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.
Are Flin Flonners failing to take the high levels of industrial pollution in our community seriously? Not according to one citizen who sounded off in a letter to the editor in WednesdayÕs Winnipeg Free Press. ÒAs a resident of Flin Flon, I feel that...(t)here are many of us who do not feel complacent about the toxins HudBay Minerals Inc. has been spewing upon us,Ó read the letter. HeÕs right. While many Flin Flonners donÕt appear overly concerned with sharing their air with North AmericaÕs single largest emitter of mercury and arsenic, others certainly are. There has probably never been a time when Flin FlonÕs pollution was such a hot topic. It now makes regular headlines, mainly because the environment has become the issue of the day and society has grown more leery of all things toxic. Groups like the Toronto-based Ecojustice Canada have been demanding governments crack down immediately Ð not in five or 10 years Ð on facilities like the HBMS smelter. I was talking to a CBC-Radio journalist a couple of weeks back. She asked me whether I felt picked on by big city environmental crusaders who see Flin Flon as the epitome of out-of-control pollution. I said I didnÕt. If I were an environmentalist in Toronto or Vancouver and read the data on Flin Flon, I would probably take it just as seriously. But I also told her that itÕs different when you actually live in the community. Toxic smoke spewing from that big cigar in the sky is just something you live with. You trust governments to ensure that your health is not at risk and go on with your life. Today, a lot of residents are no longer willing to do that. They want more information on the toxins in our air and the metals in our soil, and they want to know what it may or may not mean for their well-being. Currently, Manitoba and Saskatchewan are working on a joint study to help determine whether the smelter is impacting our health. Simultaneously, a consulting firm, Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc., is assessing what the metals in our soil may mean. The best approach is not to brush aside questions about pollution and our health as folly. Nor is it to worry ourselves to death. Instead, we should wait for the research to be completed. With the facts in hand, we can then decide how seriously we need to take our industrial pollution. Local Angle runs Fridays.
