VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

$$$$$$$$$$450,000,000,000.$$$$$$ million for a treatment center,and 17,000,000,000.$$$$$$$$$ for yearly maintence.Pretty much the whole of Clover Point would be used, maybe the top could be a nice skate park.For another ,say 10,000,000,000.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ peanuts,What do we pay "Huge"tax's for,if not to make the quality of our lives.The city tax base is growing in leaps and bounds,why not put some of this towards cleaning up our oceans.

I realize that there are a lot of pro/com arguments for the sewage treatment but when it comes down to it it is important to look at what actually happens when you spend time in the water at Cook Street.

Perhaps there are those with a superhuman immune system that manage to evade infection but I know there are a lot of people who get sick, myself included.
I have spent a large part of the last 15 years of my life in the water. Although I only get out once or twice a week now there were times where I was surfing 300+ times a year. I never had any health problems aside from the occasional board in the face. I don't drink, don't smoke, eat a balanced diet, eat lots of veggies, drink lots of water and don't fart in public places (much), basically I live a pretty healthy lifestyle.

It wasn't until I moved from Tofino down to Victoria that I noticed there was something strange about the water. Before I started kiting I used to go down to the beach at mile zero and go for summertime swims to get my salt-water fix. I was doing this every chance I could throughout the summer but quit when I noticed that upon getting out of the water my nose would get all stuffy and start to run. (I know what nasal drip from surfing or kiting is and this was not it)

When I started kiting I began to realize some distinct things about Cook Street. (And this is the only place I kite because I live on Dallas and have no car)
-I would get this stuffy runny nose for a half hour after every kite session
-I got an eye infection. I had never had an eye infection before.
-I got ear infections. Nothing serious but enough to raise eyebrows.
-Any cuts on my feet seem to take forever to heal and quite frequently get infected despite my best efforts with the polysporin and teatree oil.
-My wetsuit smells weird. Now I know that doesn't sound particularly out of the ordinary, who's doesn't, but after working at a surf shop and washing wetsuits for 5 years I have never smelt anything quite like this. I have a wetsuit for Surfing and a wetsuit for Kiting both used and washed equally and they definitely smell different.

I realize this isn't exactly the empirical data that the city needs to dump a heap of cash into the project however I do believe that these stories, our stories, can have an impact. It seems to me that this is quite frequently how movement starts... With people sharing their stories. Some of the health stories I've heard from Cook street water users seem a little too closely linked to be coincidental.

I am; however, open to all perspectives and respect the prerogative everyone who has posted. Keep the great info flying back and forth!

My contribution to the discussion is this...

I think it would be interesting to start a thread that simply captured health concerns experienced by ocean users in the Cook Street area. (that they feel my have been ocean caused! Please no "I was cleaning the meat cleaver in my kitchen when.." stories)

Hope everyone is having a great winter. Enjoy the waves and crazy wind.

Erik.

P.S. Actually surfed off clover point a few weeks ago. Got some rad pictures and some long rides. No joke.

One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards.

- Edward Abbey

Have an awesoem day.

awesome quote Erik, I love it!!

Hey, do you have any digital pix of the surfing off of Clover? I would love to see them.

Cheers,

Paul

I am getting them scanned this week. I cam post them when I do. Classic.

It wasn't massive but I was sure surprised.

Have fun today,

Erik.

Nice posts Eric! I agree with pretty much everything you said!

I spend far too much of my time desk-bound. But I sure appreciate the time working or playing in the bush and mountains now!

Very interesting read.... !!!

"The southern resident killer whales, 85 individuals that swim the waters between Georgia Straight and Puget Sound, are currently four to five times more contaminated than the highly toxic beluga whales of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Central Canada. "

...."These killer whales are contaminated because they live in a toxic soup. Persistent pollutants like PCBs and DDT, long since banned in North America but still in the environment, have bioaccumulated in the whales’ blubber, leading to endocrine disruption, reproductive disorders and lowered immunity. This toxic legacy is compounded by a slew of dangerous chemicals still in use...."

"Like their toxic cousins, PBDEs are unsafe even at low doses, bioaccumulate in humans and the environment and are known to impair memory and learning and disrupt the endocrine system.(5)"....

