Gah - please help

I may or may not have blogged about this before, but in case I haven't - or in case you've forgotten - there's an organization in Hants County, Nova Scotia called the Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society who are opposing an open-pit gypsum mine on the peninsula. There's already one gypsum mine in the area, and the company is applying to dig another one. They recently submitted their environmental impact assessment, which means that public input has to be received by early next week - I think Wednesday, but possibly even by Monday. So I shouldn't have put off writing this post until today - bad girl. Anyway, there are a number of problems with the proposal.

1) The environmental impact assessment process is notoriously soft. There's a desperate need for full and independent assessments of projects like this, but no dice.

2) The area is covered with valuable farmland and farming communities, which we need more and more as fuel prices rise, the need to curb global warming becomes more dire, and the public increasingly demands locally-sourced foods. It's also a big tourism area because it's ridiculously beautiful.

3) The topography is karst, making the watershed particularly vulnerable to contamination (say, from mining runoff...).

4) The proposed mine would destroy forest habitat which is home to a number of rare and endangered plant species and which protects the watershed by filtering out contaminants.

5) Even the possibility of a mine (and definitely the construction of one) destroys property markets, so retiring farmers who need to sell their land to pay for their retirement have little choice but to sell it to the mining company, making it even harder for the rest of the community to make decisions for their own future.

6) The company started clearcutting and doing other pre-mining activities even before the environmental impact assessment was completed, and local residents are already seeing a degradation in their water quality and forest resources.

7) Gypsum is 100% recyclable. Loads of it are taken to dumps every day, but builders are beginning to source recycled gypsum - calling into question the long-term viability of gypsum mining as a profit-making enterprise

8) Mining companies...aren't exactly rockstars when it comes to cleaning up their mess after they've raped and pillaged a piece of land. It's the local residents who will be left to clean up the mess...well, at least the ones who haven't left town in search of jobs once there's nothing left in Hants County...

It goes on. So please take a moment to go to the APWPS website (at the top of this post) and sign the petition. maybe even send a message to the Premier and to your MLA. We're talking about food, water and the ability to make a living without being beholden to some foreign company that doesn't give a shit about the big toxic hole they're digging in your backyard. These things are fundamental, and the consequences of one mine flow far beyond the immediate area...

Apologies for my failure to post regularly or to cut the excess white space off the above photo. But y'all should go to the next M4F - it's Saturday the 23. I'll be there, and so will a whole bunch of yummy food. besides, law school is eventually going to drive me over the edge and I'm going to become a farmer. So by supporting the farmers NOW, you're supporting my future. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Thought so. See you there!