Spill stats draw Huron farmers' ire

Thursday, January 31, 2008

by DON STONEMAN

This week Lynda Hillman-Rapley, editor of the Lakeshore Advance in Grand Bend, and a reporter at a sister publication in Goderich, wrote a story about a Huron County farmer pleading guility to violating the Ontario Water Resources Act by allowing manure to escape into a farm drain, kill fish and close a local beach in the summer of 2006.

Justice of the Peace Robert Gay fined Piet Peeters $32,000 in court in Goderich. According to the Advance story, the crown attorney prosecuting the case stated that 5,025 spills occurred in the province every year. The attorney did not say whether this number reflected only manure spills or whether it included other types of spills. The attorney also said since 1998, manure spills have been the number one fish killer.

Vermunt doesn't condone the Peeters spill, stating that a farmer "must perform due diligence." But he says the incidence of manure spills appears to have been overblown and questions the attorney's use of that number — and the reporting of it.

Last October Better Farming reported that in 2006, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) Spills Action Centre reported that 20 manure spills were reported in Ontario.

The Lakeshore Advance story attributed the controversial statements to ministry of environment lawyer Laurie Web. The Ministry of the Attorney General says the Crown Attorney in the case was MOE lawyer Laura Webber.

Hillman-Rapley promised to correct the story published on the Internet as soon as possible. She says the MOE also provided the 5.025 figure when she wrote about the spill in August of 2006.

What is the source of the 5,025 spill figure? Webber did not return messages left at her office and on her cell phone on Friday. MOE communications officer John Steele was unable to confirm the source of the information but pointed Better Farming to reports on a website maintained by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority in London.

There, a report on the Livestock Manure Pollution Prevention Project (P3) says: "Across Ontario an average of 5,025 spills are reported each year, and one-fifth of these spills pollute a watercourse. While oils and fuels account for the majority of spilled materials, manure spills have been the leading cause of fish kills in the province since 1988. This is followed by chemical, oil/fuel/gas, and sediment spills. Fourteen per cent of all reported manure spills resulted in fish kills."

The comments were accompanied by a chart showing manure spills in the province between 1988 and 1999, citing 274 manure spills, of which 53 killed fish. There was also a report criticizing the use of high trajectory guns for spreading manure. Use of that technology to spread manure was banned under the Nutrient Management Act in 2005, says Sam Bradshaw, Ontario Pork's environmental specialist.

No one was available to comment on the apparently outdated information on the web page. The Upper Thames River conservation Authority office remained closed on Friday because of bad weather.

For her part, Hillman-Rapley says she is under tremendous pressure on both sides and a newspaper editor can't ignore a story just because it puts agriculture in a bad light. BF