[Parker-L] [PBD 5-16-01] How to end May's hunger strike

[Parker Barss Donham]

Halifax Daily News
15 May 2001
Parker Barss Donham


	No one ever expected Elizabeth May to starve herself to death in
support of families living amidst the toxic effluent from the Sydney's
abandoned coke ovens.

	From the outset, May's hunger strike has had an oddly transparent,
staged quality. She leaves Parliament Hill every evening at 5 p.m. to
spend the night with her nine-year-old daughter, returning next
morning at 9 am. She drinks Gatorade to ward off the worst effects of
food deprivation.

	Still, two weeks is a long time to go without solid food, and May's
friends are concerned over her declining strength, worried the
unspectacular impact of her protest will encourage her to continue.

	May's situation is part heartfelt desperation, part strategic
miscalculation. As long as she isn't in danger of dying on the
government's watch, politicians and bureaucrats feel little urgency
about responding. They may even feel some inclination to delay, in
hopes a humiliating retreat will damage May's credibility.

	All that is cynical politics.

	What remains are the families of Sydney's Whitney Pier, Ashby, Prince
Street, and North End neighbourhoods, whose proximity to the coke
ovens and the Tar Ponds may be putting their health at risk.

	Every day, these families listen to lurid accounts of the toxic brew
that surrounds them. They are reminded, in anecdote and public health
data, of the high cancer, and respiratory, and cardiovascular disease
rates in their community. They hear officials of the governments that
will be stuck with the astronomical bill for cleanup minimize the
danger and counsel delay.

	Ottawa and the province say they are waiting for a Florida
scientist's opinion of the acute risk from momentary exposure to the
area. Residents can be forgiven for thinking this a red herring. No
one expects your hand to fall off if you dip it in the tar ponds.

	Chronic risk is the issue, and there is every reason to fear the
chemical soup is taking a toll. But how much of a toll, and on whom?
The cursed thing about this problem is that so many of its dimensions
seem impossible to pin down. That doesn't mean it's not urgent to move
people out. The question is: how urgent? Must it be done this week?
This month? This year? Within what radius is it unsafe to live? How do
you decide? What do you say to the first row of people not moved?

	The province's answers seem to be never and nowhere. Despite its
ineptitude, May's protest underscores the untenable nature of those
answers. The inability to attain a scientific standard of certainty
cannot provide a perpetual excuse for inaction. The province can't
hide behind a dysfunctional JAG process forever.

	May's strike has accomplished what it will, and the sensible thing
now is for her to call it off and think of another way to make
politicians realize the terrifying nature of the problem Sydney lives
with while scientists dither.

	Here's a suggestion: Don't just ask politicians how they'd like to
living with such a problem. Fill 350 Mason jars with tar pond sludge
and courier one to every member of Parliament and the Nova Scotia
Legislature.

	See how they react to a quart of the stuff, then ask what they'll do
for people living with 700,000 tonnes of it.

	<I> Copyright (C) 2001 by Parker Barss Donham (parker@donham.org).
All rights reserved. <N>


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  Parker Barss Donham
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