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Clean Air Concert Proceeds to be Put to Use |
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$100,000 in concert proceeds remain for Crofton airshed protection
By Peter Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
Jun 19 2007
Ladysmith Chronicle
Environmental watchdogs have chewed through about half of the $200,000 raised during a star-studded 2004 rock benefit staged in Duncan.
That take from Cowichan Arena acts Neil Young, the Barenaked Ladies, plus Randy and Tal Bachman was deposited into an account managed by Reach For Unbleached and the Crofton Airshed Citizens’ Group.
RFU and Airshed members took action when Catalyst’s Crofton pulp mill announced plans for permits to burn old rail ties, tires and coal in its power boilers.
Salt Spring Island rocker Randy Bachman was also alarmed and helped coax the bands to Cowichan.
The two environmental groups report they’ve collaboratively put the
purse to good use monitoring the mill’s air emissions despite
government bureaucracy and scientific shyness.
Delores Broten of RFU, the registered charity holding the funds in
trust, reports about $68,000 was spent two years ago on RWDI
consultants’ peer review of a 2004 mill study by Catalyst consultants
Jacques Whitford.
“We also spent about $3,000 poking around doing some air-canister testing with air samples,” she said.
RFU and Airshed tried to hire a major consulting company to do air
testing at Crofton mill, but the firm’s managers declined the work as
they were already doing jobs for the mill, Broten said.
Around $5,000 was spent to little avail bringing scientists together to probe pollution of the Georgia Basin.
“They wanted us to pay the bills but didn’t want us to go any further with the findings,” she said.
Then came the groups’ recent attempt to pay up to $100,000 to have
European dioxin-and-furan monitoring gear installed in the mill to
sample those toxins year round.
Mill and provincial environment folks were onside but federal
Environment Canada staff – that oversees dioxin standards - has failed
to take the leadership role demanded by RFU and Airshed members.
“Basically there’s a $100,000 left, which is what we wanted to put into
the AMESA dioxin testing,” she said of the Adsorption Method for
Sampling Dioxins and Furans.
“We don’t want to waste our money but do something that delivers an impact.”
Results may come from the two groups developing a national network working on toxic enforcement campaigns.
“We just want to get the government to do its job,” says Broten.
“We shouldn’t have to do any of this anyway but no one (government)
will be proactive until we change the political atmosphere and make it
safe to be proactive again.
“We need a lot more green thinking.”
Future fundraisers are possible as the national coalition develops
organized responses to pollution and makes it easier for citizen
response, she said.
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