Quandary over a Quagmire

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all well. I have had a somewhat tumultuous couple of weeks and have not been able to devote any time to blogging for a little while, but I've managed to squeeze a little time in now.

Updates:

The provincial Liberals in Quebec won the election, but barely. It was a very close race and I'm sure many people were biting their nails last Monday. The Liberals have formed a minority government, with the new guys, wild card party Action Democratique du Quebec (ADQ), forming the opposition. By the way, I must print a correction to my former post: the ADQ has not clearly and unequivocally stated that theirs is a party of separatists. I apologize for the misinformation. So, the newly formed government in Quebec is tenuous at best, but we'll have to keep watching to see how things unfold in the next little while.

Thank you to everyone for all your support of the WWF and my annual climb up the CN Tower!!! You are all very generous and kind! I promise to make it to the top and make you all proud.

I'm sure you're all wondering what any of that has to do with the title of my post today, and frankly, it has nothing to do with it. However, the reason I was prompted to write today was by a quandary. In fact, a quandary over a potential quagmire.

A friend of mine sent me an email, complete with not just one, but two, YouTube Links (the second one just includes interviews with people on the street) regarding this issue today.

The net of these are that the 'government' has decided to build a landfill in Tiny Township (yes, that really is its name, and yes, it's in Ontario). I know, we all make garbage, we all have to deal with it somehow. However, the quandary arises in this situation when we discover that the purest water on earth (literally) originates from Arteysian wells there. It's one thing to dump garbage in a place where the water is already tainted or the soil has already been contaminated, but the purest water on earth? One of the reasons they want to use this land is because of the unique formulation of clay which results in a super efficient filtering system (that's my paraphrase, not to be quoted) which will, theoretically, help with the breaking down of the garbage etc. eventually. However, it is precisely that filtering system which produces the purest water on earth, and if the filters get all clogged up with garbage, how effective will they be on the water? All indicators are that they will not be effective at all any more.

So what do we think about this? The people in Tiny Township don't want their water tainted, but we keep making more and more garbage and we have to have places to put it don't we? The citizens there have agreed to have a landfill built in their (county?), but they disagree with the location chosen. Should the local residents not be able to have a vote in this type of decision? I clearly don't have all the answers, but it doesn't look to me as though this is your typical 'not in my backyard' situation. I think maybe the government (whichever level it is) should listen to the residents (because the citizens are the people for whom the elected officials work) and try to come up with a solution that doesn't involve polluting the purest water on earth.

I know it's difficult to know where to draw the line. If we accede to this request, then how many local environmental groups will we have given ammunition to? It may open a Pandora's box of sorts that we don't want to have to face. However, just because we want to avoid confrontation doesn't mean that we shouldn't do the right thing. We should not make decisions based on what the results may lead to in other cases; we should make these decisions on the particulars of each case in point.

One of the best things about being Canadian is that we have a fabulous country. I mean geographically, or geophysically. Ours is a beautiful land. We have tonnes of water. Some of it is pure, some of it is not so pure (e.g. Lake Ontario). That doesn't mean that we should deliberately poison some just because we have more and it's the most politically expedient solution.

Rant over for today folks.

Drive safe & car pool when you can peeps,