INSIGHTS

Friday, June 14, 1991 ~ North Shore News - 7

FOR 50 years I have sport-
fished.

By Dave Nuttal
Contributing Writer

First from a dock at Deep Cove
on Indian Arm. Then from a
row-boat, then from a Springbok
with a six horsepower Johnson
and finally from my present boat,
the Fishtale, a 20-footer that has
served me well these last 15 years.

During these 50 years the Strait
of Georgia has become my back
yard. I know most of her runs,
and her fishing holes; her bounty
has been my harvest field.

Her coho have graced my table,
her chinook my pantry; J have en-
joyed most, however, her generos-
ity to my friends for I love to
share and the bes: times are those
when I lead others to her table.

I am in Lady Georgia’s debt
and you are going to have to help
me repay her.

Back in 1970 it became ap-
parent that her harvests were
withering.

“The gillnetters are wiping them
out at the river mouths.”’ So said
the fisheries department.

Regulations stopped that, but
the runs did not return.

“I¢’s the filthy drift nets spoil-
ing the Pacific.”So said the Green
people.

But I knew the chinook ran too
deep to be much harmed by this,
and besides, the runs off the coast
of Oregon and California remain-
ed strong. Moreoever, the runs
created by the fisheries depart-
ment were not showing up — they
were going straight for the Pacific
where they were being caught by
the commercial boats.

No, it is not the drift nets tak-
ing the salmon out of the Strait of
Georgia.

“I¢ is the commercial boats cat-

_ ae

ching all the herring.’’ So said the
sports fishermen, and | liked that
theory. But I was wrong. There is
plenty of feed in the strait —
almost as much as in the old days.

The problem has nothing to do
with feed.

Then the ling cod started to
disappear.

“Overfished,’’ cried everybody.

But they were not overfished. I
fish for them in places where no-
body, sports or commercial, ever
puts a line in the water; but they
are not there any more.

All through these 20 years Lady
Georgia was trying tc iell me what
the problem was.

First Lady Georgia threw kz

SIGN OF OUR TIMES=—

Mil bea Ka

empty oyster shells at me. Then
her empty clam shells. Then her
dying barnacles; finally she show-
ed me her diminishing kelp beds
and the loss of her seaweed. Still,
I did not understand.

Then one day she took me by
the hand and speiled it out.

The fishing was terrible at
Pender Harbour and Texada, and
Lasqueti, and Sangster. For old
times sake 1 decided to go to
Scotch Fir point, just below
Powell River.

The coho fishing there used to
be so good you had to go up into
the cabin to bait your hook.

I fished for three hours without
a bite; then I noticed a fellow in

trouble against the shore. | went
after him but had to take the
Fishtale in right against the rocks.

It was eerie. You could see 60
feet down to the bare white rocks
on the bottom. No kelp. No bar-
nacles. No seaweed. No anything.

How can a man so wise in his
own eyes be so incredibly stupid. I
still didn’t catch on.

That night, on the way home,
Lady Georgia told me. I had
picked up a hitchhiker. He toid
me about a book. He thought it
was written by Jacques Cousteau
about pollution in the Georgia
Strait. I nearly drove off the road.

It took me a week to track
down the book. It is written by

Bob Lyons, commissioned and
funded by Greenpeace. All the
facts and figures are there.

You see, Lady Georgia was try-
ing to tell me that she has been
poisoned. The dead oysters and
clams, the lost seaweed and kelp,
the barnacles — they are all being
killed by pollution, by chlorine
and much worse things.

The Powell River pulp mill is
destroying the Strait of Georgia,
as are Port Mellon and Wood-
fibre, Harmac, Elk Falls and the
Crofton pulp mills.

Our 10 B.C. pulp mills dump
1.5 million tons of toxic waste in-
to the coastal water each year.
Just these six mills dump half a
million pounds of chlorine com-
pounds into the strait daily.

How would you like
your swimming pool?

The cost of eliminating this
pulp mill pollution is estimated by
Lyons to be about $100 million
per mill, which is about one-sixth
of MacMillan Bloedel’s profits
over the last two years.

The City of Vancouver dumps
300 billion litres of sewage into
the strait yearly. That is enough,
says Lyons, te fill B.C. Place
Stadium 160 times.

The report is available through
Greenpeace, 2623 West 4th Ave.,
Vancouver V6K IP8.

