ENVIRONMENT NEWS - Make Everyday, EARTH DAY.

Pesticide Free Coalition Meeting Tonight (Wednesday) in White Rock

The Surrey/White Rock Pesticide – Free Coalition hosted a meeting Saturday morning at the Semiahmoo Public Library. Cloverdale resident Dr. Teresa Clarke was the guest speaker.

The public meeting room was filled with the overflow crowd anxious to learn more about the use of pesticides and the subsequent health problems. Dr. Clarke began the meeting by asking for a show of hands how many people in the room had adversely had their lives impacted by cancer. Virtually every single one of the people in attendance raised their hands.

Dr. Teresa Clarke

Dr. Clarke during her guest lecture provided a power point visual display of the shocking numbers of Canadians negatively impacted annually by the use of poisonous pesticides. A key point of Dr. Clarke’s lecture was “Prevention is the Answer – Not The Cure.”

Canada ranks in the Top 5 of all countries in the world per capita in our use of pesticides.

Clinical studies linking pesticide carcinogens and cancer are moving ever so slowly.

The incidence of cancer in one generation is up 50% in Canadian men and up 20% in women.

1 in 2 men in Canada will contact Cancer and 1 in 3 women will suffer from the normally deadly disease.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like those odds. The ball is rolling now, people’s lives are being dramatically impacted by cancer, and though the Government and Canadian Cancer Society are slow to link the use of pesticides and the growing number of cancer patients, one really has to wonder. I can only conclude the standing room only crowd Saturday at the library are amongst those that are wondering.

Excerpted from the Canadian Cancer Newsletter

Three-quarters, or 76 per cent of all British Columbians, believe cosmetic pesticides pose a threat to their health, and similar numbers are concerned about the environmental threat of pesticides; In B.C., about three quarters (76%) of the population support their provincial government passing legislation that would restrict the use and sale of cosmetic pesticides; The majority of British Columbians agree that cosmetic pesticides pose a threat to the environment, children, pets and their own personal health. Strong levels of agreement (over 70 per cent) in 13 B.C. communities sampled in the survey; A high percentage (85%) of British Columbians with a lawn or garden say they would be willing to try alternatives to pesticides if they were provided with information and tips; and Virtually all (99%) British Columbians agree that consumers have a right to know the ingredients that are contained in the products they purchase, and the vast majority (97%) would support the provincial government passing legislation to require labeling of all products that contain cancer-causing substances.

The proportion of cancer deaths related to environmental carcinogens (excluding environmental tobacco smoke) is estimated to be in the range of 7-11 per cent and many scientists believe that with further research, the proportion will be much higher. This figure doesn’t account for the increased risk of cancer in certain sub-populations exposed to higher concentrations of environmental exposures.

SURREY UNITED NATURISTS - SUN

News Release: Surrey's United Naturists (SUN).
Re: Surrey Emergency 'Unpreparedness Weak', May 4-10, 2008.

Last year a dozen mudslides buried the rails of the BNSF Railway between Crescent Beach and White Rock along the clothing-optional Crescent Rock Beach, home to Surrey's United Naturists (SUN). After these slides, the tracks were closed to the Amtrak passenger train, while BNSF freight trains carrying dangerous goods including poisonous chlorine and ammonia gas were still allowed to roll across these historically treacherous rails that have already been the scene of 9 previous derailments, all from mudslides.

With this threat in mind, SUN decided to inspect Surrey's Emergency Plan for dealing with a toxic chemical release. We contacted the Surrey Fire Service (SFS) and were told that a freedom of information (FOI) request would have to be filed to obtain this document. While this seemed odd, an FOI was filed by SUN that was returned within the week stating that this document would not be released to the public for 'security reasons'.

SUN asks how can you be prepared for an emergency if you cannot review the official Emergency Plan? Should such a plan not be open for viewing by the very residents it is supposed to protect? SUN believes what we now call 'Surrey's Emergency Unpreparedness Weak' is a good time for this important question to be raised.

The City of Mississauga that was the scene of a chlorine leak after a CP Rail crash in 1979 resulting in the largest Canadian evacuation in history (250,000 people for 6 days), not only has their emergency plan available at city hall, it is posted online at http://www.mississauga.ca/file/COM/emergency_plan2006.pdf. Amazingly, public accessibility to the plan is part of the plan itself (see section 2.3, pg 6). The City of Vancouver also has their emergency plan available online at http://vancouver.ca/corpsvcs/emerg/citydoing/vanep.htm. SUN fails to understand why these cities can post their plan on the web while Surrey's remains classified as a security document, free from even FOI requests from people whose very lives might depend on it?

If Surrey wants to hold Emergency Preparedness Week, then the Emergency Plan needs to be accessible to its residents. Withholding such an important document from public scrutiny goes against the SFS's mission statement that reads, 'reduce the incidence of injury, loss of life and property damage by providing public education programs, fire cause investigation and prevention services to secure public safety and code compliance'.

SUN asks you to investigate this failing of the SFS and to bring this important matter to the attention of Surrey Fire Chief Phil LeMire, Surrey's mayor and council, plus residents of Surrey. The community group SmartRail is also aware of this problem as they are concerned with safe rail transportation and the threat that dangerous goods carried on the BNSF freight trains pose. You can reach Ken Jones (kenjjones@gmail.com, 604-535-2204), Phil Legood (pwlegood@sfu.ca, 604-535-9009), and Paul Lemay (ph_lemay@yahoo.ca, 604-734-6934) for their thoughts and comments.

SUN is still waiting for the results of an ATI request filed last month with Transport Canada for a TSB accident report into the collision between a BNSF freight train and a mudslide just south of Crescent Beach on March 11, 2007 that fortunately did not cause a derailment. SUN is hoping this document will reveal if dangerous goods, especially inhalation hazardous gases such as chlorine or ammonia were part of this train's cargo that was travelling through this corridor during an extreme precipitation event when landslides were to be expected and this line should have been closed to all rail traffic.

This week might also be a good time to question what happened to the proposed reverse 911 phone warning system that was to have alerted peninsula residents in the event of a chemical spill along the BNSF Railway? According to a Vancouver Province article on disasters several months back, this project had been forwarded to the CRTC for approval. Emergency Communications for Southwest B.C. estimated then that this emergency-messaging technology could be in place in as little as two months. SUN has heard rumours that this system has been cancelled but has not yet tried to verify this information.

By exposing these problems SUN hopes to improve public safety in Surrey and protect the fragile marine environment along the length of Crescent Rock Beach. We believe rerouting this antiquated railway inland away from the shores of Boundary Bay and beaches of White Rock would increase public safety, protect the marine environment, while improving rail infrastructure. As a bonus the old rail bed could them be converted to a nature path stretching from the Peace Arch to Mud Bay and on to Tsawwassen, creating a marathon length trail system having the tourism, recreation, and health benefits of Vancouver's Sea Wall morphed with the Okanagan's Kettle Valley Railway as proposed in Metro Vancouver's Greenway Vision Plan.

Contact: Don Pitcairn, President,
Surrey's United Naturists (SUN).
Website: www.crescentrockbeach.org
Email: sun-assn@hotmail.com
Phone: 604-328-7433