To the editor,
This is our third letter to the editor concerning Greenmantle’s planned clear cut no. 415. Prelate Lake.
We have so much to say about this because the deeper we look, the more we find that is very much wrong and disturbing with the behaviour of the forestry industry in Northwestern Ontario.
Initially, our protest was about unfair distribution of Ontario’s forests, destruction of animal habitat and biodiversity as well as the belligerence of the forestry industry to tear up and destroy entire forests around lakes where people have camps and enjoyed for decades.
Unfortunately, the priority has shifted to something far more insidious and disgusting. That is the probability of mercury contamination of lakes and rivers caused by clear cutting.
In addition to this, it’s also disheartening to know that a very high percentage of the broadleaf species being cut in the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Forest Region will be used as hog fuel. (For the uninitiated, hog fuel is the result of feeding entire trees, limbs, bark and leaves into a chipping machine. It is then hauled off to be burned in local mill furnaces to produce steam and electricity.)
According to an article in the Toronto Star it appears that the forestry industry, OMNRF and Ontario government go to great lengths to conceal or diminish the relationship between clear cutting and mercury contamination.
Here is the "must read" article published in the Toronto Star on January 17, 2015.
One particularly alarming statement specifically details how absolutely insidious and certain mercury contamination is.
Excerpt from the Toronto Star:
"Studies indicate that clear-cut logging raises mercury levels in fish to dangerous levels. Mercury gets released into the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants and incinerators and enters forests in rain water, where it gets trapped in the soil. When trees are clear-cut, mercury runs off into lakes and rivers, where it gets magnified as it moves up the food chain; fish can have mercury levels much higher than the level of mercury in the water.
One study discovered that 100 per cent of walleye and pike in clear-cut boreal lakes in Quebec had mercury levels above the World Health Organization’s limit for safe consumption, compared with only 18 per cent in lakes where nearby forests have not been logged."
With this revelation, our concerns have shifted from serious environmental issues to, what we believe is a crime against nature.
We have been in constant contact with officials from the OMNRF via email to ask “will you guarantee us in writing that mercury levels will not be elevated in Prelate Lake after the clear cut in area 415? A simple yes or no will suffice.”
We have not received a reply and I doubt that they will because they likely know that there will be mercury contamination as a result of the clear cut around Prelate Lake. It’s a huge cut and a small lake. Our fears are that mercury contamination will be quick and the death of our lake a certainty.
In closing, I must ask:
Do the OMNRF and Greenmantle accept clear cutting of healthy forests for hog fuel and poisoning lakes, as an acceptable “cost of doing business?”
What’s particularly ironic is that it’s in the OMNRF’s mandate to be good “stewards” of our natural resources. Knowingly permitting contamination of pristine lakes by way of poor forestry practices, falls considerably short of that purview.
Who, in their right mind, would knowingly allow a lake to be destroyed by mercury contamination as a result of irresponsible forestry practices?
These people really need to do some soul searching.
Please visit our Facebook Page or our website.
D. B. Stacey
Concerned Citizen
