Dear Editor:
Children all over Europe are getting the attention of politicians, industry leaders, and media as they speak out to protect the world they are going to grow up in.
We thought you would be interested in the letter written by my daughter, Hannah Fleury, nine years old, to Environment Minister Margaret Miller in response to the environmental assessment of Northern Pulp’s proposed replacement effluent treatment plant.
Nicole MacKenzie
Dear Environment Minister Margaret Miller,
I am writing to you about Northern Pulp’s pipe that they want to build. I am nine years old from Central Caribou, NS. Please do not dismiss my letter because of my age. I have grown up on the beaches of Caribou and my cottage on Pictou Island. I have fished lobster with my grandfather and father every spring since I was four. My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father have all fished the same Pictou Island grounds that I would like to fish someday. Kids like Greta Thunberg are making grownups take climate change serious, if she can do that maybe I can do the same with this pipe idea, because it is serious, seriously bad.
I am asking you to not allow Northern Pulp to put their pipe in our ocean. It will make all the marine life swim away. People around the world are making changes and working to stop pollution, why would we allow this to happen to our beautiful beaches, to the animals and fish that live in the Northumberland Strait. We need to think forward not backwards.
In 4H, I am doing a project on Sustainable Fishing Practices in Nova Scotia. While doing my project I have found lots of examples of fishermen, scientists, and First Nations working together and coming up with ideas so there are still fish in the ocean in the future. Destroying their marine habitat with brown, hot, smelly water is not sustainable.
When I was at marine biology camp we did an experiment with oil on a feather and used Dawn soap to try and get it off like in the commercials. It was hard to get any of the oil off and in the end we weren’t able to get it all. We were learning about a spill, an accident, this pipe will be pumping an unimaginable amount of pollution on purpose everyday into the ocean. This experiment also made me think about the Dawn commercial, using hurt ducks to sell their soap and it made me mad. I have to listen to Northern Pulp commercials everyday telling me how great they are, but just because it is in a commercial does not make it true.
In school we talk about not littering, reduce, reuse, and recycle. We learn about pollution and what we can do to help the Earth, but we are not allowed to talk about Northern Pulp even though some days when the wind is blowing the smog toward our school we have to play inside because the air hurts to breathe and it smells worse than dog farts. If you allow them to build their new system it will be burning sludge on top of what they burn now, it will be worse.
If you have ever played on a beach, ate seafood, enjoyed your day on a boat, I want you to think about that when you make your decision, think about that and think about a nine year old in Caribou, NS, staring out at a new Boat Harbour.
Thank you for reading my letter,
Hannah Fleury
Central Caribou, NS