...."When it comes to our health and well-being, at first glance it may appear that the connection between killer whales and humans is remote, but upon closer inspection the plight of these whales is telling us that we live in an interconnected world where chemicals that poison our water and pollute our air respect no boundaries. The southern resident killer whales are our canaries in the coal mine, telling us if we want good health we need a healthy planet with air and water free of toxic pollution."

For an even more interesting read, read some of the articles on the left hand side of the page, some very interesting stuff - "precautionary principal", "under the sink" etc... here's a nice qrote from the first
...."scientists recently discovered that Canadian women have the second highest level of PBDE contamination in the world" .... next to the orca?

http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/camp ... o02/sewage

In my opinion... we've seriously got to get out priorities right, currently and undoubtedly cold hard cash rules the world, profit first, think later... I'm not specifically refering to the sewage issue, although, it is my opinion that despite the cost its well worth the investment. I strongly believe that we need higher taxes on items that contaminate our environment (and the tax revenue collected ACTUALLY going to solving the issues at hand) ....

I (we) are paying for ski jumps, bobsled tracks that will never be used again, A highway on the mainland thats going to push $700 mil by the time its done, A building of 1000 people who each make $100,000 a year to think up legislation that only gets used 4.7% of the time..................
We can surely pony up for a treatment plant. If you dont want to pay taxes then move to alberta and enjoy the stubble fields.
Its our social responsiblity....We have no idea what the long term affects are. Just as in global warming we are taking a pretty big gamble hoping it will be all right and just go away.

I think the data on global warming are a lot more convincing that what I've seen on local sewage treatment. Sure lets pay for it if it will be better - but if it is acutally net worse for the environment, it would be really dumb to spend hundreds of million on it. It is about as stupid as Vancouver shipping all its garbage to the Interior I need to see more data, and attend a few public hearings I think before I make up my mind.

I am a whale watching guide and I use this site often to check the weather before a long day on the water. It is quite obvious to me that sewage treatment is necessary. Every day, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you will see a load of seagulls about 3/4 to 1.5 miles offshore spread (depending on tide) from Staines Point (S. tip of Trial) to Albert Head. I call these flocks the shithawks because they are feeding on the upwelling remains of our sewage. The CRD report that states 99% of the time the sewage doesn't reach the surface, doesnt seem to fit the real world accuracy of the shithawks.

Another note, on a strong flood tide, as many of you would probably know, currents around clover point can reach 2-4 knots. The prevailing direction of that current is SW... which puts the Macualay Point outfall in direct trajectory of your Cook Street sailing site.

Now here's the kicker. If our sewage was only biological in nature (poo, pee and feminine hygeine) then we could probably get away with dumping into the strait, albeit a reprehensibly human way of getting rid of our waste. But, it is not the poo and pee that is damaging our waterways. Oils, paints, chemicals, and heavy metals that all too often get past the pathetic CRD source control mechanisms are putting real damage to our waters. I often wonder how much oil, rubber and other nasties are deposited on capital region roads in one day, just by our cars! All this ends up in the sea and eventually, into the blubber of our resident orcas, humpbacks and , hmmmm even the salmon that we fish for and feed our families with.

Yes to sewage treatment.

Mike

ok, yeah, Mike, I am not succeeding in staying mum on this one given such a glorious opportunity , my first one of its kind:

As a whale watching guide I can tell YOU, for the lack of another forum and appreciating you are probably the nicest guy in the world, that my sailing adventures at Kook Street are at least on the surface being BY FAR more impacted by you guys with your stupid tourist-trap boats

If you ever wondered why we are "waving" at you when you stop or circle us when we kite or windboard at Kook, I wasn't exactly waving (well, not with all fingers anyhow) when I get to smell your exhaust gases, hear your noisy sooped-up joy-ride crap machines or your circling and wakes destroy the waves. ......just in case you were wondering of course

The oil slick and exhausts spewing forth from a purely entertainment $$ driven enterprise such as yours should conflict nicely with your environmentalist views, doesn't it If you were at least harvesting them whales to feed your family and others, haha ding ding

How about stopping in then at the shit-slick to spread the word of the dark underbelly of our society, maybe then I could say something positive about that activity and your buzzing orange tourist-sticky-redclad-moron traps with their duelling 4,000 HP engines.....why don't you guys row or sail out there? I'm sure the whales would love you for it and you could get a sponsorship spot on the site, sailing & whaling log and all

