CRISIS IN THE AIR By EUNICE PARKER oe is a much bandied ban word. A subject that is : 6 assailed and assaulted by Seen ated, worried humanity Seeing has escaped; soil, subj T, air and food are all being = J€cted to poisons in one form - me The United States tity a great appetite for quan- eee the expense of quality ink anada Straining to emu- Spoilacs tapidly producing the ate of nature and human se with a rising tide of ce ne mental breakdown. oer: an breaking man made ‘of ne tromping on the laws bing the by gouging and grab- ture € resources for our fu- pret Y men who worship the ing Sie Profit.” Can the rul- fice lary, industrial complex ing peace kicking and scream- flan the portals of conserva- Price e @ society that puts a Pill to n everything? It’s a bitter out Swallow, especially with- Water to wash it down. now can we run out of water f the ‘ast Seas cover 71 percent alone _farth’s surface? Quantity Is ess without quality. sin years and especially ei advent of the techno- the rec; n”, ne, Seas have been ta areas of the poisons that Chemical ® the rivers and air. ound j S and DDT have been Th fish and birds far from Ports TER Scripps Institute re- A ees the surface waters of tent of 15 Contain a lead con- yard, m 10 miligrams per cubic The aa from car exhausts. ishers he are the great replen- on Oxygen to support life th. Microscopic green Plants ee the sea; like land and pee ume carbon dioxide Thess; off oxygen as waste. Of life 1S an unbreakable chain Plants on ee €ach level dependent . are eee: While fish catches the ee critically smaller, Shore os ‘8 accelerated. Off Oil exploration is being spill ya, Santa, Barbara’s oil thousand. e disaster to Ocean ds of square miles of it tee Some experts say at least Continue to leak for Ltd, a6 20 years, Shell Canada Operation had 14 test wells. in Next + Or planned over the Results. © years off B.C.’s coast. c 8 far have been kept Beach 9 Our wells are near Long Couver mre West coast of Van- Island and near the site ig +, etional Marine Park which of are established. Thousands been dig Of nuclear waste have is g ater off at sea. The sea and ied balanced expanse ed myst Of it still an unexplor- Will br; €ry—none knows what Situatj Ng about an irreversable @ igo What the tolerance lev-. We cannot proceed on the assumption that it can act as man’s septic tank for much longer without dire conse- quences, The condition of North Ame- rican inland water is evident. In the United States all major river systems are grossly polluted and the demand for water is insa- tiable. Americans alone use 310 billion gallons daily for Indus- try, commerce, irrigation and domestic purposes. Chemical processing in Indus- try accounts for ever increasing demands for water. One modern paper mill uses the equivalent of water per day of a city of 50,000. Water is being returned to rivers not only polluted by chemicals but much higher in temperature, a disaster for fish. Lake Erie is a mixture of cale. cium, sodium polassum and sul- phate compounds — It is no longer polluted, it’s DEAD. Much deeper Lake Michigan is rapidly following suit and has reached the irreversable stage. In the summer of 1964 a group of chil- dren contracted typhoid fever from eating a watermelon they found floating in the Hudson River in New York. Advertising constantly exhorts us to buy this or that brand of detergent—most of which are high in phosphate content — released in sewage into rivers and lakes, these phos- phates enrich algae and multiply rapidly. When algae takes over in water they rot and consume all the oxygen. Okanagen, Shu- swap, Osoyoos and Skaha Lakes are all suffering from accelerated growth of algae from treated sewage. Shuswap Lake is to re- ceive chlorinated raw sewage, a heyday for algae. Vancouver is in the throes of a dilemma with its sewage prob- lem. Plans are to build a new primary treatment plant at An- nacis Island, which will be of dubious effect if not completely valueless. Skip it — an offhand remark — that is exactly what happens at the Jona Treatment Plant after a storm. The storm and domestic sewers are not se- parated and the flow is far too heavy so they skip it and away it goes off to sea in a stream of unabashed filth. In the Fraser River bacteria counts are very high. Although the oxygen con- tent is supposedly sufficient for fish, what are the long-term ef- fects? 50,000 tons of silt wash into the river each day, accord- ing to the Water Resources Branch at Mission. Indiscrimi- nate logging is denuding the: riv- er basin and causing the silting. One third of the Province is drained by the Fraser River sys- tem and its been home to salmon spawning and fishing grounds. According to SPEC’s brief to the Pollution Control Board on the Utah Mining Company (at Prince Rupert) application to dump 9.3 million gallons of efflu- ent daily into Rupert Inlet. (an area of about 5 square miles.) “If 14 by volume of effluent is solid material—one day’s output would cover the bot- tom of the inlet to a depth of 0.3 inches. In 365 days this would accumulate to 9 feet— in 10 years it would reach 90 feet.” The brief further states “this simple calculation may be in error but this is a ques- tion that requires more thor- ough answer than has been provided.” POWER, BE DAMNED In Robert and Leona Rienow’s book “Moment in the Sun” they cite how Niagara Falls is turned on and off at random. Under the U.S.