A reader from Saint John took this picture of a seal playing in the Saint John Harbour.
This seal must have been sick afterward after being in that nice clean water.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Harbour funding is slow to come
I'm pleased to learn that Environment Minister Trevor Holder has announced grants totalling $75,000 to upgrade water and sewer systems in Cocagne, Grande-Digue and Saint-Antoine, including two grants totalling $39,000 to Grande-Digue for a wastewater management study and a wastewater plan ("Earth Day events set for southeast," April 22).
However, I have to wonder why the province has not made comparable funding available to stop raw sewage from flowing into Saint John harbour.
document.write(CETransPubCode("TP Saint John")); NB Telegraph-Journal | Saint John As published on page B1/B2 on April 25, 2006
No harbour cleanup money in budget: Zed Liberal MP fears another year's delay before project begins
By Rob Linke Telegraph-Journal
OTTAWA - Saint John MP Paul Zed said Monday he has learned from a reliable government source that next week's federal budget will not contain $44 million for harbour cleanup in Saint John.
"I've had some preliminary indications from people I've worked with on the file that there is no money in the budget for harbour cleanup," he said.
Mr. Zed said he feared there would be yet another year's delay before the $88-million project begins, which would complete the municipal sewage treatment system so that untreated effluent no longer discharges into Saint John Harbour.
Still, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is unlikely to renege on his promise to pay for up to half the $88 million, said Mr. Zed, given that Mr. Harper made the promise twice in Saint John during the election campaign and again during his last visit in March.
"I think he's going to delay it. I don't think he's going to back down. I just think they're buying time. And the citizens of Saint John can't afford to buy more time on this file."
Roughly half the city population's raw sewage - 16 million litres of it - enters creeks, the St. John River and the harbour untreated.
The city has financed a number of preliminary projects from its own capital budget, and Mr. Harper and Premier Bernard Lord announced in March they would cost-share an $8.5-million project involving a lift station.
But frustrated city officials have been stymied in their bid to proceed with a $47-million sewage plant at Hazen Creek they want to build this summer. They can't get financing without a signed commitment from the federal and provincial governments.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's first budget for the Harper government will come down next Tuesday.
Mr. Zed said that at best, as he understands it, the budget speech will commit the Harper government to entering negotiations with the provinces to renew the strategic infrastructure fund.
Under the Liberal government, that was the pot of money that funded major cost-shared projects, most of which had an environmental rationale.
But there won't be a line in the budget itself that allocates money renewing the fund itself, he said.
Mr. Zed asked Mr. Harper in Question Period Monday when the promised $44 million would be announced.
Mr. Harper replied that he was in the city in March to announce the federal contribution toward the lift station, that the community was pleased with that announcement and that it was better than the Liberals had done when they were in power.
Mr. Zed, who did not get a second question in, said he had hoped to let the prime minister know that the community was in fact disappointed with that announcement because it wasn't the $44 million and wouldn't stop one litre of raw sewage from flowing.
"Nobody in the community was happy with the $2.83-million federal contribution," said Mr. Zed.
"Everybody from media to (city public works commissioner) Paul Groody to the mayor himself" was disappointed, he said.
It was also a concern that the recent provincial budget also omitted the expected $20 million for the provincial government's oft-promised harbour cleanup contribution.
Mr. Zed said harbour cleanup is not a partisan issue, but something the community has been working on for years.
"I will be the very first in line congratulating (the prime minister) on the $44 million when it finally comes - just like I was ready with the press release a month ago that never got released."
Saint John Harbour cleanup is uhh...underway By Katie Cushing
"We actually have third-world conditions in Saint John," says the executive director of the Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) Saint John.
"Open sewers, accessible to the public, flow through the geographic heart of the municipality." Tim Vickers says he considers "this to be the single greatest environmental issue in New Brunswick." Currently, he says, the city of Saint John discharges "some 16 million litres per day" in raw sewage into its watercourses.
This is nothing new - the city has been dumping raw sewage into the harbour and surrounding rivers for 200 years. Of course, 200 years ago the city of Saint John was significantly smaller...And this isn't just a Saint John issue.
The harbour is a gateway to the Saint John River system, which extends through New Brunswick, Quebec and Maine. In all, 670 km of waterway and all the fish that swim in it, are affected by the pollution of the Saint John Harbour.
Raw sewage translates into a high fecal coliform count. Here in Canada, water with a count of more than 200 fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml is considered unsafe for human contact.
"Marsh Creek, which receives sewage from 9 outfalls, has fecal coliform levels that annually exceed 7 million per 100 ml, and Dutchman's Creek has levels so high it makes Marsh Creek look like drinking water!" says Vickers.
