I generally refrain from commenting on developments in the Sydney Tar Ponds project, because I know better than most the PR minefield faced by those charged with getting the job done. Nevertheless, the Government of Canada has just released a short video that sanitizes the history of the cleanup in a manner so patronizing and false, it demands comment. Here's an excerpt from the video's smarmy narration: In the years and decades that followed, Sydney would see good times, and it would see hard times. But the resilience of its people would never falter. Faced with the environmental legacy of a century of...

10 April, 2013

A 100-hectare sediment plume kicked up by the Sydney Harbor dredging project, and presumably laden with industrial contaminants, has some officials annoyed over Environment Canada's failure to regulate the project. Gerry Langille, a Sydney-based industrial photographer often used by government agencies, snapped the photos Wednesday in calm conditions at slack tide. They have since circulated widely among federal and provincial bureaucrats. The Google Earth screenshot at left shows the approximate location of the upper photograph. The photo below shows the shoreline at Pt. Edward where the dredged material makes landfall, and where most of the sedimentation appears to originate. The infilled material...

15 October, 2011