[All] Wondering about the links of dust and uranium re: Alberta tar sands -- Human health and ecosystem health are intertwined...

Tue Sep 4 21:21:17 EDT 2012

Lulu  and Michael...your writings and information are fascinating .   Since
being involved with  Cancer  and the medical field...I have learned that if
you have been exposed to radiation....as in CT scans (for diagnosis)   and
Radiation for many cancers   and on and on. (and as your writings indicate ,
living in an area of RADIATION exposure)...one should take action to
'release  or reduce    or eliminate'  the effects of such radiation....by
buying a pound of Baking Soda  and a pound of non-iodised salt  ( probably
(cheap) sea salt)  (  Bulk Food Store for purchase) and putting them in the
bath tub and filling the tub with hot/warm water....and soaking in it for at
least  25 to 30 minutes  .....right up to your nostrils   ....While trying
NOT to drown ...... will decontaminate  (somewhat), and reduce the lasting
effects of  radiation exposure.....check it out for yourselves....with a
nutritionist...Health food specialist...Naturopath....etc.....not in the
general  field of  medicine  and pharmaceuticals  as we know them today.
You are both impressive with   your research.   Ginny

From: all-bounces at gren.ca [mailto:all-bounces at gren.ca] On Behalf Of
Louisette Lanteigne
Sent: August-27-12 1:50 AM
To: Michael Frind
Cc: gren
Subject: Re: [All] Wondering about the links of dust and uranium re: Alberta
tar sands -- Human health and ecosystem health are intertwined...

Thanks for your response Michael. 

The statements made re: reserves are very much true. At Fort Chip, cereal
costs $14 a box, milk costs $12, a head of lettuce costs $6. Cheapest foods
are Kraft dinners and chips. Most folks have a choice, eat the highly
contaminated local foods or get a job at the tar sands so they can afford to
feed their family safer foods. It's a catch 22. Suicide rates are high,
everybody has lost family to cancers, women suffered multiple miscarriages
and it's getting worse. It's chemical genocide. 

Harper has increased the sale of raw lumber and raw fish to china which
resulted in the closure of processing jobs on both the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts. Most fishermen and lumberjacks from the Maritimes are Aboriginal or
Metis like my family. I've  got cousins working at the tar sands right now
because there are no more jobs back home for them. As a truck driver you can
make around $100,000 a year at the Tar Sands without any diploma or degree.
The oil companies are actively recruiting kids right in the high schools
with promises of jobs and big money and nothing is said about the potential
health consequences they face. 

When they arrive, they are shown how to do the job but they are not told of
the risks. Some are told to wear mask to stay safe but others working around
them have no mask. I know of a fella who was insulating pipes. He was told
if ever he saw a plumb of white smoke he was to run like hell but they
didn't tell him why. That afternoon on his first day of work, a the big
white smoke came and he was in it. He witnessed many unmasked workers around
him fully exposed to it. To this day nobody has told him what chemical he
was exposed to. 

Many of these guys are kids right out of high school. They are scared, they
are isolated and untrained. Alberta ranks highest incidents of drug abuse,
suicide and domestic violence.  You can get cocaine faster than a pizza.
There is no place to run for help when your home is the camp. It's a culture
of shut up and do your damn job.  It's that messed up. 

Lulu

  _____  

From: Michael Frind <mefrind at uwaterloo.ca>
To: Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com> 
Cc: gren <all at gren.ca> 
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2012 10:16:05 PM
Subject: Wondering about the links of dust and uranium re: Alberta tar sands
-- Human health and ecosystem health are intertwined...

Hi Lulu,

You made a lot of excellent points.  Superbly articulated, as well.

Interesting ideas -- and certainly a lot of potential research avenues that
would be fascinating to pursue.  The only problem with such research is the
funding -- Harper has given lots of money to the Tar Sands (Oil Sands), both
in terms of subsidies, and in terms of corporate tax cuts (and allows them
to harm the environment without paying the true cost) -- but there is very
little money for environmental research into the harm done.  As an aside: if
Harper were to cut the Military budget by 1%, that would be enough to do
most of the environmental research needed in the Oil Sands.

A few points come to mind:

1. A mutant whitefish is sad to see, and it may be a harbinger of further
horrors.  But keep in mind that odd mutations can arise naturally too.  A
single malformed fish doesn't tell a whole story: there should be a defect
rate that is statistically significantly higher than the defect rate in a
watercourse further away from.  More field research would be needed.  (As
you noted, the chemical soup of the bitumen-rich Fort McMurray area makes
things complicated.)