High coliform counts create breeding grounds for all sorts of fun things: cholera, amoebic dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis A, and a broad range of other gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin disorders. Neat, huh? What d'ya say we all go swimming?
Setting aside the issue of coliform counts and other sciency stuff, the harbour just looks bad.
Toliet paper, shit, tampons and condoms can be seen floating in the water. Oh, and let's not forget that in the summer, it reeks.
Last month, Steven Harper announced that the federal government would be pitching in some money to make Saint John Harbour stink less.
That's right, thanks to Harper, everyone in the nation (at least everyone who follows politics...
so maybe not that many people, really) knows that although Saint John may have won Communities in Bloom awards the past 10 years running for how pretty it looks, it also stinks. It's no longer a provincial problem - it's a national one.
The Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments will be pitching in a combined $8.5 million to make the problem go away.
Vickers calls that number "a huge disappointment," although he says it's nice to see that politicians are starting to finally take notice of the problem.
"Currently," Vickers says, "Saint John has two modern wastewater treatment facilities that handle about 50 per cent of our sewage. The Harbour Cleanup project calls for the construction of a third facility in near Redhead Marsh to handle wastewater from east Saint John, and the uptown region. This new facility will cost around $50 million to complete, and take approximately three years to be brought on-line." The 8.5 million will go towards the creation of a lift station at Marsh Creek. All fine and well, says Vickers, but until the third wastewater facility is built, that lift station will be useless. It will be diverting waste, but to where?
Vickers says the value the Saint John community places on this project can't be underestimated.
"People have reached the point where they realize that if Saint John is to truly move forward as a tourist and resident friendly municipality, it has to move out of the 19th century and clean up its act."
So tired of them using the people of NB for votes and they want respect from us when they should do the right thing without black mailing us all the time. Disgusted and sickened by all government; Saint John has been toyed with far too long.
Big business pollute just as much and probably more then the entire region. People who have income that can barely cover their daily expenses can't carry the billionaires and millionaires. They are no longer qualify for wealthfare but still receive. When the the average taxpayer receive a few extra dollars the government deducts from their money back and increases all the taxes and we get no breaks. Later I can see the government writing off more debt for the Irvings but we are left holding the bills.
4 comments:
Harbour funding is slow to come
I'm pleased to learn that Environment Minister Trevor Holder has announced grants totalling $75,000 to upgrade water and sewer systems in Cocagne, Grande-Digue and Saint-Antoine, including two grants totalling $39,000 to Grande-Digue for a wastewater management study and a wastewater plan ("Earth Day events set for southeast," April 22).
However, I have to wonder why the province has not made comparable funding available to stop raw sewage from flowing into Saint John harbour.
SARAHROSE WERNER
Saint John
document.write(CETransPubCode("TP Saint John")); NB Telegraph-Journal | Saint John
As published on page B1/B2 on April 25, 2006
No harbour cleanup money in budget: Zed
Liberal MP fears another year's delay before project begins
By Rob Linke
Telegraph-Journal
OTTAWA - Saint John MP Paul Zed said Monday he has learned from a reliable government source that next week's federal budget will not contain $44 million for harbour cleanup in Saint John.
"I've had some preliminary indications from people I've worked with on the file that there is no money in the budget for harbour cleanup," he said.
Mr. Zed said he feared there would be yet another year's delay before the $88-million project begins, which would complete the municipal sewage treatment system so that untreated effluent no longer discharges into Saint John Harbour.
Still, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is unlikely to renege on his promise to pay for up to half the $88 million, said Mr. Zed, given that Mr. Harper made the promise twice in Saint John during the election campaign and again during his last visit in March.
"I think he's going to delay it. I don't think he's going to back down. I just think they're buying time. And the citizens of Saint John can't afford to buy more time on this file."
Roughly half the city population's raw sewage - 16 million litres of it - enters creeks, the St. John River and the harbour untreated.
The city has financed a number of preliminary projects from its own capital budget, and Mr. Harper and Premier Bernard Lord announced in March they would cost-share an $8.5-million project involving a lift station.
But frustrated city officials have been stymied in their bid to proceed with a $47-million sewage plant at Hazen Creek they want to build this summer. They can't get financing without a signed commitment from the federal and provincial governments.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's first budget for the Harper government will come down next Tuesday.
Mr. Zed said that at best, as he understands it, the budget speech will commit the Harper government to entering negotiations with the provinces to renew the strategic infrastructure fund.
