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December 7, 2005: Distinguished company in the government's doghouse

B.C.

Distinguished company in the government's doghouse

Stephen Hume, Special to the Sun

Published: Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Whoops, looks like I'm back in the ministry of environment's doghouse again.



Hey, I've been in this establishment before. I've now been sent here by Social Credit, NDP and Liberal governments. It's not so bad, though. A bit chilly, but the company is pretty good.

Some of the most interesting folks have been banished here at one time or other. Public servants who sought to stop the ministry from breaking the law. Scientists who stood up for science and had their dissenting opinions suppressed. Whistleblowers. Community activists. People who actually care enough about what's happening around them to engage with their government at a time when politicians gripe endlessly about declining public participation.

I got sent back to the doghouse Friday after my second column on the proposal for spreading industrial sludge as "soil enhancement." I didn't take a position on the policy because I don't yet know enough about it to make a judgment. I did criticize the time allotted for public consultation about creating a governance framework, which I said was too brief.

At least, I think it's a public consultation process. The website soliciting responses does ask all "interested parties" to submit comments. I assume that would include the taxpaying public and even a newspaper columnist like me -- who doesn't happen to like the ephemeral ease with which information in electronic documents can change almost instantly but without accountability.

Anyhow, I know for sure I'm in the doghouse because Environment Minister Barry Penner's top flack phoned my boss Friday to complain that I hadn't called him before writing my column. I never call him, he complained. Mind you, I'm compelled to note that he never calls me, either. He calls my boss. Who then calls me. Lord, it's like arranging a date in Grade Seven.

However, when I did call back to ask about specifying for me the error to which he had taken exception, he hung up on me in mid-sentence. Ouch. Now that's umbrage.

Exciting as this exchange was, it wasn't a patch on prime minister Brian Mulroney's top flack tearing a public strip off me in the middle of a crowded Ottawa hotel lounge. He was mad at me for supporting Alberta premier Peter Lougheed on federal-provincial relations in a speech I'd made the day before in New York. Come to think of it, I didn't consult him before writing, either.

On the other hand, a columnist must ask, would most readers prefer to learn that government flacks were phoning the boss with effusive praise for what was written or phoning to complain about it?

It turns out I'm not the only one with serious questions about either the "soil enhancement" idea or the amount of time government set aside -- and then extended by two weeks at the last minute -- for public comments.

Despite the haste with which she says she was forced to respond, Delores Broten, senior policy advisor for Reach for Unbleached, an environmental group that's been active for many years in educating the public about toxic waste from pulp and paper mills, provided me with a copy of the response form she forwarded to government.

In answer to the question of what should be added to the arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, nickel, selenium and zinc listed for monitoring, Broten suggested adding others either known or suspected to be present in industrial sludge.

For example: chlorinated hydrocarbons, halogenated alkynes, chlorobenzenes, resin acids, chlorinated phenols, catchols, guaiacols, pthalates, alkyphenols and other chemicals.

Some of these chemicals are associated with cancer, some are growth inhibitors, some are endocrine disrupters, some mimic hormones, some are bio-accumulators. None is on the monitoring list in the intentions paper I read. Yet any sludge to be applied to forest or agricultural land deserves close monitoring for such compounds, even in trace quantities, Broten's response form argues.

"Try doing some research to see what materials you are trying to regulate," she says, a bit tartly for a dry government form, I thought. "And do the research independently of industry."

Seems like reasonable advice to me. Hope it doesn't get her sent to the doghouse, too. It could get crowded in here, right quick.

shume@islandnet.com

Topic(s): Media News, Member News , More Enviro News, Pollution and Waste News, Toxics and Health News

Posted By EcoBC

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