Forums → WEPR → The Toxic Island

I want to inform anyone who does not know of the pollution in the waters of Prince Edward's Island Canada.

The farmers here use powerful pestacides to reduce bugs, weed, and other problem with thir crops, most notably potatoes. When they spray these fields, the poisons stay in the dirt for a while.

When it rains, if there isn't anything to prevent the flow of water downhill, runoff carrying dirt and poison runs into ditches, brooks, and rivers, infecting our water supply.

Recently, after only a modest rain, hundreds of fish were killed in rivers where runoff collected. These rivers were shut down to recreational fishers. Recent reports show large amount of chemicals commonly assosciated with farm pesticides. If it kills the fish, what's it going to do to people?

So why is it the pesticides in here do more damage than in other places? It's because of the recklessness of farmers, no doubt in my mind.

Farmers here are not small owners selling to locals, they are trying to make money. By selling their produce to big companies that make stuff like french fries and other frozen foods they can maximize their profit. Provided of course that they grow enough potatoes, and they think to do that requires constant spraying for insects and blight.

This may be fine if they were responsible. But like I said the problem isn't the responsible farmers, it's the reckless ones. They spray right before heavy rainfalls, as near as a hundred yards to brooks that run into lakes, pond, and our water supply.

Farmers have blamed many things over the years for the fish kills and the contaminated waters, algea, low oxygen levels, but it's always been the pesticides. We've had over fourty bad fish kills in fifty years. This isn't a one time thing. And almost every time it's happened, it's been around the last few weeks of July, when the midsummer rains start and when potato farmers spray their fields for blight.

One solution, is for people to stop accepting the cheap food that farmers produce to fuel big companies like frozen food producers and fast food companies. When farmers are being payed to supply in bulk, they don't mind the negative effect pesticides have on their crops, they're getting more produce which means more pay. If the adverse effect of eating food grown in pesticides isn't enough to stop them, then a fish kill every year wont slow them down, neither will posioning our water supplies. If people said, "no, I wont buy produce grown in a toxic slew of chemicals that poison the enviroment as well as the fod itself," we'd all be healthier. Not just islanders, all of us.

So go organic, go local, and if you visit the island, don't drink the water. Thanks for your time.

What are your thoughts? Are you in a similar situation? Please reply.