Letters from John Werring,
Aquatic Habitat Specialist
David
Suzuki Foundation
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HEADLINE:
Mink have more teeth than fur farm
regulations The senior science and policy advisor for the David Suzuki Foundation says he doesn't think the people of Nova Scotia are any better served with the introduction of new fur farm regulations than they were by what was in place before. “And that's a shame,” said John Werring.
He refers to rules already in place that the government could have availed themselves of to abate the decade-long concern about pollution from these farms before the new regulation was even introduced (the Federal Fisheries Act, the NS Environment Act, the NS Agriculture and Marketing Act, the NS Health Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act). “The evidence would suggest they have failed to implement and/or enforce even those rules. So, what is to say things will be any different moving forward?” he said. The crux of the problem is the government’s apparent reluctance to get tough with the mink farming industry. “The teeth on the mink are likely to be more of a deterrent to growing and handling these animals than the threat of any fines or actions that can be taken against an operator for failing to abide by these so-called rules,” said Werring. He’s concerned that there are no offense provisions under the new regulations, with no mention under the Fur Industry Act of it being an offense to do <anything>... " or an operator may not .... <do anything>, except operate or alter or authorize the alteration of an existing fur farm a farm without a permit. He refers to the toughest penalty in the new regulations being that "the administrator may suspend for up to one year or revoke a licence if an inspection discloses an operator is not in compliance with the Act or regulations; any applicable provision of the Environment Act or its regulations; any applicable provision of the Occupational Health and Safety Act or its regulations; or any applicable provision of the Health Protection Act or its regulations.” Specified actions that can be taken against an operator that violates any section of the "environmental monitoring components" of the regulations (including the surface water, groundwater and soil pollution monitoring guidelines) are that: "the administrator may place any measures on the operator that the administrator considers necessary to reduce the level of the substance.” The most specific things in the new regulations refer to fulfilling basic requirements for obtaining/renewing/amending licenses (e.g. management plans) and prescribed fees. Nothing in the regulation caps the size of mink farms or their number in any given area. That the majority of the regulations are non-specific also concern Werring. They include environmental restrictions and requirements for monitoring the impact of the farms on the environment. “Except the absurdly high permitted levels of phosphorous and fecal coliforms that can occur in surface waters and groundwater and soils, at the discretion of the minister and to be self-regulated by the industry,” he said. “I note that the environmental monitoring and protection components of this regulation are given only three pages of ink out of 16 in total and comprise only 11 short sections in total ... and they conveniently forgot to even mention "air quality monitoring" - which is supposed to be a part of any monitoring program (S. 34 (1) of the Fur Industry Act - Every operator shall establish a monitoring program that includes regular monitoring and testing of water, soil and air by a designated professional). Odor from these farms is a huge issue,” he said. In the regulations, surface water discharges and groundwater need only be tested twice a year, in May and November. Soils must be sampled once every three years. “For an industry such as this, that is not sufficient in my view. Twice a year surface water discharge monitoring would do absolutely nothing to reduce the levels of pollution in the Tusket River system.” To summarize, Werring says one need only visit the Q &A sheet on the regulations published by the government. http://www.gov.ns.ca/agri/mink/pdf/FurIndustryRegulationsQAs.pdf) In response to the very first question: "What is in the fur industry regulations?" it says, "The regulations clearly state that no discharge of contaminants is permitted from the farm property to a watercourse." “What a load of brown bananas. These regulations say absolutely nothing of the sort,” said Werring. Letter
#2
From: John Werring Sent:
Friday, February 24, 2012 11:34 AM
My suggestion to the people is that they immediately contact the office of the Provincial Ombudsman and file a formal written complaint against the agencies involved in the drafting of this regulation and making it available for public review and comment.
Providing less than 24 hours notice before a public meeting that is deemed the final opportunity for public comment on any regulation is unconscionable, and especially so with a regulation that has been amended as much as this one has from the original draft.
They should also call their MLAs, MPs and Premier Dexter to demand action.
I initially thought the government of Nova Scotia was going in the right direction vis-à-vis managing waste from fur farms with the first draft of these regulations. There were some issues that needed to be addressed but, overall, it was on the right track.
I don't know what happened in the past six months, but the regulation train has now derailed. The latest draft presented to the public for review and comment is a complete wreck. It supports the status quo for existing farms and provides little in the way of incentive to industry to change the way it does business. In fact, if these go through as written, they will be allowed to spread their pollution farther afield by dumping mink waste elsewhere with the move toward "land application." Further, there is nothing that gives the government greater powers to regulate this industry than they already have, and they are not even using those existing powers to bring the industry into line.
