Letters, April 17

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/04/2024 (877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Give peace a chance

Re: Military renewal moving too slowly (Editorial, April 15)

According to the Free Press editorial, “Canada may have trouble keeping up,” with the rest of the world because our “military renewal (is) moving too slowly.” It suggests that we should emulate Japan’s plan to increase its military capabilities so as “to improve its ability to play a larger role in protecting the rule of law in the world… ” and check this out, “Because there are signs that the U.S. is pulling away from that role.”

Really?

For most of the last 100 years, the U.S. has conducted itself as a rogue state, leading covert and overt operations that have had devastating consequences in many countries, from Africa to Cuba, in Central and South America, across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. It has undermined fledgling democracies, financed, armed and misled rebel or extremist groups, often pitting factions against each other. This has destabilized countries, often causing irreparable damage to all aspects of life, particularly the displacement and dispossession of millions of people. And in the process, fomenting enduring conflicts and enabling “terrorists.”

War on terror? Terror is precisely what the U.S. has been spreading around the world under the guise of ensuring “national security” and promoting “democracy.” Actually the U.S. is viewed as the main threat to world peace according to a survey carried out in 2013 by a WIN-Gallup international poll.

We need a full and permanent climate of peace now, politically, environmentally, economically, and socially, not an arms race.

Hélène Roy

Winnipeg

The mussel problem

Re: No middle ground for halting zebra mussels (Editorial, April 16)

I was glad to see the editorial in the paper on April 16 that presents the case of zebra mussels as exceptionally dire, they are an invasive species and particularly difficult one to manage, but it can be managed with the proper resources and some personal responsibility. First, zebra mussels are not just in Clear Lake, I know it’s a provincial treasure but there are other bodies of water that other people care about deeply that are also affected.

Take Lake Manitoba for example. Zebra mussels were first detected in 2021, the first adult mussel was found at Lundar Beach last year, so we know they are in there, this affects communities, it affects residents, it affects cottagers, industries like fishing and farming, and other businesses.

As the president of the Twin Lakes Beach Association, here are a few important facts: female zebra mussels on average produce a million eggs a year, you can see how these mussels can build up so quickly. The mussels attach to and colonize any solid surface, rocks, equipment, infrastructure. They can survive on a surface out of water for up to 30 days without treatment, and my personal favourite, their shells are incredibly sharp — comparisons have been made to razor blades.

What can be done here? Well, as the editorial points out, once they are in a body of water they cannot be removed… ever. So it’s about prevention elsewhere.

Right now the province’s aquatic invasive species branch is chronically underfunded — even with a $500,000 top-up in budget it barely scratches the surface of what we need. And what we need is decontamination stations, high pressure washers spraying boat hulls, equipment, kayaks, canoes, water toys (yes, toys) floaties, all of it. At a temperature of between 50 and 60 degrees, you cannot just pour boiling water over your craft or other waterbound items. Then the effluent must be caught and disposed of where it cannot contact an uninfected waterbody.

Before you even get that far you need land for a station, with ease of access, you need the equipment which can cost a bit of money, you need to employ a crew to operate the station and you need a source of water to spray from the pressure washer and you need diesel to fuel the temperature of the water and the pressure under which it is sprayed. Where does that money come from? Not from the government right now, I assure you.

If you get all those elements together you can have a station, then you need to ensure people use it and do not just bypass it for any number of reasons. That is where enforcement comes in, another area sorely lacking, Right now only the RCMP and conservation officers are capable of ticketing violators who haven’t decontaminated their watercraft. I think legislation should be introduced at the provincial level to enable municipal bylaw officers to enforce with tickets as well, and perhaps a healthy bump to the cost of the ticket, which right now I believe is around $1,200, given that zebra mussels can cause millions in damage. I think the cost to a violator should be considerably more.

While education and billboards along the highway and at various launches are good and part of the solution, they are a very minor part, people usually don’t do the right thing at the right time. They need to be incentivized, and that comes from having many decontamination stations in accessible areas with other amenities nearby, and having local enforcement so they cannot just bypass decontamination and go home or to an uninfected body of water.

Carrot and the stick.

We need both and we need to fund and empower both, now.

Will Jones

Winnipeg

The Manitoba government tried to persuade a North Dakota court to stop a controversial water diversion project that it claimed would spread pollution and foreign species into Canada.

It was a huge controversy. Manitoba tried for two years to stop North Dakota from doing it. That state, however, had conservative politicians and the backing of federal ones and they decided the private property owners on Devils Lake were more important than the eventual transfer of zebra mussels to our Canadian, Lake Winnipeg waters.

And the zebra mussels arrived.

Unfortunately, Manitoba underfunded and demoralized the otherwise caring knowledgeable conservation men and women in their vocation.

Therefore, they were two years behind in enforcing water craft cleaning to help stop the spread.

Zebra mussels were first detected in Canada in the Great Lakes in 1988.

The best time to act was more than three decades ago, when University of Winnipeg professor Eva Pip warned the province of this pending invasion. She was deemed as an alarmist, being irresponsible and unprofessional. Now we know different! How sad.

Government(s), it seems, are very lackadaisical about situations on the horizon, that could become a threat and be problematic, but are always ready and prepared to spare no effort to “shut the door” on such invasive species… after they have entered!

Another blunder by our governments.

John Fefchak

Virden

Foul words

I was watching a cooking show the other day. The show began on a cautionary note stating a warning of potential coarse language. Good to know.

Next up, an NHL game. Watching the game it occurred to me, no warnings of possible violence and coarse language. In a hockey game. Maybe the powers that be think that slugging it out on the ice isn’t violence.

Maybe the players are really using the word “puck” a lot.

Ed Friesen

Winnipeg