2. Keep in mind that many First Nations communities have high rates of
diabetes, kidney problems, and other such issues because of poor diet and
poor lifestyle.  I have seen this first-hand (my previous work as a field
geologist, plus my environmental fieldwork also, took me to a number of
First Nations communities), and it has been documented heavily.  Because of
the staggeringly high cost of shipping fresh produce to these communities,
costs of fresh foods are high, selection is limited, and most Aboriginals
end up eating starchy, sugar-salt-fat-rich overprocessed packaged foods.  No
wonder they have a serious epidemic of obesity, diabetes, kidney failure,
and other problems.

3. Many First Nations reserves happen to be located quite close to forests
and mining areas, which brings a double-edged sword: yes, it means potential
job opportunities for them (until the resource is depleted), but it also
means that the natural forest, wetlands, and lakes are lost (or seriously
degraded).  And, that natural forest and lakes and rivers could have
provided local food opportunities for them.  So, instead of the First
Nations people being able to go out and find blueberries, hunt moose and
caribou, eat fish anywhere on the food chain, and in general eat a healthy
local diet, instead they are stuck at home, living on bad diets and being
inactive -- all recipes for health disasters.  

4. First Nations communities also seem to have a rather high smoking rate.
I know this from experience too.  

5. Sadly, alcohol and substance abuse can also be a serious problem in First
Nations communities.  These factors can also impact kidney function, general
health, etc.  Nearly every part of the human body interacts with other
parts.  So, liver problems due to alcoholism, combined with obesity, could
impact the kidneys far more than the sum of each factor if it occurred in
isolation.  (This is synergism: each factor can worsen, or potentiate, the
others.)

In order to tie the health issues of First Nations people to uranium
releases (from mining to eventually provide fuel for nuclear reactors) or
other emissions from the Tar Sands (including from the processing of the
bitumen), it would be necessary to account for (and correct for) the
poor-diet-poor-lifestyle problem.  

Again, this would make for fascinating research.  I would love to be a part
of it...the only issue is funding -- the fieldwork would be expensive to do!
It would be multidisciplinary: it would require people from the health
sciences, along with people who specialize in groundwater-surface-water
interactions as well as in airborne contaminants, plus ecologists and
aquatic biologists, plus other specialties as well.  Ideally, it would
involve rigorous health tracking not only of the First Nations people
(across a cross-section of communities, not just those near the Tar Sands),
but also of the aquatic ecosystems (fish, benthic invertebrates, aquatic
mammals) as well as terrestrial ecosystems (land mammals, some of whom eat
fish; also local vegetation and so on).  Basically, such a study would
entail ecosystem-wide monitoring.  This could occupy an army of graduate
students at various institutions.  There would be a huge amount of data to
analyze...and the study should be done over a long period of time (starting
now, and going forward far into the future...ideally for the life of the Oil
Sands projects).  

Looking at uranium in urine samples would be one potential route of analysis
(it would be interesting to ask that UW prof who studied the Gulf War
veterans), but I'm not sure how to rule out the confounding effect of poor
diet and poor lifestyle.  For example, is a diabetic with kidney problems
who is exposed to uranium more or less likely to excrete it through their
urine?  Remember, too, that cigarette smoke contains polonium (radioactive
and toxic) and cadmium (highly toxic), plus other substances -- all of which
can affect the kidneys, and thus which affect uranium accumulation and
excretion.  And, a diet lacking in essential nutrients (including
antioxidants, necessary trace elements such as zinc, and omega-3 essential
fatty acids [which the Aboriginals once obtained from fish that were
formerly clean and uncontaminated, but which are now rich in organohalogens,
including the flame retardants and PFOA that are carried atmospherically
from urban factories far away]) could also make uranium more harmful.  

As you noted, radionuclide particles can travel by air, and can be deposited
quite some distance from their point of origin.  Heavy metals (and uranium
is one of these) can bioaccumulate and biomagnify up food chains.  (Mercury,
lead, and cadmium also do this.)  So, the inhalation hazard (everyone
breathes 24 hours a day) is added to the contaminants picked up in foods,
and also in drinking water.  That can add up to quite a contaminant loading
over time, particularly if the person's ability to excrete toxins is
impaired by some of the aforementioned factors.

Sadly, studies entailing a suitable level of rigor and depth would probably
not be palatable to Stephen Harper.  I still remember the time (I think it
was 2010) when he tore up a scientific study that was critical of the Tar
Sands.  As we all know, since then, the environmental regulations have gone
out the window with Bill C-38.  But if there were some way of squeezing in
environmental monitoring as a "piggyback" onto health monitoring of First
Nations peoples (and maybe also other people, including those living and
working in the Tar Sands projects), maybe it might get funded.  (Sadly, even
CIHR, i.e. the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has been cut back to
a shoestring.)

