gas doesn’t have the necessary approvals to start the release of brine into the Shubenacadie River. We asked the feds and the province what’s up, and their responses were pretty vague.
Letter to Margaret Miller, Minister of the Nova Scotia Department of Environment, sent on October 3 by Alton Gas water protectors Rachael Greenland-Smith and Dale Poulette about a federal non-compliance issue. The group has not yet received a response.
Paul Vienneau is one of the accessibility advocates who successfully challenged the government’s refusal to enforce health and safety regulations when it comes to accessible washrooms. After a long battle with the Human Rights Commission there finally was a human rights tribunal, and in September they won their case. Just this Friday the government announced that it accepts the decision. Paul is NOT impressed.
Glyphosate spraying resumes in Nova Scotia. On Friday the Department of Environment announced it has has issued six new approvals for glyphosate spraying covering about 1,351 hectares.
Rebecca Hussman reports on last night’s angry community meeting at Harrietsfield where a Dalhousie professor confirmed residents’ long time drinking water quality concerns and politicians once again refused to commit to clean up the mess they allowed to fester for so long.
A proposed gas pipeline for the Alton Gas storage project is set to cross the stunningly beautiful Stewiacke River Wilderness Area, although naturalists are strongly opposed. As well, the proposed Saint Andrews River Wilderness Area boundaries were modified at the time, presumably to accommodate the pipeline. Investigative reporter Ken Summers looks at the politics of this project in this first of a two-part series.
Harrietsfield resident Marlene Brown decided to start a private prosecution of the polluters of her and her neighbors’ wells. A judge decided she has a case. This will be the first private prosecution to enforce environmental laws in Nova Scotia. Brown feels she had no choice, since the Department of Environment wasn’t enforcing its own ministerial orders.
A group of environmental activists in the Annapolis Valley is calling for a radical rethink of the Avon River causeway in Windsor. Endangered salmon cannot enter the Avon River to spawn and the group has launched a letter writing campaign to call on the federal Department of Fisheries to interfere.
Local activist Stacey Rudderham attended last week’s Harrietsfield community meeting. Residents want clean drinking water and leachate from a recycling site addressed. All they got from incumbent Liberal candidate Brendan Maguire was evasion and lies, she writes.
Rebecca Hussman reports on the Harrietsfield homeowners who, after nearly eight years, have won the legal battles involving a contaminated recycling site in Harrietsfield. They are not celebrating yet. The companies responsible for the pollution have stopped court-mandated water monitoring, and residents are still waiting for water treatment systems that the province promised would be in place by February. The story includes a video that shows the devastating effects of the contamination.
“In our own community here, every moment of every day is consumed with the contaminated water, either when you go to have a shower, brush your teeth, whatever… It’s always there in the back of your mind, and it’s very frustrating.”