Making farms pay the price

Hay Bay Genetics Inc. has been found guilty of pouring deleterious substances into the bay near Napanee after charges were laid by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 1998. Justice of the Peace L. Watson dismissed a number of charges because Hay Bay had exercised due diligence, but she found that the farm, did not stop toxic effluent from going into the bay.

She said the company should have hired a professional and resolved the problem more quickly. On that point hinged the verdict of guilty.

But when it comes to municipalities a different standard exists. Nearby, the City of Kingston poured 50 million litres of untreated sewage into Lake Ontario, a phenomenon that occurs on a regular basis, as it does in other cities in the Great Lakes system. Evidently, sometime in the history of Kingston the sewage waste system and the storm sewer were connected together illegally or through stupidity and the good burgers have been from time to time pouring at a single pop 50 million litres of untreated sewage into Lake Ontario.

We called the Cataraqui Conservation Authority to find out how the Kingston spill compared to the amount farms produced in the region. We were met with evasion and given the telephone number of a Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologist who didn’t return our call.

While farms have been singled out as major polluters and a nutrient management bill has been designed to make farms shape up, reliable information is not available on the extent of the pollution.

Yet when it comes to prosecution, the federal government finds farmers an easy mark, but doesn’t charge municipalities.

The provincial government is as callous. In its nutrient management bill, it has designated the chief enforcer but no new environmental money for farms was in the budget, only money for municipalities.

The view seems to be — enforce the rules on farms, but bail municipalities out. This is neither fair nor democratic.