WATER FIGHT RUNS AFOUL
MPP Natyshak ejected for using prop in protest
Essex MPP Taras Natyshak was removed from the legislature Thursday for producing a water sample during his remarks regarding suspected water contamination in the Chatham-Kent area due to wind turbines.
Natyshak said there are 18 residents in Chatham-Kent who live adjacent to new industrial wind turbine construction, whose well water had been contaminated with black shale sediment.
“For years now they have associated that construction, specifically the pile driving of steel (support) poles, that break through the bedrock (and) disturb the sediment that’s underneath,” Natyshak said. In addition, the operation of the wind turbines creates further vibration deep underground, he said. The movement underground is alleged to have contaminated the wells of nearby residents, causing black shale sediment to settle in. Natyshak said the residents had testing done on their water source and it showed 47,000 parts per million of shale pre-construction to more than 600,000 parts per million post-construction. He brought members of Water Wells First, a group of rural residents who say the North Kent Wind turbine construction has led to the water contamination, to Queen’s Park Thursday to raise the issue.
Speaking from the floor of the legislature, Natyshak held up a jar of blackish water for all the members to see, saying he wanted to contrast it with water the government provides at Queen’s Park. “I knew, because the rules state that you can’t bring in a prop into the legislature, I had a suspicion that they were going to call me out,” Natyshak said. “But sometimes civil disobedience is required to get the message through. “And I was ready to take that chance that I would be … possibly ejected because I think its important for members of the house to have a visual reference of what the government is saying is clean to drink (in Chatham-Kent).” Natyshak asked the government to test the water and conduct a “human health study” to determine what the exposure limits are for black shale, which he said is like a sponge that carries arsenic, lead and uranium. Filtration systems are not able to filter all the sediment from the water.
“For a hundred years they’ve had clean — they called it sweet — water, that came from an amazing area of agricultural land in Southwestern Ontario,” he said. “Now all these wells are exposed to this.” Thursday was the first time Natyshak has been ejected from the legislature, an expulsion that lasted for the rest of the day, but he said he’d do it again. “I tell you I would do it over and over again because water is life,” he said. “Nothing survives without water. You gotta go to the wall on these things.”