VANESSA PURDY: After an investigation performed by Environment Canada officers, the company Gestion Alexis Dionne Inc. and its president, Mr. Alexis Dionne, have accepted responsibility for the illegal importation of approximately 120,000 kg of chlorodifluoromethane (HFCF-22), a gas used in the refrigeration industry. The investigation conducted by Environment Canada officers in 2009 took place at a warehouse located in Saint-Jérôme, Québec, where 5,315 cylinders, of HCFC-22 were discovered, making for a record seizure.

There have been four counts of illegal importation of HFCF-22 charged to the company between September 2008 and June 2009, in contravention of the Ozone-depleting Substances Regulations, 1998.On March 2, 2011, they signed an Environmental Protection Alternative Measures Agreement.

The measures imposed in the agreement include consent to forfeit the cylinders (which have a market value estimated at more than $1 million), as well as Gestion Alexis Dionne Inc making an immediate voluntary payment of $4,500 to the Environmental Damages Fund. This agreement will be in effect for 36 months. [ index ]

MARTIN WALDMAN: Environmental groups are taking legal action to block shipments of 16 nuclear-plant generators through the St. Lawrence Seaway.
A motion to halt the shipment was filed in Federal Court last week, with the involvement of The Sierra Club and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
The organizations are asking the court to overturn a decision from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Both groups are also seeking an injunction to keep Federal Transport Minister Chuck Strahl from giving his approval to the proposed shipment
Bruce Power is hoping to ship 16 steam generators from a nuclear plant in Ontario to Sweden, passing through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence on the way.

The move is strongly opposed by the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party and a number of community organizations.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says thousands of shipments of radioactive medical isotopes and other substances routinely go through that route every year.
 [ index ]

VANESSA PURDY: Research released recently by a scientific panel indicates oil sands development is releasing contaminants into Northern Alberta watersheds. The panel also stated that government monitoring programs weren’t even trying to determine if the industry was polluting the Athabasca River.

Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner said the results from the panel’s review will be used in an ongoing redesign of how the province keeps track of industry’s impact on land and water.
University of Alberta scientists whose study led to the panel said it’s probably already too late to get a true picture of how energy development has affected the region.

Alberta has claimed that contamination in the Athabasca River is stable, at low levels, and comes from eroding oil sands deposits along the riverbank.
However, independent researchers, in papers published last year in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discovered hydrocarbons and heavy metals found in the land and water directly to industrial smokestack emissions and found that they may already be at levels toxic to fish. [ index ]

MARTIN WALDMAN: A binational environmental agency is raising concerns over a resurgence of phosphorus in the Great Lakes, and its possible effects on the aquatic food chain and human health.
The International Joint Commission, a joint advisory body between Canada and the United States is calling for new efforts to remove phosphorous deposits.

The recommendation was one of 32 made to both federal governments in the commission’s its biennial report at Detroit’s Wayne State University.
The report also urges the two governments, who are in the midst of negotiations over a water quality agreement, to include human health concerns in the proposals.
In recent years, the Great Lakes have seen an increase in strains of algae which can pose a risk to human or animal health in large quantities.

The Commission’s report also pointed to some chemicals that are posing major problems to the great lakes ecosystem, including pharmaceuticals and flame retardants.
The Great Lakes contain 20 per cent of all fresh water on Earth. [ index ]

VANESSA PURDY: On Tuesday, Manitoba’s Wilderness Committee had cause to celebrate, as the provincial government’s announced their intent to mandate the permanent protection of the Meditation Lake and surrounding area. The area, found in Whiteshell Provincial Park, was the object of development plans kept under wraps by the government.

In 2009, their plans for Mediation Lake were uncovered, and vocally opposed by Manitobans. This resulted in the cancellation of development plans. This sparked the campaign by The Wilderness Committee, that asked the government to extent permanent and complete protection to Meditation Lake.

The battle, of course, is not entirely over, as a planned Tim Horton development site on Sylvia lake, looms in the near future. The WC has voiced concernsregarding the ecological impact, and the need for an ongoing environmental assessment of the region before development begins. [ index ]

MARTIN WALDMAN: A Calgary based energy company has received provincial approval to build Canada’s largest wind farm.
Greengate Power Corporation announced yesterday that construction on the Blackspring Ridge project in southern Alberta is set to begin in 2012, with operations to resume in 2013.

The Blackspring ridge is expected to be Canada’s largest operating wind energy project with an overall generating capacity of 300 megawatts.
The project is located about 165 kilometres southeast of Calgary.

Before receiving official approval, the Alberta Utilities Commission went through an extensive review of the project, and found that it would be in the public interest to go forward with the project, considering its social, economic and environmental effects.
The project is expected to have a major impact on Alberta’s environmental performance by supplying a clean source of electricity for 100,000 homes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 600,000 tonnes per year.
 [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: Wisdom, a 60-year old albatross, has given birth to a chick this week at a wildlife refuge in the North Pacific.
The bird is the oldest wild bird ever documented in the United States and has surprised biologists by still being fertile.

Wisdom gave birth to her first chick in 1956 when biologists began tracking her.
Albatrosses are known to make extremely long migrations of up to 80,000km a year.
By that estimate Wisdom has travelled over 4 million km in her lifetime; the equivalent of travelling around the equator 100 times.
 [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: Construction is finishing on a new Buddhist monastery in Lumbini, Nepal, which is the site where the founder of Buddhism is believed to have been born.
The monastery is being constructed largely without the use of electricity. It will use natural light as well as stored solar energy for interior lighting.

It has also been designed to use natural passive air flow to regulate heating and cooling.
Though it is to be the largest monastery in Lumbini, its designers aim for it to have the lowest carbon footprint.
 [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: The market for solar energy in the United States grew by 67% in 2010, from a value of $3.6billion to $6billion.
The U.S. installed 956 megawatts of solar energy capacity last year.
Despite rapid growth of the solar sector in the last decade, solar energy still accounts for less than 1% of U.S. power generation.

As well, the U.S. saw its share of global solar energy production slip to 5% from 6.5%. This is because the growth of solar installations has been even more rapid in Europe and China.
In many European countries there are generous incentives for solar energy, and China has made renewable energy a new focus of its next 5-year plan.
 [ index ]