Eight Ecological Disasters

24 November 2008 Sympatico/MSN ---

Sympatico/MSN has today listed eight of the worst ecological disasters on the planet (I have no idea what criteria they used; "worst" is certainly subjective) and guess what? Six of them are right here in Canada! I'm so proud. The nation that was once a vanguard of ecological responsibility and a world leader in conservation is now a showcase for ecological catastrophe. Hey! Break out the champagne and polychlorinated biphenyls!

1. Windsor, Ontario: the most polluted city in North

This is a day trip for Ontarians. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared Ontario's border town the most polluted city in North America. Kennedy made the declaration last spring prior to announcing that his Riverkeeper watchdog group is taking U.S. companies to court under Canada's Fisheries Act. Riverkeeper alleges that DTE Energy's power plants are depositing mercury into the Canadian side of the St. Clair River. Kennedy also blames Windsor's high rate of lung cancer on the city being downwind from industrial polluters in Detroit.

2. Alberta's oil sands: the 'most destructive project on earth'

A report issued in August by Environmental Defence declared oil extraction projects in Canada's Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake oil sands to be "the most destructive project on earth." The Athabasca Oil Sands is the largest such deposit in the world. The production of bitumen and synthetic crude oil from the sands has been held responsible for the largest greenhouse gas emissions growth in Canada, accounting for 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Canadian First Nations groups also complain that the oil sands projects contaminate local water supplies. Forty-four percent of Canadian oil production in 2007 was from our oil sands. Canada is now the largest supplier of oil and refined products to the United States, nosing ahead of Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

3. The Sydney Tar Ponds

A hazardous waste site on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, the Sydney Tar Ponds are filled with coal-based contaminants and sludge created by coke oven runoffs from Sydney Steel Corporation's decommissioned steel mill. The two ponds cover 31 hectares and contain 700,000 metric tonnes of contaminated sediments, along with an estimated total of 3.8 metric tonnes of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). There is also an estimated 560,000 tonnes of contaminated soil at the former coke ovens site.

4. Hamilton Harbour

Thanks to chemical, industrial and thermal pollution from area steel mills, this branch of Lake Ontario was listed as a Great Lakes Areas of Concern in The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada. Reparation projects that included sealing land contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants under a cap of clay commenced in the '80s and '90s. In addition, Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour is considered one of the most contaminated sediment sites identified as a Canadian Area of Concern in the agreement. A remediation proposal includes encasing the sediments, which contain concentrations of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.

5. Port Hope Harbour

Next to the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, Port Hope Harbour has been declared an Area of Concern by Environment Canada, thanks to harbour sediments contaminated with uranium and thorium series radionuclides, heavy metals, and PCBs. A $260 million cleanup is planned for these low-level radioactive wastes, attributed to historical discharges from Eldorado Nuclear Limited, a former crown corporation.

6. James Bay, Quebec

Creating the source of Quebec's cheap and non-polluting hydro power was a double edged sword because damming and diverting rivers to create the hydroelectric project's reservoirs drowned almost 13,000 square kilometres of land. Phase 1, which constructed generating stations on the La Grande River and diverted the Eastman and Caniapiscau rivers into the La Grande watershed, created five reservoirs that covered an area of 11,300 kilometres. Phase 2, which constructed five secondary power plants on the La Grande River and its tributaries, created three reservoirs that covered an additional 1,600 kilometres.

7. The north Pacific garbage patch - a dump the size of Texas

If you set sail from Vancouver, follow the coastline south until you hit Los Angeles and then turn west toward Hawaii, you could see one of the newest wonders of the world: a sea of plastic garbage that equals the size of Texas floating in the north Pacific gyre. Be sure to pack your scuba gear, as the most interesting view of this ecological disaster between Los Angeles and Hawaii is from underneath. Getting to this testament to consumer waste will be an adventure, unless you own your own boat. Most chartered boats won't go there. If you sail there, be prepared to paddle back out. It's avoided by sailors because there's rarely any wind, one of the reason these plastics get there and stay there.

8. Smokey Mountain in the Philippines

Our last destination is a feel-good story. By the 1970s, what started as a local garbage dump in Manila in the 1950s had turned into a 2 million-ton mountain of stinking refuse that covered more than 800 hectares. The mountain of rotting garbage got its name from the haze of methane mist that hovered over it when there was no wind to carry it away. For thousands of poverty-stricken Filipinos, Smokey Mountain became not just a place to forage but home to shantytown squatters who had nowhere else to live. With the help of missionaries and foreign volunteers, the scavengers lobbied local government and in 1993 succeeded in getting a government-sponsored housing project on the site. About 30,000 people now live in clean housing, and have turned Smokey Mountain into a solid waste management company called the Samahan ng Muling Pagkabuhay Multi-Purpose Cooperative, which sorts and recycles the waste.