Over 20 federal government departments and agencies have responsibilities for fresh water. Are any of them monitoring the North and South Thompson Rivers, for discarded needles that have been handed out by Interior Health?
When it comes to water
governance in Canada, the federal government has jurisdiction related to
fisheries, navigation, federal lands, and international relations, including
responsibilities related to the management of boundary waters shared with the
United States, including relations with the International Joint Commission. It
also has significant responsibilities
for agriculture, health and the
environment, and plays a significant role supporting aquatic research and
technology, and ensuring national
policies and standards are in place on
environmental and health-related issues.
To fully understand the federal
government's role in water management in Canada, it is important to first
understand the interests and mandates of the departments involved in program
delivery. Within the federal government,
over 20 departments and agencies have unique responsibilities for fresh
water. As all levels of government hold key policy and regulatory levers
which apply to water management, a central challenge is to ensure that these
levers are developed and used collaboratively.
Between
all 20 of those government agencies and departments, runs one common theme ... any companies that can be shown to be polluting shores and waterways
must be held accountable.
So then
what about the bio-hazardous waste, directly linked to the Interior Health Authority,
which is littering riverbanks in Kamloops? I speak not just of the 257,000 needles,
ordered from the BC Centre for Disease Control, and then handed out by IHA ...
what about the cook tins, sterilized water bottles, wrappers, and pipes also
supplied by IHA?
CLICK HERE for video of bio-hazardous waste likely to be swept into Thompson Rivers next spring
It
seems to many in our community all of this – needles and related paraphernalia
– are provided without any real plan to dispose of this waste ... in other
words, there appears to be no accountability.
In speaking with me earlier this
Summer, Kamloops resident Caroline King (co-founder with Dennis Giesbrecht of
the citizen inspired needle buy-back program) stated this belief, "I've
seen that IHA reports they collect 99% of the used needles, and yet we have
collected well over 6,000 ourselves. Is the 99% figure an outright
lie? I don't know, but if it is true, why is no one privy to information
proving that number."
Other
residents commenting this past summer were more pragmatic in their
comments. After reading media reports on what the Interior Health
Authority (IHA) had to say about the needle buy-back program, a Kamloops
resident stated:
"There’s
some fairly simple math here. Interior Health passed out 257,000 needles. With
limited collection, over 6,000 have been collected. How can we say we are
retrieving 99%? I’m happy to see Interior Health stepping up to do more to
ensure that used needles aren’t laying around. Hopefully, their improved
efforts bring us to a place where efforts such as Caroline's are no longer
necessary. But, until then ...
And
as of late? I asked Dennis Giesbrecht about
that, and he told me:
“We have
recovered over 11,000 so far and many are from river camps”, he began
before continuing. “I know of 400 from a river camp on a single day. As the
Interior Health Authority hands out over 250,000 needles a year, the impact (of
discarded needles) by spring will be significant.”
So how are cities across Canada dealing with the issue of
discarded needs? If you Google it,
you'll find that volunteers have taken to cleaning up
parks, laneways and underneath
bridges and alongside rivers in their communities. Volunteers have
also been going out with rubber gloves and garbage bags to pick up the drug
paraphernalia left behind as well.
Items included in the kit handed out by the Interior Health Authority |
Why
is it that by all appearances, the vast majority of work collecting discarded needles, cook tins, sterilized water bottles, wrappers, and pipes, handed by Interior Health, is being done by community residents?
“IHA must be held responsible for
the impacts unfettered needle distribution” says
Dennis Giesbrecht.
Which
brings this back around to responsibility for the protection of waterways such
as the North and South Thompson Rivers ... and that standards to protect
environmental and health related issues are observed. Both rivers drastically flood their banks come
Spring, at which point months of discarded waste from encampments of those who
are homeless, will wash into the rivers.
Thousands of needles ... along
with the aforementioned cook tins,
sterilized water bottles, wrappers, and pipes. And again, as previously mentioned, over 400
needles were collected in just one day alone from river camp of the homeless.
Any
private company, making this kind of impact on waterways, would be immediately
fined and shut down. Should the Interior
Health Authority not be to the same standard as any other industry?
In the
city of Kamloops, over a quarter million needles -- TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY
THOUSAND -- were handed out last year (2017), with no real plan to track and
get them back. While a few sharps containers have been set up around town,
there is ZERO incentive for the users to actually use them.
It's obvious the current plan (or lack there-of) has
failed Kamloops, in a major way. It has also provided probable and
potential harm to at least two groups. Residents safety
needs to become a priority ... along with protection of the environment,
including waterways like the North and South Thompson Rivers.
There
needs to be a better plan before spring floods ... and it needs to come from
the IHA.
In
Kamloops, I'm Alan Forseth. If you have any thoughts on this, I hope you
will share them directly below in the Comments Section.
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