The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
For a government to actually solve a societal problem often requires more time, effort and money than elected officials and their bureaucrats are willing to expend. So what we end up with, more often than not, is a partial solution disguised as a wholly satisfying resolution. Case in point: the provincial government's response to health-guideline-exceeding heavy metal levels in much of Flin Flon's soil. Last summer, Premier Gary Doer was in the city to pledge up to $1 million to remediate the soil at most local parks. The work would begin in 2008 and continue, hopefully to conclusion, in 2009. Premier Doer says that when it comes to elevated levels of arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium in the ground, it is better to be safe than sorry. He says that if there are indeed health dangers stemming from the toxins (we don't know yet know with certainty), children may be at the greatest risk. Premier Doer says all of this while refusing to remediate any land that is not a park. His decision to clean up the parks is welcome, but anyone with children knows that kids spend far more time playing in their own backyards than they ever will at a particular park. If Premier Doer were earnest about limiting a risk he seriously believes may exist, he would give Flin Flon parents the option of having their yards re-soiled along with the parks. It only makes sense. If there might be a risk in a park, that same risk might be in a parent's yard. In fact the risk would surely be higher in the yard by virtue of the time that children will spend there, particularly during their formative years. Would expanding soil reclamation cost the province more money? Yes. Is it possible that at the end of the day, all of this work would be for naught? Yes again, but it is important to note that the opposite is also possible. Premier Doer, drawing from all of the government expertise available to him, has concluded that the metals represent a grave enough concern to warrant a seven-figure expenditure. That's hardly a small level of unease on his part. The Premier should be willing to take the next step and give parents who feel just as strongly as he does the option of getting their yards cleaned up. All of the health issues associated with these toxic metals should not be on parents' minds when their little ones are out back playing tag or digging in their sandboxes. Then again, perhaps the province's limited response to the metals should come as no surprise. After all, it took a public shaming for the government to agree to remediate more than two parks and to replace more than just the soil adjacent to play structures. Last summer, government officials separately told city council and The Reminder that this would be the plan going forward. Only after Mayor Tom Therien went public with his frustration Ð he told this newspaper that he does not "accept that as a valid solution" Ð did the plans change. Suddenly, as if by magic, the province completely backtracked. They would remediate all parks that were tested for metals, and every square inch of those parks would be remediated. Only when the province is again called on the inadequacy of its response to the metals can Flin Flon expect the full solution it deserves. Remediate the parks, but also give parents whose yards may contain as many metals Ð if not more Ð the same option. As Premier Doer himself said last summer, residents deserve "having the knowledge that your children are playing in grounds that are cleaned up." Local Angle runs Fridays.
