Tag: canadian

Canadian Enviro Enforcement Criticized

An environmental lobby group in Canada says the Ontario Ministry of Environment watches industrial plants pollute the Great Lakes, but rarely enforces pollution laws. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the details:

Transcript

An environmental lobby group in Canada says the Ontario Ministry of Environment watches industrial plants pollute the Great Lakes, but rarely enforces pollution laws. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Between 1995 and 1999, polluters’ violated Ontario’s water pollution laws ten thousand times, but only eleven plants faced any penalties. Elaine McDonald is a staff scientist with the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, based in Toronto, which published a report on the findings. She says the problem started when the government cut the Ministry of Environment’s budget by about 40-percent:


“This resulted in lax enforcement in the field and– basically a policy of lax enforcement and therefore we saw this sudden increase in violations and very few charged being made.”


The Sierra Legal Defense Fund is calling on the Ontario government to crack down on Great Lakes polluters. The environmentalists say they do see signs of improvement, with more charges being filed in recent months against repeat pollution offenders. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.

CANADIAN ‘SPECIES-AT-RISK’ ACT TOO WEAK?

More than 1,300 U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly explains:

Transcript

More than 13 hundred U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.


Right now, endangered species in Canada have no federal protection. The new Species at Risk Act would make it illegal for people to kill the 3 hundred 80 plants and animals considered at risk. But unlike the American law, the proposal does not guarantee that the land or waters in which these animals live will be protected from development. University of Ottawa biology professor David Currie says that’s led to a protest among scientists.


“Virtually all of the studies that have been done on the reasons why species become endangered or go extinct have shown that at least some aspect of habitat loss is involved and in many of the most dramatic cases of extinction, species’ habitats have been simply been entirely wiped out.”


The government’s environment committee will consider amendments to the bill in October. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Commentary – Radioactive Legacy

Last month (March 1998), the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency released the results of an eight year study. Its purpose was to examine a proposal to bury high level nuclear waste deep in the bedrock of the Canadian Shield. As Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator Suzanne Elston discovered, the panel concluded that out of sight, isn’t necessarily out of mind: