Uranium levels at the Harrietsfield Elementary School are seven times over the provincial guidelines, and kids aren’t supposed to drink tap water there. Understandably parents are very concerned. Rebecca Hussman, who has been covering the issue for the NS Advocate for years now, went to a public meeting to find out the latest. Scary stuff…
Meet Melissa King, who with her husband bought a modest house in Harrietsfield to raise her family. The previous owner claimed the water was fine, and promptly left the country. Now King tells us how contaminated water forced the family to abandon their hopes and dreams and declare bankruptcy just so her family could start all over somewhere else. The video is part of the CBC documentary Defenders of the Dawn: Green Rights in the Maritimes, by Silver Donald Cameron.
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.
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.
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.”