I am dismayed to learn that the Province of British Columbia has used the ocean as a dumping ground for raw sewage for years. The Georgia Straight Alliance reports:
“As shown in our recent National Sewage Report Card, by 2007 Victoria will be the only major city in Canada, and perhaps North America, that will still be discharging virtually all of their sewage to the environment raw and untreated,” says John Werring, Sierra Legal Staff Scientist. “The fact that our Provincial government continues to condone this despite this past promise to Washington State to change things is outrageous.”
The CRD pumps over 120 million litres a day of raw sewage into local waters and the prevailing current at the outfall takes the sewage east into Haro Strait. Prior to installing a 6mm screen, Victoria’s raw sewage and its larger contents regularly hit the beaches on the US San Juan Islands. Victoria’s effluent is also acutely toxic to fish. Tests under the Federal Fisheries Act show that fish survive only 20 minutes in Victoria’s effluent compared to over 96 hours in pulp mill effluent (Sierra Legal). ”
How can a Province that is the birthplace of Greenpeace, continue to justify this practice? Is it sloth or apathy? Or willful abuse? Perhaps it is just expedience. I hope that in coming days our government will exercise the political will to make an expensive but necessary decision: to build the infrastructure and facilities to take care of our waste. Anything less seems immoral to me. From a biblically informed position humanity has been given stewardship over the Creation (Genesis 1). This mandate is not a blank check; rather God has given humanity a great privledge and therefore a great responsibility.
For information on a Christian organization that takes stewardship of the earth seriously check out A Rocha.
