By Richard Bell
In a surprise visit to the Eastern Shore on Wednesday, May 8, Jonathan Wilkinson, the current Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, indicated that he was seriously considering a radical change in DFO’s entire approach to the hotly contested Eastern Shore Islands Marine Protected Area (ESI-MPA): co-management with communities. He noted several times during the course of the 90-minute meeting that the entire ESI-MPA proposal might never happen.
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Letter to the Editor: RCMP Arrest
The treatment of John Perkins by the RCMP and Atlantic Gold’s security thug at a community meeting in Sherbrooke on May 24th was appalling Most in attendance were shocked and astonished by the unnecessary use of force and the RCMP’s role in supporting the Company in its’ efforts to rid the meeting of anyone questioning Atlantic Gold’s plans for the area
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[Editor’s Note: On April 4, the HRM Harbour East Marine Drive Community Council (HEMDC) voted unanimously to accept an HRM staff report recommending against rezoning a parcel of land along Highway 7 in Porters Lake to use as a construction & demolition (C&D) processing site. But Lawrence Bellefontaine’s Kiann Management Ltd. then appealed this decision to the Utility and Review Board (URB). Use the search engine on the Cooperator website for articles on this long struggle, which began in 2015. Just click on the looking glass in the upper right corner.]
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Business owners in the proposed Porters Lake Business Improvement District (BID) will be voting this month on whether to create the BID. There will be a public information meeting for these business owners on Wednesday, June 12th at 6:30pm at the Lake & Shore Community Centre. Every property owner and every business owner gets a single vote; voting is by secret ballot, and ballots are due by Friday, June 21st. The proposal must get 50%+1 in order to go into effect.
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By Richard Bell
Bits and pieces of the Department of Education’s new school siting policy are finally beginning to dribble into view, more than a year after Minister Zach Churchill announced that the province would be building a replacement for Eastern Shore District High School.
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By Richard Bell
As the June issue of the Cooperator was heading to the printers, we got word that an RCMP officer had violently arrested a local environmentalist who was attending a public meeting that Atlantic Gold had called in Sherbrooke on Thursday, May 23 to do a presentation on the disposal of mine tailings, the massive amounts of material left over after gold has been extracted from the pulverized rock. The failure of tailings dams at mining sites around the world has been the cause of massive environmental damage and the deaths of people living downstream from the tailings dams.
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By Mona Bordage
People in the Gaetz Brook area might have noticed recent changes on the path behind the Legion. Shore Active Transportation Association (SATA) Trails volunteers have been out in force raking and clearing brush along the Gaetz Brook Greenway despite cold rainy spring weather. Under a letter of authority from the Department of Natural Resources, SATA is restoring the rail bed through Gaetz Brook to be used as an “active transportation” (AT) trail, a trail that will be open to bikers and walkers, but closed to motorized vehicles. (See “Overflow Crowd at ATV Meeting” in this issue for a different perspective.)
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By Richard Bell
The Nova Scotia Share Our Trails Association (NSSOTA) took a major organizational step forward at a meeting on May 22 at the Lake and Shore Community Centre in Porters Lake. An overflow crowd of more than 200 people heard from the leadership of NSSOTA, as well as from HRM Councillor David Hendsbee, MLA Kevin Murphy, and MLA Barbara Adams.
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By Richard Bell
In an interview during his visit to East Ship Harbour last week, DFO Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said DFO might very well end up including fish farms on the list of industrial activities that would be banned in marine protected areas (MPAs). Given the long history of opposition to fish farms on the Eastern Shore, the addition of fish farms to the list of banned activities could make the MPA proposal more attractive. And the ban would throw a monkey wrench into the plans of the provincial government and major aquaculture companies for a huge expansion of fish farming around Nova Scotia.
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By Richard Bell
In a surprise visit to the Eastern Shore on Wednesday, May 8, Jonathan Wilkinson, the current Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, indicated that he was seriously considering a radical change in DFO’s entire approach to the hotly contested Eastern Shore Islands Marine Protected Area (ESI-MPA): community management. And he noted several times during the course of the 90-minute meeting that the entire ESI-MPA proposal might never happen.
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