..........the location is on" Pickle Pond" , a quiet and beautiful offshoot  at the northern end of Lake Fanning . Pictures taken recently show the famous "bloom" that turns the lake to...............well, you tell me.... What do you call a toxic  mess like this?

How do you step around the truth  and claim that there  is no pollution in the Tusket watershed? Or that the  extreme "nutrient load" caused by one million mink leaching into the  headwaters is NOT responsible for this economic and environmental disaster?

We need a CLEAN WATER  INITIATIVE, and we need IMMEDIATE POLITICAL ACTION.
 
 Instead,they gave us a FUR INDUSTRY ACT (in six days in the legislature) that doesn't even mention the word 'pollution' and now they claim that this unfinished legislation will somehow cure our problems when they "lower the boom" on polluting farmers. 

If you believe this,  perhaps you might be interested in buying  some lovely riverfront property along the river.......  
Please get involved for our river. Talk to your politicians, and tell them what they don't seem to grasp.........that our river is dying .

Tell them we need to have our right to clean water affirmed, and written in stone. 

And in the meanwhile, 3plus  years or more in waiting before the next  provincial election ...........? If we don't act, our children will hate us for what we DIDN'T do.
 

John Horton(halleyhort@hotmail.com)
 
 

please pass on to your e-list of interested parties....my list incomplete..jh

 The Fur Industry Act..By and for  mink farmers

                           A  full house of concerned residents, a great spread of local baked goods and munchies, representations from  political candidates , interesting submissions from people who really care, and of course a presentation from candidate John Deveau who was responsible for bringing  Agriculture Minister John MacDonnel to this meeting at the Carleton Fire Hall in Yarmouth county .
Although there were a number of people presenting serious and heated arguments , the tone of the meeting remained respectful and everyone present was able to have their say.
But when the evening was over, we all left knowing that although our Minister of Agriculture spoke of being "about to lower the boom" on polluters ......his priority as Minister  is to satisfy the mink industry's need for INDUSTRIAL WATER to carry on business as usual.
BUSINESS AS USUAL means drawing huge amounts of water from groundwater supplies to feed ,raise, and carry away waste from one million mink .(human equivalent waste of 60to 100 thousand humans.)
 His message was clear: BUSINESS AS USUAL also means growing the industry. 
And this is where the argument stops. Ask most  mink farmers where their leachant goes and they can only point "down the hill " and shrug. 
 Minister MacDonnel knows that most  of  40 million pounds of poop ends up leaching into the west Tusket River annually.He's a farmer after all .
The message I got from the minister was simple: Profits were up this year in the mink  industry and that's important. You can talk all you want  about dead seagulls, rotting mink carcasses, stinkpipes to the river,pesticides, industrial chemicals,foecal count, sky-high nutrient levels, Aleutian disease,cyanobacteria, stimulus money,growth hormones, campaign contributions, and  heavy metals , but to be honest......it's just not as important as mink farm profits.   
                
 Thank you, Minister John MacDonnel, for being willing to stand before an intense,angry and determined audience of residents to discuss this sensitive and explosive issue.
Thank you  to candidates Belle Hood and Zach Churchill for being there and showing support for Yarmouth residents .
And thank you, candidate John Deveau, for making this meeting happen. 
 
Your message, Mr MacDonnel , is clear. You are going to continue to try to keep both sides of your conflicted mandate happy ,to  maintain that " delicate balance"between the public right to clean water and mink industry needs for industrial water and sewage.
Your response to the question about culpability was smooth, very smooth.
It is the official response to simply ignore the facts and claim ignorance. ..."the evidence is inconclusive"....leakage from homes...insufficient evidence...not considered pollution"....
.Ask candidate Churchill, candidate Crosby and candidate Deveau. For reasons of political practicality they take the same 'government'  point of view. 
Ask the independant candidate...(The one I have in mind has never taken a political contribution from a mink farmer)....and you find yourself talking to an informed
and interested citizen who knows exactly where the pollution is coming from and wants to change it.. Way to go , Belle Hatfield!
 
What kind of a future can we look forward to under this regime?
SOUNDS LIKE BUSINESS AS USUAL TO ME, and frankly, other than for a couple of token actions ,  we all know there will not be any significant reductions in overall effluent levels entering the river this summer, or the next..........It is more likely that with business  'booming'  we  will experience INCREASED LEVELS OF EFFLUENT IN THE RIVER . 
Your promise to"lower the boom"rings a hollow tone on residents of Yarmouth County who have witnessed too much secrecy, misinformation and deceit on pollution issues.
Your promise to allow citizen input into the making  of the regulations of the Fur Industry Act is appreciated,but isn't that what a democracy is supposed to do?
 Your promise to "lower the boom" doesn't take a lot of imagination. Shall we expect charges to be laid or will the offenders be given time to "fix things" as usual? 
To "lower the nutrient levels" would be an attainable and scientifically measurable goal, but  not what you would expect from a stacked committee.After all, it is a FUR INDUSTRY ACT, not a CLEAN WATER ACT.
For those who may have read the document, it's worth noting that the word "pollution" is not used anywhere.

 
Somebody has to say this: The Department of Agriculture of the Province of Nova Scotia is scamming the people of Yarmouth County  .This entrenchment of The Fur Industry Act is not about cleaning up the rivers ; it's about maintaining business -as-usual for an environmentally hazardous  mink  industry .
Promises of token 'actions' will not clean up any river.
 
Do you really think we're that stupid?
 

John Halley Horton BSc(Agr) 
halleyhort@hotmail.com