Pollution On Canada Reservation

A budding environmental activist, she recently made a simple but shocking discovery: There are two girls born in her small community for every boy. A sex ratio so out of whack, say scientific experts who helped her reveal the imbalance, almost certainly indicates serious environmental contamination by one or more harmful chemicals. The question: Which ones? And another, even more pressing question: What else are these pollutants doing to the 850 members of this Chippewa community? Lockridge and her neighbors live just across the U.S.-Canada border from Port Huron, Mich., on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Reserve. For nearly half a century, their land has been almost completely surrounded by Canada's largest concentration of petrochemical manufacturing. Much of their original reserve, founded in 1827, was sold out from under them via questionable land deals in the 1960s. It is now occupied by pipelines, factories and row upon row of petroleum storage tanks. The area is so dominated by the industry that it is referred to on maps and in local parlance as "Chemical Valley." About two years ago, Suncor Energy — which already operates a refinery and petrochemical plant next to the Aamjiwnaang reserve — proposed adding another factory to the mix, an ethanol plant to be built on one of the few undeveloped parcels adjoining the community's property. Lockridge and other members of the band joined to oppose the plant. They asked biologist Michael Gilbertson to look at a binder full of technical information about air, water and soil contamination on the reserve. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_sc/lost_boys;_ylt=A86.I03i.KVDHAMAiA6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM- [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on December 19, 2005]

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