President George H W Bush and Clean Air

 
 Nellie Lake -- A Y Jackson

In 1988 our family moved to Sudbury, Ontario, where I served St. Andrew's United Church, a downtown congregation. Although we would be living in a city renowned for the bleak landscape immediately around the city limits because of nickel smelter fall-out it turned out to be my lengthiest pastorate at eleven years. Ironically, one of the reasons I accepted this call was because of the ready access to natural beauty and wilderness. Many members of the congregation shared this love and some of our congregational hikes drew as many as seventy people.

I also paddled with some of my congregants including a manager with what is now called the  Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. One foray was to Nellie Lake, a remote spot in the north of Killarney Provincial Park. We walked the lengthy portage in to one of the clearest lakes in the park. Tom told us that ministry staff measured water clarity to 90 feet (28 metres) and while this was impressive it was also ominous. Many of the lakes in the park were crystal clear because acid rain from the States and Sudbury killed everything in the water, including fish. Actually, most of the sulfur emissions from the smelter in Sudbury ended up in Quebec and the Maritimes

 

All that has changed because of decisions made by the former president who died recently and the prime minister who will eulogize him. In 1990 President George H W Bush and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed changes to the Clean Air Act which would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides -- acid rain -- by half. The result has been cleaner air across the continent and cleaner water as well. This Act has resulted in extensive  biological recovery in lakes of the Sudbury/Killarney region. 

I'll add here that Mulroney has been honoured  as the "greenest" Prime Minister in our history and if some of his policies had been advanced through the years we might not be in the climate change mess we find ourselves in today. We might also recognize that  Elizabeth May, now leader of the Green Party of Canada, worked in the Mulroney administration as an advisor to the Environment Minister. 

Well, thanks George and Brian for not only making a difference but for setting an example for what international cooperation might achieve. Make no mistake, our current circumstances are bleak, but there is hope, God and governments being our helper.


 

Sudbury Smelter Superstack