OurWiEWwS AdrianRAESIDE PAGE inion =) Victory a hoax Dave McCullough PUBLISHER What was federal Finance Minister Don Mazankowski basing his analysis on this week when he proudly declared victory over inflation? What led him to the conclusion that the Canadian economy is booming, or about to boom? Perhaps Toronto, the centre of the known universe, is showing Signs of a recovery. Perhaps Ontario, the battleground upon which federal elections are fought and won, has-begun its climb back to prosperity. But Mazankowski should hardly need to be reminded that things are looking much bleaker in many parts of Canada than they look from his corner window in the centre block. The farmers who helped elect him to office in Alberta are certainly not celebrating good times. Nor are the many Canadians whose lost jobs were part and parcel of the Mazankowski prescription for economic recovery. For 770 employees of Westar Timber, the timing of Mazankowski’s latest proclamation could hardly have been more bitterly ironic. “We’ve won,” the finance minister joyfully announced. “You’re unemployed,” their bosses said. Many factors, including lousy markets, an impending sale of the company and high stumpage fees, contributed to the demise of Westar. Ch ing conditions will enable the company to call many, or all, of the 770 back to work, Castlegar mill manager Roy Helmkay says. But Helmkay’s confidence pardly ¥ Eff Judith Jurji was four years old in December, 1949. She lived in a small community nestled in the rolling country- side near the mysterious Hanford nuclear reservation in southeastern Washington state. She drank her milk like a good little girl. Mary Pengally was a young bride living across the Columbia River in Oregon. She was pregnant until her sudden miscarriage right af- ter the Christmas of’ 49. from Ottawa Lyle KRISTIANSEN 1949, they were human guinea pigs in a military ex- periment called the “Green Run” — the deliberate re- lease by the U.S. of a ra- dioactive cloud of iodine — 131 on its own people and possibly some in Western Canada as well. It has taken 40 years and several court challenges to pry open some of Hanford’s darkest secrets. Documents finally released in 1986 and 1989 reveal what many had Now, years later they are and other medical _ ic off-site the hip the emp’ ani their families will experience, nor should it obscure the fact that a deliberate federal policy, whose consequences could easily be foreseen, is a major contributor to Westar’s Heather Hadiey Circulation Manager Burt Campbell Publisher Emeritus L.V. Campbell ‘Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 "| and Westar’s 770 are but the latest to be probl By} the dollar high — it’s now nudging the 90¢ mark, where it hasn’t been since the 70s — Ottawa has ensured that every Canadian exporter faces an uphill battle. The casualties of this policy are legion, 1. d by thyroid di a 7 y, October 30, 1991 please see McCULLOUGH page A& problems, as well as the deaths of family, friends and neighbors. Both women feel they 20 years of operation. Almost 30,000 pages of documentation have ran tata st ination of have been victimized. “We were ificed,” says Jurji. Until recently, they and their families had no way of knowing that they were living on the front lines. They didn't know that their homes had been boraBarded by radiation since 1944 as the U.S. military raced ahead with plutonium production to construct atomic weapons. They had no way of knowing that on Dec. 2, ground water and wellwater with iodine-129. There has been ination of the Columbia River with radioactive cooling water from the reactor cores. And there were unfiltered airborne re- leases of iodine-131, which totalled 537,000 curies from 1944 to 1955, with 340,000 curies emitted in 1945 alone. Please see KRISTIANSEN page A7 Letters toWHE EDITOR Director opposes spraying is these pesticides is going to effectively control looking for new dations I di d the problem. In simple terms, we are with what are the alternatives? Move from in rents is wide. So prews-eiee Applicant: Emcon Services I wish to state, for the record, my strenuous objection to the above permit. ion No} ity’s entire di Kindly acknowledge receipt of this lette: ¢ and please confirm that i of this 7 Cast] ? T have lived in this area for 30 years and I love it here. issuance I am not the only one facing this dil n are y acing lemma. ilies, some with single parents, seniors and people on fixed ii i terrible handebipe & np re dshi of this Let’s hope that our new government will reinstate the rentalsman office and the on rent i . At the pr time renters seem to have no recourse. : ‘To all you folks out there who plan to get rich quick, I hope your greed comes back to Central recent p seta ds of gallons of d. means of weed control which avoid d ie The ieee nam from the creck which rune jacent to Highway 3, north of N: Greate Lake, if ead you are aware, the Regional District of Kootenay Dt has stated its opposition to the application of any pesticides and, in addition, there have been tt mechanical along our highways. It is also significant that are being d. Thirdly, there is no that the hy of haunt you when the transient residents leave town. Marion Verishine Castlegar Get your priorities straight! Castlegar city council is considering a $2.25 million proposal to build a performing arts center. Let's get the Pipe Line Road first. Gilbert Fowler Castlegar Kristiansen continued from page AG But the most si i lation of all was the D. b OtherVIEWS | F They decided to test their assumptions 1949 experiment, which deliberately i d y levels around Hanford similar to those that I portions of the Pacific Northwest, including southeastern British Columbia. Evidence found in the highly secretive military document, Dissolving of Twenty Day Metal, declassified in 1989, reveals a botched and hurried experiment, Saracted just four months after Victoria, Tuesday morning. It’s been five days since B.C. voters so ruthlessly removed the Socreds from power. One by one, they drift into the