[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: dam-l Letters to the Editor, The Circle [Minneapolis] March 2000
I have only one thing to say to you on that score Andy...
The person who said the effects were not that harsh has
been smoking, injecting or inhaling something...
Metaphorically in terms of his think8ing.
What I mean is - he's full of..
beans. I'll try and be polite about this.
*ahem*
Volume 41, 1984 of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
is devoted to the impacts of SIL, the SOuthern Indian Lake project,
just a small part of the entirety of the Nelson-Churchill project.
Talk to any of the authors - they'll tell you what happened.
Or talk to Fikret Berkes at U of Manitoba. He knows too.
As do the flood bands.
This is one of the first pieces of information
I ever came across inj my search some years ago
on what impacts dams have, at that time
in reference to James Bay.
All my profs said go look at the Columbia River stuff.
Then someone at Environment Canada said: you need
to look this up... talk to the team that did the research.
I've cited their stuff on the webpage [Rosenberg et al. 1997 being the most
recent].
Well I guess that's more than one thing... *grin*
Carol Kelly's work on mercury biometheylation remains
outstanding.
In any event, getting peole to speak may be difficult.
We had a deuce of a time getting the DG's [Directors General]
to give permission to anyone involved with those
studies to talk.
They just weren't allowed.
Then there was the scandel a few years back after the poublication in
the same journal of evidence of muzzling and other ugliness..
DFO's response was to slap the authors - now
all emplyed at Dalhousie University [oops! everyone but Carl Waters
who I think is still BC based] with a law suit.
The Citizen still has articles up concerning the [36?] former
DFO scientists who came forward to defend and concurr with what Hutchings,
Jennings, and Waters had said in that article.
what can I say?
Has DFO changed?
Maybe - I iknow they tore down and/or moved sites that I had
referenced. What does that mean?
I know that the wporld reknowned Freshwater Institute doesn't have it's own webbspoace.
But I do know that someone who works for DFO has told me that
they are forming a science outreach panel (aimed at getting their
scientists into the media...) together with 4 other departments
including Environment Canada.
What will come of this?
I don't know.
I'd love to think something good - that it wil be effective but
I don't know how much I trust some of the bureaucrats who are still
in there.
By no means is this a statement that DRWG or myself belive that
everyone in government is out to hide things
[or for that matter every9one in business]
But it only takes a few ... I'll be kind,
uninformed and stubborn closed-minded sorts
parachuted no doubt from another dept - they really should stop
doing that - and the result is some truly foolhardy decision making
in terms of management and not just management of resources.
I'm sure those in other countries have thei rown stories to share on
that count. :-/
DFO has blocked our group numerous times from
getting their own scientists to come and speak
about research that is 20 years old and non-contentious!
Perhaps they've decided to stop? ANything is possible.
Or is this committee a simple appeasement CYA gesture after that
"mutiny" scandal? The private "hush" document whose release
caused DFO so much trouble.
I don't know. I wish I did but I'm not about to go around
all pie-eyed believing that the faceless DG's and ADM's who blocked
their own scientists from speaking to MP's have necessarily change.
Why should I?
I want to see hard evidence they've changed and not just
more talk and committees.
If the reserach is inconvienient yet world class
and accepted as gospel - why are they thiding it?
It speaks volumes when they shut up]
about stuff like that.
And people wonder why our economy is going down the drian.
bah!
-Dianne
References: