CJCD Yellowknife reports, “The newly formed NWT Chapter of the Council of Canadians is spreading awareness about water rights and protection issues. At the chapter’s first event Tuesday night (June 18) at the museum in Yellowknife dozens of people listened to speakers discuss issues surrounding water.”
“Lois Little is the co-chair of the chapter. ‘Water is life, water is a human right and our water is under threat from a whole bunch of different sources. Whether it’s legislation, climate change, trade agreements, industrial activity, you name it. If we don’t have good clean water and we don’t have access to it then we die.’ Little says Yellowknifers don’t have to look far for a threat to our water. ‘We’re sitting right next door to 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide at Giant Mine. The potential of that getting into the ground water with climate change and everything else. You just hope that never happens because that will poison the whole of the lake.’ Little points to the recent waste water spill near Zama City in Northern Alberta and climate change and potential developments in the Mackenzie River basin as other threats to our water.”
On May 4-5, representatives of the newly formed chapter attended our Prairies regional meeting in Edmonton. On May 16, our Prairies-NWT organizer Scott Harris visited with this chapter in Yellowknife. He took with him a video-message from Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow.
For more, please read:
UPDATE: Concerns about the Giant Mine in NWT persist
NEWS: 60,000 barrels of contaminated water spills in Alberta
Concerns about tar sands polluting the NWT water supply