Under the Liberal government, that was the pot of money that funded major cost-shared projects, most of which had an environmental rationale.
But there won't be a line in the budget itself that allocates money renewing the fund itself, he said.
Mr. Zed asked Mr. Harper in Question Period Monday when the promised $44 million would be announced.
Mr. Harper replied that he was in the city in March to announce the federal contribution toward the lift station, that the community was pleased with that announcement and that it was better than the Liberals had done when they were in power.
Mr. Zed, who did not get a second question in, said he had hoped to let the prime minister know that the community was in fact disappointed with that announcement because it wasn't the $44 million and wouldn't stop one litre of raw sewage from flowing.
"Nobody in the community was happy with the $2.83-million federal contribution," said Mr. Zed.
"Everybody from media to (city public works commissioner) Paul Groody to the mayor himself" was disappointed, he said.
It was also a concern that the recent provincial budget also omitted the expected $20 million for the provincial government's oft-promised harbour cleanup contribution.
Mr. Zed said harbour cleanup is not a partisan issue, but something the community has been working on for years.
"I will be the very first in line congratulating (the prime minister) on the $44 million when it finally comes - just like I was ready with the press release a month ago that never got released."
What d’ya say we all go swimming?
Saint John Harbour cleanup is uhh...underway
By Katie Cushing
"We actually have third-world conditions in Saint John," says the executive director of the Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) Saint John.
"Open sewers, accessible to the public, flow through the geographic heart of the municipality." Tim Vickers says he considers "this to be the single greatest environmental issue in New Brunswick." Currently, he says, the city of Saint John discharges "some 16 million litres per day" in raw sewage into its watercourses.
This is nothing new - the city has been dumping raw sewage into the harbour and surrounding rivers for 200 years. Of course, 200 years ago the city of Saint John was significantly smaller...And this isn't just a Saint John issue.
The harbour is a gateway to the Saint John River system, which extends through New Brunswick, Quebec and Maine. In all, 670 km of waterway and all the fish that swim in it, are affected by the pollution of the Saint John Harbour.
Raw sewage translates into a high fecal coliform count. Here in Canada, water with a count of more than 200 fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml is considered unsafe for human contact.
"Marsh Creek, which receives sewage from 9 outfalls, has fecal coliform levels that annually exceed 7 million per 100 ml, and Dutchman's Creek has levels so high it makes Marsh Creek look like drinking water!" says Vickers.
High coliform counts create breeding grounds for all sorts of fun things: cholera, amoebic dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis A, and a broad range of other gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin disorders. Neat, huh? What d'ya say we all go swimming?
Setting aside the issue of coliform counts and other sciency stuff, the harbour just looks bad.
Toliet paper, shit, tampons and condoms can be seen floating in the water. Oh, and let's not forget that in the summer, it reeks.
Last month, Steven Harper announced that the federal government would be pitching in some money to make Saint John Harbour stink less.
That's right, thanks to Harper, everyone in the nation (at least everyone who follows politics...
so maybe not that many people, really) knows that although Saint John may have won Communities in Bloom awards the past 10 years running for how pretty it looks, it also stinks. It's no longer a provincial problem - it's a national one.
The Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments will be pitching in a combined $8.5 million to make the problem go away.
Vickers calls that number "a huge disappointment," although he says it's nice to see that politicians are starting to finally take notice of the problem.
"Currently," Vickers says, "Saint John has two modern wastewater treatment facilities that handle about 50 per cent of our sewage. The Harbour Cleanup project calls for the construction of a third facility in near Redhead Marsh to handle wastewater from east Saint John, and the uptown region. This new facility will cost around $50 million to complete, and take approximately three years to be brought on-line." The 8.5 million will go towards the creation of a lift station at Marsh Creek. All fine and well, says Vickers, but until the third wastewater facility is built, that lift station will be useless. It will be diverting waste, but to where?
Vickers says the value the Saint John community places on this project can't be underestimated.
"People have reached the point where they realize that if Saint John is to truly move forward as a tourist and resident friendly municipality, it has to move out of the 19th century and clean up its act."
So tired of them using the people of NB for votes and they want respect from us when they should do the right thing without black mailing us all the time. Disgusted and sickened by all government; Saint John has been toyed with far too long.
Big business pollute just as much and probably more then the entire region.
People who have income that can barely cover their daily expenses can't carry the billionaires and millionaires. They are no longer qualify for wealthfare but still receive. When the the average taxpayer receive a few extra dollars the government deducts from their money back and increases all the taxes and we get no breaks.
Later I can see the government writing off more debt for the Irvings but we are left holding the bills.
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