Poor Whales.
There are two boats for every whale.
They should be banned

Or build boats that hole 100 people

I am a local Whale,and I gotta say,You friggen humans cann't leave anything well enough alone.All we get is shit and abuse.Litterally,We have been in the water,a hell of a lot longer than you,You humans were once water dwellars like us,Then you decide'd to go on land,and mess things up there.Now because you don't like the smell of your shit,you send it to us.Don't you have any morals.F#$%ck you too!Sooner or later there will be no more land,at the rate that the ice is melting,also because of your f@#ck up's,you will want to come back to the water.Well,We got news for you! We have had a lot of time to think about you,your time is coming,better smarten up before it is to late.Maybe find another planet to screw up.that's right, your, not wanted here,anymore. Thanks Asscrack for the time and space.

Just a quick response to KUS on whale watching.

Whale watching is attacked quite often and is an all too easy target for those who see us as greedy rapers of the ocean. Let me make a few pointers...

1) The majority of boat traffic around Southern Resident Killer Whales is non-commercial. That's right... pleasure boats and fishing boats that speed over newborn calves to see a bigger whale they saw in the distance is the norm.

2) Although the owners of whale watching companies are concerned with profit... guides are not. The primary concern of the majority of guides and captains is the well being and safety of the whales they are viewing. (A short example: When USS Shoupe began Sonar Blasting (Summer 2003) just a few nautical miles from the location of all 3 southern resident killer whales, it was the guides who acted quickly to contact appropriate authorities to have the sonar shut off.

3) Although entertainment is part of the ticket sell, guides do our part to educate a largely transient tourist population... this can be frustratingly pointless sometimes. I personally make a point of asking to see if any of my guests are local, so I can point out the negative byproducts of our human existence, including the shithawks, and the shitslick off clover point.

Your attack was a little personal, and although it is next to impossible to change one's mind, especially when it's already made up... hopefully you can gain something positive from this post and learn that the guys and girls behind the wheels of those boats ARE doing the BEST job that they can to respect, conserve and coexist peacefully with a incredible and fragile community of whales.

PS: Just a quick safety note for those kiters off Dallas: Evening sessions off the SW-W winds brings lots of kiters in close contact with whale watching boats heading back to the harbour. Please bear in mind that when boats are returning to Victoria in 25-30 knot winds, with the sun gleaming off the waves, and getting drenched by every other wave, it is very difficult for the guides to see you. So if you have had a close call here and there it is (probably) not done on purpose.

-Cheers, Mike

Yoh, Mikey, don't wanna beat this to death but since you question one (maybe not so smart) guy's opinion, I reiterate, that

"my sailing adventures at Kook Street are at least on the surface being BY FAR more impacted by you guys with your stupid tourist-trap boats"

and I'm not trying to be inflexible here, really dood.

I appreciate there are lots of other people out there stupider... and run over calves and such...there always will be and hey, I've had my not so brilliant moments like everyone else and I try to laugh those off and learn from them.....I don't argue against insurmountable odds and evidence. It doesn't change the fact that in mid summer I count literally hundreds of whale watching boat passages, like a swarm of friggen bees .....not a single other powerboat goes by. And in itself as a true, nature loving, whale hugging guide, even if you were .001% of the boat traffic, to me your points don't explain why one needs to pursue this industry in this fashion, at these speeds, amazing frequency, with such noise and bright colors and HP oozing engines....a self-respecting "guide" would use a kayak or some such non-impact tool to observe whales....and a real humane person would leave them alone altogether

About close calls with one of you guys whatever the lame excuse like "I was aware of other water users out here when I was blinded by the sun and spray so I kept going in the same direction and added a bit of speed for good measure"....don't worry, we as a rule don't assume there is someone with a brain operating a powerboat... and generally kiters don't venture more than a couple hundred yards from shore so guess what: if you had close encounters here's a clue: you are too close to shore!...(the part with the grass, rocks, trees, houses on it)

Appreciate you guides aren't cut in on the profit, just drive the boat, maybe make dick for $$, sorry about that and I do appreciate when you try (ha! ) to educate the dumbest tourists on the planet, the Americans (yup, stereotyping here with some reasonable evidence), and the whale-eating Japanese, as I said, (and this is probably the only personal point in my past message): "Mike, you are probably the nicest guy in the world"