I am also astounded that, even after years of political wrangling on this issue, Ms. Rankin admits that there are no inspectors in place to deal with matters. They don't need a new act or regulations to take action now against polluters. They need boots on the ground, investigating these farms and, at the very least, holding the worst ones accountable.
Finally, the assertion that further iterations of the regulations are to kept confidential AND that the government will not share where they are going with this is quite unbelievable.
It seems pretty clear that they have a direction in mind, and that is on the train to Nowheresville when it comes to regulating the mink farming industry in Nova Scotia.
I don’t know what more I can say about a waste management regulation that literally tells polluters “just don’t dump it in the woods”. That seems awfully lame.
John Werring David Suzuki Foundation
Letter #2a
Hi John - Letter # 1
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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:53:02 -0800 From: jwerring@davidsuzuki.org To: halleyhort@hotmail.com; allendebbie.hall@ns.sympatico.ca; tricounty.debbie@gmail.com; Margaret_Kay-Arora@ymca.ca; water@ecologyaction.ca; monikrichard@annapolisriver.ca All: FYI, I am sharing this with you because we have dialogued in the past on this important issue. I have just received a copy of the revised Fur Industry Regulations (see attached) proposed by the government of Nova Scotia and I am quite dismayed with this version of the regs. Obviously industry induced a lot of pressure on government and got a lot of concessions. I am afraid the way these regs are written it is just going to shift the problem around and they offer too many loopholes. My main concerns are: There is no longer any requirement to monitor groundwater or sample ground water to determine if it is/has been contaminated with manure (or the nitrogen or phosphorus from manure). This version of the regs allows for land application of manure from fur farms as an acceptable means of disposal. This version of the regs allows for on farm disposal (which could mean burying) of both feed and carcasses (whereas the previous version prohibited this). Covered solid waste storage facilities are no longer required to have minimum separation distances from surface watercourses – see Table A (see next bullet!!) There is a new section (15(g) – see page 13 of 20 that reads: “animal housing buildings traditional style sheds to be considered as solid manure ….”. Does this mean that the plan is that the actual animal housing buildings will be considered to be acceptable manure storage facilities???? Where it comes to contamination of surface waters, operators are now only required to “address minimizing mixing of potential surface water with waste” (“potential” surface water logically means runoff!!) where before they were required to contain surface runoff, construct a surface water treatment system and monitor the discharge from said system. In this version of the regs, any reference to surface water collection, storage or treatment systems has been removed. While operators are required to identify surface runoff directional flow and discharge points, THEY ARE NOT REQUIRED TO SAMPLE surface runoff. They only have to “minimize potential mixing of it with waste!” Operators are only required to sample surface waters in identified flowing watercourses (e.g. streams …) if those waters are within the minimum separation distances set out in Table A. What about wetlands? What about ditches? The new version refers to random tests of water samples to, wit: “Where the random tests conducted in clause 19 (f)” (see page 18 of 20, Section 20 (Reporting Requirements) subsection 3 - but the only allowance for this is to sample surface water discharges – which are NOT defined! Maximum allowable total phosphorus concentrations (20 micrograms per litre) in surface waters is still way too high – should be <10. Maximum allowable E coli levels are too high and only for flowing waters. The proposed level is the Canadian swimming standards. Should be standard fro drinking water … 10 cfu/100ml Finally, the definition of a “Designated professional is too restrictive … they should expand the definition to include: 1. Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists (management plans, laboratory analyses) 2. Architects (building design to take the health of neighbors and animal welfare into account) 3. Veterinarians (animal welfare matters) 4. Land Surveyors (development of management plans) 5. Planners and Landscape architects (management plans, waste storage facilities) 6. Geoscientists (surface and ground water movement, ground permeability) and, 7. Agrologists (soil science, soil studies, nutrient loading capacity from land disposal of manures) Also, if land application of manure is to be allowed then there needs to be a plan for assessing the receiving land’s capability/capacity for nutrient loading (how much phosphorous or nitrogen can it take/absorb), a requirement that any manure that is spread on land has to be treated to kill viruses and bacteria; a requirement that there should be minimum separation distances specified for all watercourses/water bodies; and, should specify some kind of active surface water monitoring program near the disposal sites!!! Some positive aspects … They will require new “closed style” animal housing for new farms and for renos and re-builds on existing farms. Total phosphorous has been reduced from 100 ug/l to 20 ug/l They added E coli as a water contaminant to be measured John (John Werring of the David Suzuki Foundation) John Werring, Aquatic Habitat Specialist |
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