What Does Victoria British Columbia Raw Sewage Pollution Have To Do With Fort Worth?

A few days ago I referenced a Washington State issue that I thought had been resolved. That issue being the capital of British Columbia, Victoria, and its suburbs using the Strait of Juan de Fuca, that being the body of water between Vancouver Island and Washington, as an open sewer.

That's right, our good friends to the north pump their raw sewage into pristine ocean water.

This has upset people for, well, decades. I thought, even before I moved to Texas, that British Columbia had agreed to fix this.

Today I learned the raw sewage dumping has gotten worse. But, now, British Columbia is, finally, planning to fix this very bad Canadian behavior.

So, how did this change come about? Was it fear of International Embarrassment during the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics? Well, that is part of it.

But the bigger reason B.C. is finally fixing this is due to a young Victoria teacher named James Skwarok, also known as Mr. Floatie. Mr. Floatie is a 6 foot tall example of what Victoria needs to stop flushing into the ocean. Mr. Floatie has spent years showing up at unfortunate times for B.C. officialdom, using his high pitched voice to deliver a message from a group of activists calling themselves People Opposed to Outfall Pollution (POOP).

The Outfall part of POOP is what the humongous pipe is called that delivers the untreated sewage to the Straits.

POOP and Mr. Floatie were a public relations disaster for the British Columbia tourist industry. Mr. Floatie and POOP sent letters, about Victoria's Sewage Scandal, to all countries coming to Canada for the Olympics.

In 2003 British Columbia's government signed on to a plan to do nothing about Victoria's pollution for 25 years.

In 2005 Mr. Floatie tried to run for mayor of Victoria. The city somehow was able to block this, barring Mr. Floatie from candidate forums. Which, of course, generated way more publicity for Mr. Floatie and his cause.

In 2006 the gig was up for Victoria and its official position that pumping raw sewage into clean water causes no problem, when the Society of Toxicology and Chemistry concluded that Victoria had to stop with the dumping of raw, untreated, toxic sewage.

So, more than 20 years after this first became a scandal in Washington State, the Canadians are finally agreeing to clean up after themselves. And we have Mr. Floatie and his guerrilla tactics to thank for it.

I have been trying to think of a Barnett Shale Gas Driller Pollution equivalent of Mr. Floatie that might be used as a guerrilla tool to embarrass the corrupt city government of Fort Worth, the corrupt state agencies, like the TCEQ, who are supposed to oversee the gas drillers and the corrupt, running roughshod over Texans property, Natural Gas Drilling Companies, like Chesapeake Energy.

But, I draw a blank. Can anyone think of a Mr. Floatie for Fort Worth?