LETTER

Funds for Riverkeeper 

Several weeks ago I wrote the Bulletin asking if the Ottawa Riverkeeper organization wasn’t taking away attention and funding for critical issues facing this life-giving river of our entire region, only to have my question dismissed by the association and its supporters.  Fair enough, that we do not see eye-to-eye, but this past week the federal government announced over a quarter-million dollars to the Riverkeepers to study the state of the river’s health. This sounds wonderful. However, in a rambling response, the manager of the association itemized a bunch of problems faced by the river and the communities along it – without once mentioning the proposal for a mega-dump for radioactive material along the river! This is like an aid agency getting funds to study health, say, in Haiti, but not mentioning any effort against cholera.  

 

If that dump, high and big, goes ahead and should we happen,  just happen, to have another big flood, or tornadoes, or even an earthquake along the fault line under the dump – there will be no river alive. There will probably be none of us alive either, so maybe the Riverkeepers are being realistic in hiding from that incredible threat to us all.  And, please, filing a counter study a year ago is not an adequate response to the size of the threat we all face.

Andy Black, 

Aylmer Nord