west wing of the Parliament Building, the place from which two generations of Bennetts had ruled this province, the same place from which Bill Vander Zalm and Rita Johnston presided over the decline and the destruction of the Social Credit empire. Defeated premier Rita John- ston calls them The Group of Sev- en. Others refer to them, less flat- teringly, as The Not So Magnifi- cent Seven or The Seven Dwarfs. They're all that’s left of the once mighty Social Credit Party. Jack We , Harry De Jong, Peter eee tye Hessen Cutberne Richard Neufeld and Len Fox. The latter two managed to get elected Report from Victoria Hubert BEYER for the first time. It’s photo opportunity time. The seven face the camera and crack jokes. Dueck says if anyone asks him what went wrong, he tells them in the words of baseball philosopher Yokie Berra, “we made too many wrong mistakes.” After a while, they disappear into one of the offices to discuss their future and, presumably, the Suture of their party, or what's left it. When they emerge from their meeting, later that day, they an- nounce that they have decided on a House Leader. Jack Weisgert After the dust has settled, debates persist Nov. 12. That’s the date on which the chief electoral officer expects to have the official results of the election from the returning officers in all 75 ridings. A reporter asks Johnston if Harcourt had finally given her q Pp face-to-face for the first time since her party was decimated at the is. Both Johnston and Mike Harcourt appear jovial. There isn't a trace left of the animosity and rancor that marked the election campaign. The two meet for about 45 min- time. The old cabinet is still in charge, even though the Socred government is defeated, the legis- lature dissolved, the old MLAs no longer represent their con- stituents, and the new ones aren't sworn in yet. 5 reremanicn miasiatee Soe truck into the premier’s driveway, ks and faces reporters. What oes he say to Harcourt’s claim please see BEYER page A7 tested their first atomic bomb. The experiment was part of an elaborate Cold War plan to try to plants. In their rush to produce nuclear bombs, the U.S. Atomic ission assumed that the Soviets were using what is called or ‘green’ fuel. Just 20 days or less out the reactor, the fuel still contained many short-lived gaseous d i i hich P bly existed near Soviet plants. On that raw December evening, a ton of irradiated uranium was moved to a dissolver plant. The filters were removed from the stacks and a deadly radioactive cloud billowed into the night sky, drifting first northwards boli the Canadian border, then south into Oregon on weak and hifti ind _ An estimated 7,780 curies of iodine-131 ;and some 20,000 curies of xenon-133 began to fall on unsuspecting Hanford workers and, disbursed by winds, settled were taken. Communities around the damaged reactor were ev- areas of southwestern Alberta and ith stern British Columbia to acuated and milk was imp acute i R to the ‘Hanford Recent statements from Hanford officials suggest that the gas cloud may have exposed areas of southeastern British Columbia. The Iti contamination stories has been strong, particularly from those communities neighboring the nuclear reservation. Evidence is fast accumulating of chronic health effects throughout the region. June Stark Casey, now a resident of Oakland, California, says she was totally devastated when she learned of the experiment. June was a it Wh College in ded tal from Hanford exc thresholds for iodine-131 on vegetation by 11,000 times at the nuclear reservation itself and by on the and surrounding countryside beneath the drifting plume. There was no public health warning. By wt when the 1979 pa might be easily detected at considerable distance from the Soviet plants. cguntryside, extensive ecnevguncslincbetives of times in the surrounding communities. (The santy Senueres of the late ’40s often e: emerge: action levels of today.) or Recent statements from Hanford officials suggest that the gas cloud did, indeed, penetrate Canadian airspace and, Presumably, may have exposed rg e a Walla Walla, Washington in 1949. When she returned home for Christmas that year she developed severe hypothyroidism. She then began to lose her hair, which never grew back. “My parents spent thousands of dollars taking me from doctor to doctor,” Casey said. “Although these are common effects from exposure to radiation, this did not occur to my parents because the releases were kept secret.” More on this in a future column. Later that morning: The NDP’s but | the figures provided by finance critic Glen Clark, tobe inted mini: deficit will be much hi than hi Fey ie higher e The deficit is $395 million. If Harcourt says it’s higher, he's just following i t of finance in Harcourt'’s first cabinet, holds a press.conference. x After initial meetings with top y officials, he 2 script before long since is really $1.2 billion. that a very preliminary look at the books reveals an even larger deficit than anyone had feared. By the end of the current fiscal year, the deficit, he says, will probably be closer to $1.7 billion, maybe as high as $2.5 billion. Those, he says, aren't his figures, y The debate over these figures will probably rage for years and may never be satisfactorily put to rest. The Socreds will never admit to having been bad keepers of the purse, and the NDP will reject any claims that they padded the Social Credit caucus staff don't know what their future holds. The seven remaining Socreds won't need much in the way of support staff, and it’s doubtful that the Liberals will take them over. The future isn’t as uncertain for ministerial assistants and various Mi, hil, a: other politi P They’re gone, period. But di » the ii iP ng transfer of power from one government to another causes a lot of anxiety among staff, particularly those whose jobs are considered political. the problems an election upset such as this causes, I marvel at the way we settle our political differences. It certainly beats a civil war six ways to breakfast.