  Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto Post Number: 866 Registered: 07-2004 |
I happened to be switching channels this evening on the tv, and came across this documentary on TV ONTARIO. The documentary talks about how the rising levels of sickness in our communities can be linked all the chemicals from industry and other sources. Anyway an interesting part of the documentary was the look at the Detroit-Windsor and Sarnia areas. These areas have some of the highest rates of cancer, asthma, and other illness in Ontario. In Windsor's case, the factories of Detroit are considered the main cause along with the industry in Windsor. Tests showed that the air in Detroit-Windsor has a whole host of chemicals in it that is known to cause illness. Sarnia was just as bad, due to their Chemical Alley. In an indian reservation right next to Chemical Alley, it was found almost no boys are born. This has been linked to certain chemicals from the factories that cause sperm in men to only make girls. Anyway I know we know all these chemicals and stuff are bad for us. But I really had never thought about it being so bad in Southwestern Ontario and Detroit, aside from the factory areas. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 653 Registered: 04-2006 |
Typical Canadian socialist liberal commie sky-is-falling bullshit. If those damn tree-hugging granola heads don't stop it with their "research" and "facts" and "evidence," how will we ever turn a profit this quarter? | ||
W_chicago Member Username: W_chicago Post Number: 30 Registered: 01-2008 |
This is interesting. It made me think: why does big-business have the right to pollute and make us sick?? Why don't I have the right to live without having to worry about getting sick because of pollution?! It's even more interesting that the factories in Detroit pollute, and then the pollution drifts over to Ontario. So while it's local issue, a state issue, and a national issue, it is also a global one as well. So shouldn't folks in Ontario have some say in the decision to let a factor spew toxins? I like the think of the world as one organism. Or metaphorically, an automobile (I'm a Detroiter, so all my metaphors have to do with cars, sorry). It requires many different components to function properly. It can have missing or broken parts, but eventually if its too many parts are missing, it will break down. I think thats sort of like our planet: we can fuck up the systems and cycle that make our planet function, and at first our it'll be fine, and the planet will survive. But after a while there will be a tipping point and the planet will die. I don't think we've reached that point yet, but we are getting close, dangerously close. To solve this crisis requires urgent action now. And pollution from Detroit spilling over into Ontario is just one piece of this huge mess us humans have created for ourselves. | ||
W_chicago Member Username: W_chicago Post Number: 31 Registered: 01-2008 |
"Typical Canadian socialist liberal commie sky-is-falling bullshit. If those damn tree-hugging granola heads don't stop it with their "research" and "facts" and "evidence," how will we ever turn a profit this quarter?" haha. funny joke. you are joking right? | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 654 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:It works both ways. Those chemical plants in Sarnia aren't too scrupulous about not spilling crap into the river, and anything they dump winds up downstream in our water intakes. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 655 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:I am. | ||
Dannyv Member Username: Dannyv Post Number: 205 Registered: 08-2007 |
Remember when we had that power outage in August, 2003. Well, an Ontario company in Sarnia released several hundred pounds of vinyl chloride into the St. Clair River and told Canadian environmental authorities about five days later. Notification of releases like that are voluntary in Canada. From Wikipedia.... Twenty people living on the St. Clair River claim to have been sickened after bathing in the river during the blackout. The accidental release of 140 kg (310 lb) of vinyl chloride from a Sarnia, Ontario chemical plant was not revealed until five days later. | ||
Grumpyoldlady Member Username: Grumpyoldlady Post Number: 93 Registered: 06-2005 |
For the last 20 years that I lived in the Detroit area....5 of them near Port Huron, I had severe bronchitis at least twice a year. Since we moved to rural Minnesota 14 years ago, I have not had it even once! Must be something to that story. | ||
Rocknrollscientist Member Username: Rocknrollscientist Post Number: 133 Registered: 05-2005 |
I grew up in the Port Huron area (Marysville, specifically - right across from Chemical Valley) knowing that the cancer rates on both sides of the river were among the highest in the state/province. We also knew that you aren't supposed to eat the fish from St. Clair River. There have been warnings from the DNR concerning the latter for as long as I can remember. I don't know if the water filtration down here is better or not (Marysville and PH both have their own systems separate from Detroit), but every time I eat up there, I get sick. It's just bad indigestion, but it's a definite trend. It never occurred to me that it could be from water quality, but maybe it is? | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1628 Registered: 04-2006 |
The United States has the EPA setting standards we must meet in order to ensure the safeness of the air we breathe. Metropolitan Detroit is considered an attainment area for meeting those standards. We do have a small problem in the area around River Rouge/Wyandotte that deals with Particulate Matters of 0.25 microns or higher. Canada or Ontario have no such standards they must meet. In this case, and I also refer to the above post by RR scientist about Sarnia's chemical valley, this is truely 'the pot calling the kettle black'. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. | ||
Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto Post Number: 867 Registered: 07-2004 |
