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Peter Marykuca
Arborg MB |
11/18/2003 |
Folks |
On the radio the other day I heard Harry Siemens voicing opinions of how he and others felt because a hog barn was put on hold or rejected near Morden. To me he sounded like Glen Cummings " a former conservative Minister of Environment" when he stated that there are those out there that are " fear mongering", when it comes to hog barn locations and site construction. I guess their mentality is that if you don't agree with the proponent, raise objections and concerns they are " fear mongering". Harry is trying to paint a rosy picture, of how great the hog industry is governed in this province. I think his picture is a little fuzzy.
Folks here are some facts to consider:
To my knowledge the advisory committee that approves the site selection for pig barns has never turned down a site, they are all good. The meetings that I attended the committee took the attitude that you tell us what's wrong and we'll have them fix it.
Harry, said that the barns are " state of the art". It makes me wonder if they and their selected engineers know what they are doing, considering that I have seen a new barn's roof after a cave in, which also caused the killing of several pigs, they were lucky no workers were killed, if there was, there would have been a inquiry, someone would have been sued. At another location an earthen lagoon failed because of site selection and bad judgment by those involved including the advisors for the contractors. Folks these where "state of the art barns" too !
Yes Harry, said that liquid hog manure is a valuable fertilizer. But he neglected to say that it is also recognized as a known toxic pollutant worldwide.
Liquid Hog Manure is a health threat to humans, it contains bacteria as well eggs of intestinal parasites like the one that killed about 100 people in Milwaukee ( 1993-1994 ). Hog manure odour contains more than 150 toxic substances !
Organic Farmers who accept liquid hog manure are not recognized as producers of organic crops, because of the manure and standard crops cannot be certified as registered seed, because of this reason.
I know that some, if not all these type of hog barns in the province, have been given permission to mix in untreated human waste from workers in these facilities, and then they are permitted too spread this filth on fields and even cattle pastures.
Harry, mentioned effluent -" ( Webster's Dictionary) - means- the waste liquid flowing out of sewage filter". Folks all hog slurry is raw untreated sewage. Some Municipalities permit this stuff to be spread about the community, others like the RM of Gimli have under the Health Act a By-Law that prohibits this completely. Also two cell lagoons have more phosphate in the primary cell because it settles out.
We / I have asked on more than one occasion that there be environmental impact studies done on some locations. One was done by the Environment Dept. at the Silver Barns near Arborg, about 2 1/2 years after it started up ( 1993/1994 ), in a report by David Green it stated that pollution from Nitrogen & Phosphorus has started in the " Icelandic River Basin". This was about 5 to 6 years ago. A few years later I asked for more studies to be done at the Chatfield, Silver and Washow Bay barn sites, they refused to do so. It is no wonder that people raise their eyebrow's when someone mentions pig barns! Considering that the Chatfield barns had been found guilty of over spreading of liquid hog manure shortly after they started up and the Washow Bay barn was sited by the Environment Department about 2 years later because their lagoon was not built according to Manitoba's Regulation, but it was certified for use anyway, and located above an artesian well, as well !
So I say to Harry, lets have those Public Meetings and a Negative Health & Environmental Impact Studies done, on all barns in this province that utilize liquid manure management systems and find out what's going on in,near,above,around and underneath the barns, fields and their storage systems. As well including all water wells within a 2 mile radius of every metal, concrete, earthen facility that stores any liquid manures. Regardless of when they were built. Again if nothing is done it could be considered as maybe neglect on someone's part if and when there is injury to ones health, stemming from these hog factories and their activities.
The whole idea in having departments like this is for the protection to the health, environment, property of the public and wildlife. The West Nile Virus spreading mosquito's breed in hog manure and human waste treatment lagoons.
So now the industry is trying to get the Province too take all the Rights way from local RM's. It's no wonder that they want no public input or negative studies done. They don't want us to really know about this industry as a whole.
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