June 20, 2000
Kamloops Daily News



Canadians are peaceful people -- until they are pushed to the limit. 

Wiebo Ludwig was a reluctant crusader against pollution from
the oil and gas industry.   All he wanted to do was live
peacefully on his commune in northern Alberta.  But when he
saw his family's health threatened by pollution, he fought
back.

Everything was peaceful on the commune for the first six
years. "And then in the last few years, particularly the
last four, we have had nine wells put in here, right around
our place.  And all of the symptoms showed and then the
miscarriages came", said Ludwig.  The miscarriages affected
livestock and family alike. Ludwig saw a connection between
the oil and gas wells and the health problems.

It wasn't an irrational connection.  An Alberta rancher had
won damages against Mobil Corporation after his prize cattle
died from exposure to toxic chemicals from oil and gas
drilling, but it took nine years. Ludwig didn't have time to
wait for the courts to resolve the assault to his family. 
He vandalized equipment in an attempt to drive his
tormentors away.

"I think it's an illusion to think that, as a Christian,
when somebody breaks into your house, wants to do violence,
that you bend down and pray to God. I think that's a
Christian misconception", Ludwig said.

Ludwig was sentenced to 28 months for his role in bombing
oilwells in northern Alberta.  Unfortunately, the role that
pollution had on the ill health of his family remains
unresolved.

Jaunitia McKenzie immediately knew something was wrong when
the men in full environmental hazard suits started working
near her house in Sydney, Nova Scotia.  They were digging up
coal in the area near an old coke oven site.  Until then,
the soil that containing toxic sludge had been buried and
undisturbed.

Don't worry, Juanita had been told earlier when she and her
husband had bought their house.  After all, the coke ovens
had been shut down years ago and the plan was to cover the
area with sod and make a park.  Hadn't  three levels of
government approved the digging?  She and her husband
trusted that they were safe and began renovating their new
home.

Then the problems began. Juanita found a bright
yellowy-orange ooze coming out of the ground behind her
house.  She and her neighbours started to have migraine
headaches. There was the smell of Benzene in the air. Many
of the dogs in the neighbourhood died.

When she made a color-coded map of her neighbourhood showing
locations of cancer, birth defects and respiratory problems. 
Juanita found that no household was unaffected.  When their
blood, hair, and urine samples were tested, hospital staff
were afraid to touch them. They handled them as if they were
toxic waste. 

Juanita did not start out as an activist, but at a public
meeting was held to hear the communities concerns, she had
enough.  Juanita stood up and told Premier MacLellan, " My
name is Juanita McKenzie and you're going to hear a lot more
from me, sir!" And he did.

As a result of her activism, testing was done on soil and on
the orange ooze in her back yard. All showed unacceptably
high levels of arsenic and heavy metals.  The bricks that
Juanita had salvaged from the coke ovens for her patio
contained dioxin. The air was heavy with cancer-causing
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

But the matter is still unresolved. Juanita's neighbours are
still sick and dying.  They can't sell their homes -- who
would buy them?  Governments and industry won't accept
responsibility for the cost of relocation.

Jauntia and Ludwig fought in the only way that they knew
how.  They are on the vanguard of Canadians who have been
pushed to the limit.

When governments ignore Canadian's concerns of the
environment and the homeless, they invite an escalation in
confrontation.  The assault on our health and environment
must be responded to in kind. If governments will not
listen, Canadians will turn up the volume, as they did in
the recent violent confrontations between demonstrators and
police in front of the Ontario legislative buildings.

The meek will only inherit a polluted planet dominated by
corporate interests.  Action is the only way to get the
attention of governments who have lost touch with the
people.  Civil disobedience will increase to the point where
politicians can not build barricades high enough to shut out
the legitimate concerns of protestors.

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