More Toxic Waste
Submitted by Mary Simon on Thursday, June 18, 2009
Once again we open the newspaper and read about toxic waste in one of our communities. Shortly after news of an abandoned Environment Canada research station described as a “toxic ghost town” was published we find that black ooze and waste metal are coming up through the ground in the back yards of Hopedale in Nunatsiavut.
From 1953 – 1968 the U.S. Air Force ran a radar station in Hopedale, when the station was closed down the site was not cleaned up, and 30 years later the people of Hopedale are still living with what was left behind.
The experts have said that if people stay away from those areas, and do not collect berries in those areas, or do not hunt in those areas, that they will “minimize” exposure, but how do you do that when it’s in your back yard? How will the hunters know whether or not the animals they harvest passed through a contaminated area or not, or whether they ate from the area if they did so?
From the Inuvialuit lands in the west to the Nunatsiavut lands in the east, and all points in between, the Arctic landscape that so many consider to be pristine is actually dotted with the waste of abandoned research facilities and old military installations. Buried years ago or, as the case often was, simply left where they happened to be, unwanted or dated 45 gallon drums of oil and PCB’s have become a toxic cold war legacy that many Inuit across Canada live with daily.
This summer the government will spend $1.6 million to study the problem in Hopedale, but that study will not include the health of the people who have been living with that problem, and I have to ask why that is. It is important to know the extent of the contamination, but is it not equally important to determine whether or not the health of the people who live there has been impacted?
And is it not equally important to act as quickly as possible to clean up the pollution so that people do not have to be worried about what may or may not come up through the ground in their back yard, if the food hunters bring home is contaminated, or what the berries their children picked may have come into contact with?
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$1.6 to study the problem... but when will they fix it?
This is just one station, in one community. I'm horrified to know that I have 2 nieces and a nephew in Hopedale, and that their health could be at risk. I've been to that base, and I've seen those drums sticking out of the ground; but people still use the land. Berry's and, more troubelsome, the animals who could have been through any of the old DEW sites, are still used by the town.
I'm glad to hear there is research being done, but I'd rather have seen that $1.6 million go right into clean-up. Can't we figure out the extent of the problem once those leaking oil cans are taken away? Won't the data on contamination just get worse everyday as those PCB's leach into the ecosystem? And this is 1 site, the others need just as much attention. Too bad the CDN government said they'd foot the bill... I know Harper isn't looking to Obama for a cheque.