This letter is in response to "Star Sewage" in the Morning Star .
It is astounding to me that every time I open the paper there are boil water advisories, there are citizens concerned about the loss of wildlife habitat and in general the health and biodiversity of our environment. There are articles about water shortages and conservation, alternate watering days, low snow packs, and there seems to be a continuous need to upgrade the already failing sewage and water treatment facilities in place today.
It seems obvious to me the philosophy of using our waterways as a vehicle to dispose of our human, industrial, agricultural and toxic wastes is no longer an acceptable method.
I find it quite astounding that in all the discussions about sewage treatment it is never mentioned that even the most sophisticated, state of the art treatment systems are not yet capable of removing pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, hormones, pesticides, hospital waste and much more. Why would we continue investing millions of dollars on these systems when we know in advance that they are inadequate and eventually they will fail. In fact , all it takes is for the power to go out for a very short period of time, resulting in system failure and there you have boil water advisories . Most households don’t even drink the water that comes out of their tap , they don’t trust it. The millions spent on purifying our water is mostly used to flush the toilet.
To allow this type of system up at Silver Star resort is ludicrous, and more ludicrous is that we took land out of our park to give to this private enterprise so that they have somewhere to dump the effluent. We all know it ends up downstream, we don’t need to be scientists to figure that one out. So when I read the article by Sarah D. Yewish in defense of Silver Star it made me laugh, simply stating that this system is used widely everywhere does not mean it is safe or correct. Trans Fats were used widely and everywhere with the approval of authorities too. She blatantly ignored addressing the issues the present system is incapable of doing.
I believe we need drastic changes in these very water troubled times, we can no longer close our eyes and ears to all the scientific evidence that is fed to us and then ignored on a daily basis. We need leaders who are visionary and brave to stand up and make these changes. All the technology is there, all that is lacking is the political will and if it can’t be changed out of the sheer desire to save our planet, do it for the economic reasons. It has been proven time and time again that protecting our watersheds at source is far cheaper and healthier than destroying what we have only to have to fix it at the other end. In the early 90’s the US environmental protection agency was demanding New York put in water treatment systems because their natural systems were breaking down due to agriculture and over development in their water sheds .The cost ran into billions of dollars and the city felt they couldn’t afford it . They chose the alternative , to protect their waters at source, at a fraction of the cost. This included buying real estate , halting more development ,protecting the forests and wetlands , all natural purifiers, and to this day New York City does not rely on water treatment systems. At the time this seemed to be a very radical decision , the world watched closely. The environment remained healthy enough to naturally filter out any impurities, the scenery remained intact and beautiful, and it has become an example of what can be done.
There is big money to be made in water and sewage treatment systems but I personally would rather see our tax dollars spent on preserving our watersheds , better health care , focusing on prevention and education particularly in the field of the environment. I personally don’t care to drink water that was once effluent and I’m sure most of you wouldn’t either. If the city of New York can do this for the 10 million people that live there, surely we can do it here in the Okanagan. Stop throwing good money after bad and please show some leadership qualities that make me feel our environment and our futures are being taken care of.
Carla Vierke
Cherryville
It is astounding to me that every time I open the paper there are boil water advisories, there are citizens concerned about the loss of wildlife habitat and in general the health and biodiversity of our environment. There are articles about water shortages and conservation, alternate watering days, low snow packs, and there seems to be a continuous need to upgrade the already failing sewage and water treatment facilities in place today.
It seems obvious to me the philosophy of using our waterways as a vehicle to dispose of our human, industrial, agricultural and toxic wastes is no longer an acceptable method.
I find it quite astounding that in all the discussions about sewage treatment it is never mentioned that even the most sophisticated, state of the art treatment systems are not yet capable of removing pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, hormones, pesticides, hospital waste and much more. Why would we continue investing millions of dollars on these systems when we know in advance that they are inadequate and eventually they will fail. In fact , all it takes is for the power to go out for a very short period of time, resulting in system failure and there you have boil water advisories . Most households don’t even drink the water that comes out of their tap , they don’t trust it. The millions spent on purifying our water is mostly used to flush the toilet.
To allow this type of system up at Silver Star resort is ludicrous, and more ludicrous is that we took land out of our park to give to this private enterprise so that they have somewhere to dump the effluent. We all know it ends up downstream, we don’t need to be scientists to figure that one out. So when I read the article by Sarah D. Yewish in defense of Silver Star it made me laugh, simply stating that this system is used widely everywhere does not mean it is safe or correct. Trans Fats were used widely and everywhere with the approval of authorities too. She blatantly ignored addressing the issues the present system is incapable of doing.
I believe we need drastic changes in these very water troubled times, we can no longer close our eyes and ears to all the scientific evidence that is fed to us and then ignored on a daily basis. We need leaders who are visionary and brave to stand up and make these changes. All the technology is there, all that is lacking is the political will and if it can’t be changed out of the sheer desire to save our planet, do it for the economic reasons. It has been proven time and time again that protecting our watersheds at source is far cheaper and healthier than destroying what we have only to have to fix it at the other end. In the early 90’s the US environmental protection agency was demanding New York put in water treatment systems because their natural systems were breaking down due to agriculture and over development in their water sheds .The cost ran into billions of dollars and the city felt they couldn’t afford it . They chose the alternative , to protect their waters at source, at a fraction of the cost. This included buying real estate , halting more development ,protecting the forests and wetlands , all natural purifiers, and to this day New York City does not rely on water treatment systems. At the time this seemed to be a very radical decision , the world watched closely. The environment remained healthy enough to naturally filter out any impurities, the scenery remained intact and beautiful, and it has become an example of what can be done.
There is big money to be made in water and sewage treatment systems but I personally would rather see our tax dollars spent on preserving our watersheds , better health care , focusing on prevention and education particularly in the field of the environment. I personally don’t care to drink water that was once effluent and I’m sure most of you wouldn’t either. If the city of New York can do this for the 10 million people that live there, surely we can do it here in the Okanagan. Stop throwing good money after bad and please show some leadership qualities that make me feel our environment and our futures are being taken care of.
Carla Vierke
Cherryville
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1 comment:
Have you ever tasted the water in the U.S.
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