Dr. Ingrid Waldron and Dr. Juliet Daniel on a new research project to determine whether there is a link between relatively high rates of cancer among members of Shelburne’s Black community and the nearby dump, and how it will pave the way for further studies on the relationship between environmental racism and chronic diseases.
Angela Bowden: Nova Scotia has had a significant race problem for ever and I’m not sure why that comes as such a surprise to some Nova Scotians, especially considering there are so many who are historically and currently participating in this abuse, and it is so publicly documented in this new age of internet and social media.
You can clean up graffiti, but to rid Nova Scotia of the racism that inspired it will be a lot more difficult, says Vanessa Hartley, the young Shelburne woman who first posted a photo of a hateful slogan spray-painted on a rock on Facebook.
PSA: “With the release of the film, There’s Something in the Water on Netflix this Friday, March 27, 2020, the voices of affected communities in Nova Scotia will now be elevated and amplified globally,” writes Ingrid Waldron.
It took a long time, but the Town of Shelburne’s predominantly Black community is finally getting the well that the South End Environmental Injustice Society (SEED) had been fighting for.
After a wait of many months Town of Shelburne councillors told local clean water activists that an offer by filmmaker and actor Ellen Page to pay for the drilling of a well to benefit a Black community within Town limits is not viable.
It looks like the Town of Shelburne is not interested in the generous offer by filmmaker and actress Ellen Page to pay for a much-needed public well for the Black community in town. But the town’s legacy of environmental racism calls for reparations, and that well would be a great start.
Talks between the Town of Shelburne and a group advocating for clean water access for a Black community within town limits appear to have broken down completely. It’s a sad story. Here’s hoping there’s a way out of the impasse.
An offer by filmmaker and actor Ellen Page to pay for the drilling of a public well to provide clean water to a long suffering African Nova Scotian community is said to experience some push back from the Town of Shelburne.
Joanne Bealy on some of the many strong local documentaries in the lineup at the Atlantic International Film Festival this year. “What these films show us is that the people of Nova Scotia are visionaries, the provincial and municipal politicians … not so much.”