Friday 6 January 2012

05-Jan-2012 Show - First of the Year

Moccasin Telegraph is delighted to welcome Anna Wilson as guest host, and I am sure that all listeners will benefit from her mania for research.  Anna brought a very interesting article to the show on Thursday, 05-January and we had some very interesting discussion on it.  I have copied the article below for your reference.


De Beers decision to dump sewage into Attawapiskat played role in
current housing crisis
By Ossie Michelin
APTN National News
While the housing crisis in Attawapiskat has the country’s full
attention, it was an event on March 5, 2005, that pushed the community
toward its current dire state of affairs.
Attawapiskat resident Jackie Hookimaw still remembers that moment.
“My father, he noticed at three in the morning…there was a big awful
smell and there was something leaking into the basement,” said
Hookimaw.
A sewage backup flooded the dirt basement floors of several homes in
the community, including Hookimaw’s parent’s home.
The sewage backup happened around the same time that De Beers, the
international diamond company currently operating a mine 90 kilometres
from the community, disposed their sewage sludge into the community’s
lift station, said Hookimaw.
Documents obtained by APTN National News back Hookimaw’s claim.
Ontario First Nations Technical Services was called in to assess the
situation and its engineers concluded that the De Beers discharge may
have been behind the sewage backup that ended up in the basements of
homes in Attawapiskat.
“What is currently known is that De Beers discharged a load of sewage
into the pumping station. This might have precipitated the overloading
of the pumping station, thereby causing sewage backup,” said the
engineering report.
The engineers also noted that the federal government was informed of
the problems, but Ottawa did little to try to fix things, according to
a follow-up report by different engineers with First Nations
Engineering Services.
“The general condition of the pump control panel is very poor. There
is a key switch to control manual selection of the pumps. It is very
difficult to operate and may fail at anytime,” the report noted.
The report found that the system was very fragile and at high risk of failing.
“There is no overload protection. This is an extremely risky way to
run a pump,” the report said.
De Beers was told about the reports by APTN National News, but a
company spokesman said they knew nothing about it.
“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the story you’re talking about,”
said Tom Ormsby, spokesperson for De Beers.
In 2009, the warnings from engineers proved prophetic. There was
another sewage backup which displaced more people, forcing many to be
evacuated.
Aboriginal Affairs refused to pay for the evacuation and the band was
forced to foot the bill.
Seven years after the first sewage backup and the Hookimaw family home
remains empty.
While the house was abandoned, the pipes froze and burst, spraying
water throughout the interior.
Eventually toxic mould took over and made the house completely uninhabitable.
The family received an insurance cheque for $25,000.
Throughout the current crisis, the federal government, from the prime
minister down, have repeatedly blamed the band council for
Attawapiskat’s current state of affairs.
APTN National News tried repeatedly to get a comment from Aboriginal
Affairs on this story, but no one returned the calls.

Keep listening to Moccasin Telegraph for progress on the state of affairs at Attawapiskat - I have re-posted the information below to assist your efforts to give aid directly to the community, with my sincere gratitude to you for helping.
HSBC Bank at 190 Third Ave, Timmins, Ontario P4N 1C8
Acct #:  542-400804-001

Exemaga!