By the way, the lack of a centralized database to track ecosystem-wide
environmental (and health) issues is to be expected.  Firstly, government
departments and ministries are siloed: each one deals with its own little
area, and there is far too little interchange of information.  Secondly,
politicians rarely have the ability to see in the long term, and the idea of
a large long-term study on ecosystem health (including the health of humans
living in that ecosystem) is foreign to them.  (One of the very few federal
politicians who have the ability to take the long-term view is Elizabeth
May, of the Green Party.)  Thirdly, Harper doesn't want to support anything
that could show the harm of the Tar Sands and related developments.
(Harper's real goal is economic wealth for the big corporations.)

Keep up the good work, Lulu!  Your determination and diligence in digging up
the details on serious environmental issues are truly impressive!

Michael Frind.

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 7:48 PM, Louisette Lanteigne
<butterflybluelu at rogers.com> wrote:

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com>
To: "Elizabeth.May at parl.gc.ca" <Elizabeth.May at parl.gc.ca>;
"info at forestethicssolutions.org" <info at forestethicssolutions.org>;
"info at 350.org" <info at 350.org>; "mckibben.bill at gmail.com"
<mckibben.bill at gmail.com>; "info at climateactionnetwork.ca"
<info at climateactionnetwork.ca>; "info at coastforest.org"
<info at coastforest.org>; "info at tarsandsaction.org" <info at tarsandsaction.org> 
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2012 7:46:46 PM
Subject: Wondering about the links of dust and uranium re: Alberta tar sands

Hello everyone 

At the conference at UW on August 24,  there were reps from Fort Chipewyan
Alberta.  They said the tar sands are set to run out of Natural Gas in 25
years, that operations will be replaced by planned nuclear power from 13
nuke plants. I asked the residents if there is Uranium in the soil up that
way and they confirmed it. They said there is actually a massive quarry
planned to extract Uranium 19km away from Fort Chipewyan to supply the
proposed nuke plants. 

They also showed a photo taken by Ron Plain of an area whitefish caught
during his visit up to Fort Chip. The fish had two jaws, the lower one with
huge eyeteeth. Whitefish don't have eye teeth. Photo in the attachments.

They are removing enough sediment to fill the Skydome each and every day. I
have no encountered any info regarding the impacts of the dust particulates
associated with the sediment removal at all. Everyone's focused on the oil
not the sediment but I have found online reports by the Alberta Government
which speak of the prospects of Uranium Mining. Here is one example:
<http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/minerals/uranium/index.html>
http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/minerals/uranium/index.html

Like Ontario, the Alberta MNR has no regard at all for potential cumiliative
impacts of environmental discharge or emissions. There is no centralized
database on it. Generally discharge permits are kept by corporations in
hand. Particulate concerns may or may not be part of the permit process but
I'm not sure. Generally in Ontario, Aggregates are not required to have EA
processes on the believe it's not releasing anything into the environment.
There is no regard for what toxins they might actually be digging up or the
impacts of the dust they stir up. 

Gravelwatch has information about how gravel dust can kill people at the
following website: 

http://www.gravelwatch.org/dust.htm

Currently there is a high rate of kidney failure and diabetes among the
aboriginal communities in Alberta and I'm wondering if it might be linked to
toxicity of inhaling the uranium dust being dug up at the Tar Sands. The way
to detect low dose radiation is to measure the urine and check the kidneys.
We have a doctor at UW who measured the urine of Gulf War vets in Canada. 10
years after exposure they still had radiation in their urine. 

Uranium particulates and dust in general, contributes to high blood pressure
and other ailments but of course it's a virtual chemical soup down that way
so that complicates things a bit in terms of proving causes but the
interesting thing about the concept of radioactive particulate is that it
could travel down wind places like Edmonton and Calgary on the wind.  If a
link like that could be proven, it might give leverage to the movement to
reduce tarsands expansions.

Louisette Lanteigne

700 Star Flower Ave.

Waterloo ON

N2V 2L2

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======================================================================

Michael Frind, BSc
MSc Candidate (Thermal Geophysics, Modelling of Groundwater-Surface-Water
Interactions)
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo, 
Office: PHY 230B, 519-885-1211x36869, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo Ontario
N2L 3G1
Home: 346 Marlowe Drive, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 5A4 519-885-4415
frind at execulink.com, michael.e.frind at gmail.com, mefrind at uwaterloo.ca
======================================================================

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