Municipal sewage

Studies show that typical municipal sewage contains hundreds of toxic chemicals. These toxins are not removed through the minimal sewage treatment most B.C. municipalities employ.

The largest sewage outfall for Greater Vancouver has only primary treatment - settling ponds remove most solids, but the remaining toxic brew goes directly into Georgia Strait. Greater Victoria dumps its sewage raw and untreated into the ocean as do three other coastal municipalities: Tofino, Masset and Prince Rupert.

Sewage dumped in rivers or in the ocean uses up oxygen as it decomposes, suffocating fish at high discharge levels. Deformed oyster and clam shells regularly wash up on beaches near sewage outfalls. Tumours are found on bottom fish near outfalls.

There is increasing evidence that hormones are disrupted by toxins in sewage, affecting juvenile salmon as they acclimatize to salt water. Immune systems are compromised and reproductive systems can be damaged.

Greater Victoria is still the largest single raw sewage source in B.C. But public sentiment has changed drastically in favour of proper sewage treatment due to a successful campaign by T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation and the Victoria Sewage Alliance. Funding has now been promised by both the federal and provincial governments to ensure that proper treatment can be put in place. The debate has now progressed to looking at alternatives to conventional treatment systems that are able to create new uses for treated sewage like the production of biogas or recycling water for golf courses.

Pesticides

More and more studies are linking chemical pesticide usage to health related problems like rising cancer and asthma rates, and at the same time leading bio-scientists are questioning the need for the usage.

Chemical pesticides came into widespread usage after the Second World War when chemical sciences were further advanced that our biological science. Today bio-sciences have caught up and are clear that chemicals cannot replace natural bio-processes. Chemicals often prevent synergistic interactions between species that are need for healthy growth, and optimum production.

An outright ban is needed to protect our food chain.

Plastics in the Marine Environment

• 50% or more of marine litter is in some form of plastic. Examples include: raw plastic pellets, plastic bags and sheeting, monofilament fishing nets and multi-pack soda can holders
• Plastics are the most common man-made object sighted at sea. During a 1998 survey, 89% of the trash observed floating in the North Pacific Ocean was plastic
• The raw form of plastics, called resin pellets, constitute a large part of marine debris that go relatively unnoticed by humans, but unfortunately they look like food to many marine species.
• Plastic sheeting has been documented in the stomachs of sperm whales, round-toothed dolphins and a Curvier beaked whale.
• Many sea turtles frequently swallow plastic bags when they mistake them for jelly fish, which is one of their favorite foods.
• Many common plastic objects such as bottles, sheeting and Styrofoam cups were found on remote Arctic beaches of the southern Beaufort Sea

TBSEF supports a complete ban on plastic shopping bags and a plastic eco-tax to support 100% recycling for all other plastics.

Industrial pollution
In Greater Vancouver alone, there are more than half a dozen wood product plants, several oil refineries, about 100 food processing plants, almost 50 metal and surface finishing plants and 13 chemical companies discharging wastewater with chemicals toxic to fish into the Greater Vancouver sewage system. Some older pulp mills discharge toxic organochlorine compounds that can cause immune system damage, liver disfunction, impaired reproduction, birth defects and cancer. A target for zero discharge of pulp mill organochlorines by 2002 has now been axed by the provincial government. Waste discharge regulations do not take into account the cumulative impact of the hundreds of toxic waste outfalls flowing directly into the Fraser River, the most important salmon river in Canada.