The EPA standards mean nothing. The government knows that certain industry in the US is polluting above EPA standards, and they allow it to happen, because they don't want to lose business. Also just because the EPA says that a certain amount of chemical in your air is safe, does not mean it is safe. Also Ontario and Canada do have environmental standards to follow. Where did you guys get the idea that we do not have regulations. The documentary was not putting all the blame on Detroit. It was looking at the entire region on both sides of the border. Anyway the name of the documentary was "Toxic Trespass" But really, we can not always trust government standards. In the suburb next to mine which has a nuclear plant, the gov has regulations for radiation exposer. The amount of radiation the plant is allowed to let out into the environment in one year is suppose to be equal to having a smoke detector in your home or something. Yet if this little little amount is so safe, than why does Pickering have the highest amounts of cancer and birth defects in the region? Here is a clip from the documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpdqKAC73CM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nEV_a_PVI8 (Message edited by miketoronto on May 19, 2008) (Message edited by miketoronto on May 19, 2008) | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 7362 Registered: 02-2004 |
We Michiganders and Canadians are using the Great Lakes to wash, drink, pollute, swim and pee and take a dump for over hundreds for years. Our governments and their bureaucracies won't keep our Great Lakes clean. It's up to us to lobby our leaders and keep our resources clean. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1629 Registered: 04-2006 |
Mike, show me where Canada's clean air laws are as tough as these: http://yosemite.epa.gov/r5/new sip.nsf/Table+of+Contents?Open View&Start=1&Count=50&Expand=3 #3 I for one will side on science before siding on media reports. Media has a tendency to sensationalize everything for the sake of viewership. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 1461 Registered: 02-2007 |
What pollution? Someone needs to tell these people making the documentary to get some recent data. Detroit is shut down for all intent and purpose. | ||
Olddetroiter Member Username: Olddetroiter Post Number: 263 Registered: 04-2008 |
My wife has asthma and every time we go anywhere from Algonac to Lexington she has trouble breathing. I usually have coffee when we eat out, but once I opted for water instead at a Port Huron restaurant. Tasted like it was full of burnt rubber. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2309 Registered: 07-2004 |
The documentary pointed out how the major problem in polluting is reversing the burden of proof. Right now, under current law, people must be able to prove that the polluter is making them sick. Scientifically isolating that data is practically impossible. So, some environmentalists argue, if we could turn that burden of evidence around, and force polluters to prove that they are NOT causing illness in the community, that would go a long way toward environmental justice. | ||
Huggybear Member Username: Huggybear Post Number: 325 Registered: 08-2005 |
quote:I'm sure prosecutors would say the same thing about reversing the burden of proof in criminal cases. I bet they would have a much better conviction rate if people were guilty until proven innocent. Classic end-justifies-the-means argument. Don't worry; you'll never see the burden of proof reversed for either in your lifetime, for two reasons. One, it's flatly unconstitutional. Two, for close to three hundred years, British and American law has allowed a certain amount of human suffering in exchange for industrial progress. The British (and most if not all common law countries with their roots in British law) specifically developed nuisance and negligence law to accommodate industrial operations that met with the ire of neighbors (example: the brick factory that goes up next door to your sod house). Only unreasonable interferences with your enjoyment of the land would ever be stopped, and only unreasonably poor management of industrial processes would be punished. And "unreasonable" is not based on the claimant's feeling that something was screwed up; "unreasonable" is defined by an equity chancellor (now a judge) or by an objective (and often industry) standard. The analysis is like this: Oh? Your kid has asthma? Oh, that's too bad, because we really need this buggy whip/autogyro/wax record factory to keep the feckless 8-year-olds of Catfordshire employed. And at a policy level, don't think for a second that any local government in this area *wouldn't* sell out your health for a new auto assembly plant. I'm sure India (a common law country) and China (a command economy) think somewhat similarly (if not more aggressively) and would be willing to take any extra industries you might have lying around. | ||
Sean_of_detroit Member Username: Sean_of_detroit Post Number: 377 Registered: 03-2008 |
Detroitnerd, that makes to much sense to be true. Is anything being done to reverse that way of thinking in our legislature that you know of? | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 3146 Registered: 01-2005 |
Yeah, there's lots of sick people in Michigan and Ontario. No argument from me. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2317 Registered: 07-2004 |
Aw, Huggybear. I would hate to trammel upon the rights of property owners to do as they please. One day, we'll get that Emancipation Proclamation rescinded. Never you worry. ;) | ||
Fareastsider Member Username: Fareastsider Post Number: 890 Registered: 08-2006 |
The problems of Chemical Valley are no joke and are out of control. Only recently did we get the Canadians to tell us when there are toxic released into the air and water when they would notify their own citizens. My wife lived in Port Huron for a few years and has some horror stories like what it looked like during the blackout ( The emergency releases from the smoke stacks! who knows what was released into the water!) I have seen many times the thick brown cloud over the Anchor Bay area from the coal plants that dot the Saint Clair River. National Geographic says that the Sarnia/Port Huron area is the most polluted area of North America! (To think all of these suckers moving out here to be in the country fresh air! ( And the fools in Cottrellville who are worried about a small waterline ruining their "Country atmosphere". . . thats for another time!)) Now we can look forward to THANK GOT CHEAPER GAS PRICES! YES 20 cents less! •••• because Shell has approval to build a new 5000 acre refinery across from Marine City!http://www.thetimesherald.com/ apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200 80519/NEWS01/805190303/-1/NEWS FRONT2 The best water resources on Earth and we trash em! |