. What are we going to do about
it?

that in

We can’t do much on our own.
But if the fishing clubs and the
outdoor groups and the Western
Canada Wilderness people and the
marina operators and sports goods
stores and the boating and fishing
supply people couid ali rally
together we could do something.

How about someone picking up
the torch?

We have an election coming up
don’t we?

—Dave Nuttall is a West Van-
couver resident.

North Van

Dear Editor:

My letter is regarding the front
page article published Friday, May
31 entitled ‘‘Condoms voted out.”
It stated that the North Vancouver
District 44 School Board had
decided against installing condom

machines in North Vancouver
public secondary schools next
September.

Jam a secondary school student
in the North Vancouver school
district and have not been offered
an opportunity to voice my
thoughts, despite the fact that the
decisions made by the school
board directly affect my peers and
myself.

There was no consensus taken
from students, no public debate
within the school, not even a
notice requesting concerned stu-
dents to offer their opinion on the
matter.

Granted, it is possible for stu-

student wanted input

dents to buy condoms at their
focal drug store; however, it is
also potentially embarrassing for
most and some prefer to avoid the
situation. That does not necessari-
ly mean they avoid sex, but rather
the trip to the drug store. By hav-
ing condom machines in the
schools, all students will have a
safe and silent source from which
to buy protection.

Your article stated that trustee
Don Bell was impressed by the
statistics from the U.S. saying ‘‘in
school districts where sex educa-
tion programs have stressed
abstinence and the importance of

saying ‘no’, the number of un-
wanted pregnancies are
significantly lower.’’ Well, Mr.

Bell, those statistics are from the
U.S. and I certainly have not been
presented with talks on the impor-
tance of abstinence. The presenta-
tions that I have atrended in

North Vancouver have all discuss-
ed the importance of safe sex and
the proper use of a condom. If
the students of North Vancouver
are being taught to use condoms,
it is my feeling that they be more
readily available to us.

The school board finds it ap-
propriate to immunize students
against measles, mumps, and
rubella. As of yet, there is no
immunization available to prevent
AIDS, but a condom is the next
best thing. Why is it inappropriate
to help ‘“timmunize”’ us from what
is said to be the deadliest disease
of all?

The presence of condom
machines in the public school
washrooms would not necessarily
make sex more appealing, but
they would make it safer.

Carolyn Hornell
North Vancouver Grade 12 stu-
dent

Dalton slams Cook for Versatile comments

Dear Editor:

Chuck Cook, MP, states that
Versatile Pacific Shipyards is ‘‘go-
ing down the drain’? (‘*Workers
fight for dock,’” May 15).

That statement is no comfort
for the employees of VPSI, but is
certainly indicative of the respect

our federal government has for
the workers of Canada.
One thing is for sure: the Tory

government is going down the
drain!

Jeremy Dalton

Liberal candidate for West Van-
couver-Capilano

North Vancouver

Condom decision was wise

Dear Editor:

We were pleased to hear of
the decision against condom
machines in the recent vote by
the North Vancouver School
District Trustees. It seems that
wisdom can prev il in those
situations and groundwork can
be laid for the .atroduction of
abstinence-bas J sex education
curricula.

The debate preceding the
vote in West Vancouver and
North Vancouver certainly gave
adequate exposure to both

points of view in regard to this
issue.

We believe that wiser heads
have prevailed in those two
school districts and that the
students now have the chance
to learn that the only real
“safe”? sex is that which occurs
within the commitment of
marriage with a partner who
has reserved himself or herself
for that wonderful experience.
Jim Sclater
National Director,

Public Policy
Focus on the Family (Canada)

Teens were interested in meeting

Dear Editor:

Regarding Ms. Eifler’s letter in
your Friday, May 31 issue, being
one of those ‘‘young parents’’ she
described, I feel that we had every
right to be at that meeting as did
everyone else in that room.

She says that we ‘‘did
everything in our power to disrupt
the meeting.’’ Well she is very
wrong.

If you are a parent yourself you
would know that kids get a little
rambunctious and bored at times,
and we did everything that we
could to calm them down and

tried not to disrupt anybody.
From the moment we waiked in
the room we felt very uncomfort-
able from the number of people
staring at us. Why didn’t anyone
try to help us instead of turning
around to stare at us all the time?
We were very interested in what
was being said. As young parents
1 believe we are deserving of more
support from the community, We
will continue to participate politi-
cally and trust the response will be
more appropriate in the future.
Tana Williams
North Vancouver