As everyones favourite cocksucker Stephen Harper reviews his mastermind plans for Arctic environmental protection rules in the wake of the disasterous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, attention has been drawn to the fact that the Northern Canadian provinces have been sullied with dangerous liquids! Sewage! Jet fuel! For the past oh, half decade!
The spills that have gone down are obviously smaller than the BP disaster off the US coast, but still remind us that we cant fuck around with out vulnerable eco systems !
260 spills were found in Canada's north over 5 years. A government environmental enforcement database called NEMISIS tracked them all, but left a bunch of holes (like who dunnit, how much was spilled, and even what was spilled). There were 137 spills in the northwest territories, 82 in Nunavut, and 41 in the Yukon. Some could be cleaned up in a day, others took months.
In one case, an unspecified amount of diesel was spilled in the Yukon for 2,013 days – more than 5 years – before someone finally did something. I would have done it but like, you know, whatever.
Why are there holes in NEMISIS? The department claims that it is often being improved and updated to manage its effectiveness. Also, sometimes info that doesn’t fall within environment canada’s mandate might not be entered into the database.
mmm hmmmm ....
But they insist that action can still be taken even if some data is missing. The department, they say, is just one of the several that can do something about spillers. (Read - they are avoiding sole responsiblity). Others, including Indian and Northern affairs and the provinces and territories, have different enforcement tools at their disposal.
The database lists 75 spills across the North. That’s followed by 28 sewage spills, 26 spills of unspecified of unknown contaminants and 25 jet fuel spills.
Why doesnt anyone ever spill anything good? (I'm thinking something along the lines of that skittles commercial with the skittles leak).
