|
 |
Friday, July 11, 2003 |
In the last 3 years the amount of fish kills on PEI from pesticide runoff has increased alarmingly. If this kills the fish - what does a lifetime accumulation do for us? Is saying I need to do this to save my crop a good enough reason?
In addition, the reliance on Russet Burbank, the variety that is at the core of the McFry, means that many of our fields are uncovered in winter. The RB is a late developing variety that is harvested in October too late to plant a cover crop. If you farm fileds with no cover crop and with a slope this is what they can look like in the spring.
This why our rivers and streams are clogging up and I can walk across the Hillsborough River at medium tide.
6:39:06 PM 
|
|
10 mgl is the danger zone for nitrate contamination of groundwater. Getting rid of Nitrate contamination in groundwater is all but impossible. On PEI we rely on groundwater. We can see that already a number of our wells are through or are close to this limit. How is this happening?
The red zone on the map is the high concentration of potato growing on PEI. Look at the trend line. Now compare this with the green dotted line where potato growing is light. The blue line shows a bad trend as well in the other area on PEI where potatoes are gron at scale. No farmer can say, this is my land and I can do anything I want here. His land affects all our water. Why should we be concerned?
"Nitrate in drinking water becomes a significant concern
only when people drink from a water supply that is highly
contaminated with nitrate.
Federal drinking water standards do not allow public water
supplies to contain more than 10 mg/L nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N).
Nitrate poisoning of infants during the first three to four months
of life is the major concern. The pH of an infant's gastric juice
is relatively high, between five and seven, and bacteria that
convert nitrate to more toxic nitrite flourish. Nitrite that forms
in an infant's stomach and reaches the blood, oxidizes the iron of
hemoglobin to form methemoglobin.
Methemoglobin cannot carry oxygen. As more hemoglobin is
converted to methemoglobin, symptoms of oxygen starvation occur.
The scientific name for this is methemoglobinemia, but it is
commonly called blue-baby syndrome. If more than half the
hemoglobin is converted, death is likely.
Other factors put infants at a high risk for
methemoglobinemia. Their hemoglobin, a special form found only in
the fetus and during the first few months following birth, is more
susceptible to reaction with nitrite. In addition, the enzyme
system which converts methemoglobin to hemoglobin is not very
active early in life. General infant health, inherited metabolic
differences, and the degree of breast feeding versus feeding with
formula mixed with well water also are invoked in the potential for
nitrate induced methemoglobinemia.
Almost all reported cases of infant methemoglobinemia have
occurred when infants have consumed formula made with private well
water. Arkansas has never had a documented case of infant death
attributed to nitrogen-contaminated drinking water. Investigations
of many cases in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere have
consistently shown that methemoglobinemia does not occur when
drinking water contains less than 10 mg/L of NO3-N and occurs only
rarely if water has no more than 20 mg/L NO3-N. A National Academy
of Sciences study concluded that the current U.S. drinking water
standard of 10 mg/L NO3-N affords newborns reasonable protection
against methemoglobinemia." (TITLE: NITRATES IN GROUNDWATER: SOURCES AND CONCERNS
COLLECTION: WATER QUALITY/WASTE MANAGEMENT
ORIGIN: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
DATE INCLUDED: OCTOBER, 1993)
6:13:40 PM
|
|
"The Laws that we are ignoring determine how life sustains itself. Commerce requires living systems for its welfare -- it is emblematic of the times that this even needs to be said. Because of our industrial prowess, we emphasize what people can do but tend to ignore what nature does. Commercial institutions, proud of their achievements, do not see that healthy living systems -- clean air and water, healthy soil, stable climates -- are integral to a functioning economy. As our living systems deteriorate, traditional forecasting and business economics become the equivalent of house rules on a sinking cruise ship."
Being an Island and being dependent on our natural resources for the 3 pillars of our economy, Agriculture, Tourism and the inshore Fishery, PEI is on the knife edge. Our use of the traditional industrial model has stressed all the connected systems to the limit. How to save ourselves is the question. Debates about the environment are usually futile arguments from one group who says that we cannot change because if we do, we will lose all the jobs and while the other says that we should not have an economy at all and merely save the environment. The result is that we remain stuck.
For many years Paul Hawken has being saying something different. His message is that an economy is essential. The issue as he sees it is not to chose between jobs and the planet but to have both. The work is to design a new type of economy that works according to the laws of nature and physics. Hence the term Natural Capitalism.
Paul is coming to PEI to speak formally to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy on August the 14th. But he will speak to the public of PEI at UPEI on the evening of August the 13th.
Over the next few weeks I will post as many good articles that I can about what we face here as issues and also what we now know about a new design that may help us. Please help me by adding your comments and by leading me to other good articles.
3:41:00 PM
|
|
© Copyright 2003 Robert Paterson.
|
|
|
