Mount Polley Disaster (ctd)...The 'Risk'.

SlimeOnTop
SludgeOnBottomVille


As we noted yesterday, thanks to environmental blogger Alexandra Morton the provincial government has been forced to acknowledge that the blue slime on top of the affected lakes may actually be a problem.

But...

As we also noted previously, the building spin, which first began cranking up in the pages of Maclean's awhile back, is that the best thing to do, clean-up wise, might be nothing so as not to disturb all that sediment (i.e. the heavy-metal- and phosphorus-laden toxic sludge) on the bottoms of the affected lakes.

And now (surprise!) the ol' turdstormer and avalanche conjurer himself, Mr. Bill Bennett, is helping to spin that wheel with the help of (surprise again!)  Black Press' Mr. Tom Fletcher:

..."What we need to do is test those sediments to determine whether it's better environmentally to leave them there or to try to collect them and get them out of the creek bed and get them out of the creek mouth in Quesnel Lake," Bennett said. "Before you start dredging lake bottoms and trying to clean up the bottom of a creek bed to get the sand out, you've got to determine what the risk is first, and that's the phase that we're in right now."...


Hmmmm...

And what 'risk' is that, exactly, given the longterm propensity for the crap to leach out of sludge slurries into aquatic environments?

Well, our old friend Gary E, a blogger who built up a ton of 'established credibility' with us back in the days when the local proMedia club was doing its best to keep the likes of us out of the Railgate pre-trial courtroom, has this to say in response to Mr. Bennett:

...Notice they (i.e. Mr. Bennett and the rest of the spincycle riders) don't say which risk they are talking about. I submit it's the financial risk. So in my opinion the smoke and mirrors are now gearing up to full force...


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Go read Gary's entire post...It's a good one, and it's good to have him back in the Bloggodome.
Look...There might be a legitimate argument to made about a non-disturbance mode of action to some aspect or aspects of the clean-up...But so far it is coming from the spinners NOT the folks with actual expertise into how best mitigate both the short term AND long term effects of the disaster...And, the photo atop the Black Press piece (see the top of this post) is extremely disingenuous in that it juxtaposes a person with the expertise to make such calls seated next to Mr. Bennett when the former has said absolutely nothing about the 'let's just let it sit' strategy...Now...If an an 'idiot blogger' pulled such a trick, what do you think the established cred-types might be saying?
And speaking of the good Mr. Black...Whatever happened, POST-ELECTION, to that LNG Sparkle Pony factory fantasy of his that the established cred crowd bought into so blithely PRE-ELECTION, anyway?....
Sorry all the ALL-CAPS this morning, but geez...




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