-Canada Treaty it is estab- lished that 100,000 cubic feet per second must flow over the falls during the day and in tourist season. During the night and winter it’s reduced to 50,000 cu- bic feet per second. The differ- ence is kilowatt hours for the power hungry North-East Ame- “New Yorkers breathe the equiva lent of 38 cigarettes a day on their city streets...” rica. While U.S. sources of pow- er are drying up, Canada is be- ing eyed greedily for our water. Nuclear power plants are an- modern day pollution plague. There are now 14 nuc- lear power plants in operation in the U.S. Thirty-nine more are un- der construction and 47 in plan- ning stages. One nuclear power plant uses 370,000 gallons of other POLLUT mans di mous that one sweep moves 320 tons at a bite — a scoop that would hold 1,100 people in it at once — are making their appear- ance. In the U.S. 3.2 million acres of land are affected by strip mining. Reclamation laws are just beginning to make their appearance, too late for many ravaged and ruined areas, ATR? pumped into the atmosphere every day, it is difficult to feel any assurance that air is the right name for it. New Yorkers breathe the equi- valent of 38 cigarettes a day on their city streets. Sulpher diox- ide, now liberally replendent in our atmosphere eats into brick, stone and metal. Rust painting is undertaken on metal bridges etc. to hold back the erosion— but who can reclaim human lungs? In North Vancouver, a study ‘showed that an average of 14 tons of dust per square mile has settled over a six month period. Every city dweller is permeated with polluted air from industry and auto exhausts. 400 million Ibs. of lead each year is poured into the air of North America. There have been claims that the motor industry has the scientific knowledge to combust motor ‘fuel in the cylinder completely b 3 and doesn’t do it. Turbine en- “a gines, get rid of all the harmful nitrogen oxides and will burn al- most anything, but they have slower starting and drive and is doing extensive work -on these. The U.S. Science Advisory Committee has been mumbling when they should be shouting about tighter controls on the Auto Industry and the thought that it might be necessary to get rid of present engines and fuels. Lives shorten in ratio to the length and speed of cars. Testi- mony to man’s eternal yearning for the great outdoors is the Reading the list of chemicals’ nosier action. The Soviet Union. lON— has been banned in 7 of the Unit- ed States. Every housewife in North America throws away in packaging the weight that actu- ally goes on the table. Some- times we wonder if we might be as well off to throw away the food and eat the packaging. A letter to the editor of the Albany Times Union newspaper offered this prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread: containing: calcium pro- pionate (spoilage retarder), so- dium diacelate (mold inhibitor), monoglyceride (emulsifier), po- tassium bromate (maturing ag- ent), calcium phosphate mono- basic (dough conditioner), chlo- ramine T (flour bleach), alumi- num potassium sulfate (acid baking powder ingredient), so- dium benzoate (preservative), butylated hydroxyanisole (anti- oxidant) , mono-isopropyl citrate (sequestrant) , plus synthetic Vi- tamin A and D.” Sandwich any- - one? Numerous anti - pollution groups have sprung up, wildlife and conservation societies are doing research and pressuring Government to take action. The U.S. Federal Water Pollution act is riddled with loopholes and de- lays—reclamation calls for more than re-doing the White House. The Canada Water Act does not spell out specific quality stan- dards. In B.C. the speech from the throne last week made refer ence to establishing new water and air quality standards and water per minute in the cooling system, resulting in thermal pol- - lution of the stream when it is returned. In Bob Hunters “Doom Looms” Vancouver Sun, he out- lines the case at the Hanford Atomic Energy Works in Wash- ington State which is the biggest disposal area for atomic wastes in the world. The Columbia River is now the most radio-active river on earth. “Radio active wastes are kept in carbon steel tanks, encased in re-inforced concrete, with steel saucers un- derneath to catch any leakage, and buried in the ground. Each tank has a million gallon capa- city. Each is continuously cool- ed. Some of the elements will remain radio active for 250,000 years. This is not a problem for our generation to worry about but the tanks are not likely to endure as long as the elements they contain.” In the hungry thirst for powe er, large areas of land are being flooded, making way for giant hydro projects, disturbing the ecology and wild life over thou- sands of acres of land. Strip mining is gobbling and gouging the landscape of North America. New machines that are so enor- growing exodus of city dwellers, travelling bumper to bumper in their camper trucks and cars, in- haling each others exhausts, to reach unspoiled nature, then de- mand more and better roads so that the elusive wilderness dis- than gift-wrapped the air pollu- tion question and passed it to the municipalities for enforce- ment. Only an aroused public will force Government to take off the false teeth and put real teeth into pollution legislation. Indus- appears under the onslaught and the wilderness is transformed to acommodate wall to wall sleep- ing bags. : ; FOOD To read the list of chemicals added to food is almost a trau- matic experience. If you eat a complete meal, you have ingest- ed DDT. Red dye used in hot dogs and said to be harmless A garbage barge sailing through PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 13, 1970—Page 5 try should be told to channel a portion of their enormous pro fits to a clean manufacturing program and the Canadian Gowe ernment should cut the 2 billiogs dollar annual defence budget and channel that money into ways that would truly defend us — with a clean environment and vastly expanded programs for hospitals, schools and housing, i we a ~y - New Yerk harber.