Category: Environment

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Arrested Development: The RCMP Get Their Gas

I am not making this up.

The RCMP got called in by the Alberta Energy Co. to try to put an end to sabotage of its gas and oil wells in Northern Alberta.

Now, first of all, you must be aware of the fact that these wells stink mightily and emit noxious fumes over a large area. People live in this area. But when the police were called in to put an end to the noxious fumes, they did nothing. You see, clean air doesn’t make a profit.

Then some of the citizens of this region, understandably frustrated, took matters into their own hands. They began to commit acts of vandalism, damaging the wells and drilling equipment owned by the Alberta Energy Co. The Alberta Energy Co. then called the police. They were there lickety-spit.

So, there you go. The Alberta Energy Co. damaged the environment and possibly the health of a large number of farmers, and the police shrugged and ignored the problem. The farmers damage some equipment, and before you can say “Dudley Dooright”, they are out there doing an investigation.

They tried and tried to find the culprits but they could not. However, they did happen to know that this farmer named Wiebo Ludwig (isn’t that a great name?) and his friend Richard Boonstra had been loudly complaining about the pollution from the wells for many years. So they arrested him. So not only did the police not enforce the law protecting the environment and people’s health, but they tried to punish the victims.

Unfortunately for the RCMP, the courts in Canada still do require evidence occasionally and they had none. Worse than that, they discovered that nobody would testify against the two men. So they had to release them. I must congratulate the police on their integrity here. Standard procedure, it sometimes seems, is to lock the suspect into the same cell as an informant serving a long sentence for something or another.

Then you offer the informant an early release if he happens to overhear the suspect confessing in full to his crime.

Well they adopted the next best solution. They would blow up one of the wells themselves. Then they would report that the saboteurs were more dangerous than they had originally thought. Won’t you fink on them now?

How surprised they must be at the uproar. They are so surprised that they pretty well ‘fessed up right away. We didn’t think you’d mind. At least we didn’t strip search anybody. And we didn’t actually charge the suspect with blowing up the well that we blew up.

Technicalities. Support your local constabulary. And all those people in Elmira complaining about the pollution from Uniroyal…. watch your step!

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Turtle on the Highway

I was driving down a country side-road today, from Hwy 8 south of Cambridge to Hwy 6, when I saw a commotion ahead of me in the opposite lane. A car had pulled over and a man was standing in the middle of the road near a grayish lump. Several cars had stopped behind him.

I thought at first that some raccoon had been injured by a car, and he was stopping to decide whether to put it out of its misery or call the humane society or something. But no, as I passed carefully, I could see that it was a large snapping turtle, and it was very alive indeed, and trying to cross the road.

It reminded me of a situation a few years ago on the 401. As we were driving east to Toronto, we spied a mallard duck and six or seven chicks headed across the median, single file, waddling with audacious determination. They had obviously already crossed half of a very busy four-lane highway and were headed for the other half, which was loaded with traffic. We couldn’t imagine that all of them would make it safely, and in fact, the mother duck looked a little hysterical but stubborn, if it is possible for a duck to look hysterical. I pictured a great 18-wheeler swerving to avoid the ducks and plowing into a mini-van.

What could you do? Even if we had stopped, could we have rescued them? We might have frightened them right into the path of the oncoming traffic.

But this turtle was on a quiet county side-road. Three cars were stopped, waiting for it to safely cross. I’ll bet the drivers of those cars felt quite virtuous. And probably a little amused: in the process of building that country road in the first place, thousands of turtles, frogs, ducks, and other wildlife were mercilessly slaughtered, crushed or buried by bulldozers and trucks, habitat destroyed, migration paths blocked, food chain disrupted. And now we all kindly stop so a single snapper can travel from the swamp on one side of the road to the swamp on the other side. Quite likely, when he gets there, he’ll find that the food chain there is just as perplexing.