#9203 - May 1992

Digital Archiving Completed by the Ethnography Lab, A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative
and Produced in Collaboration with David Perlman/Wholenote Media Inc between July-December 2015.
Page Two I May 21 1992
Continued from page 1
For close to an hour guest
speaker Paul Connett spokt(
about the hazards of biomedical
waste incinerators like the one at
the Western.
He explained that ·of all
methods of garbage disposal
incineration does most to turn
inert chemicals into harmful
ones.
He gave as an example the
yellow plastic bags the hospital
uses to classify "yellow bag
waste"--all of which goes to the
incinerator. Cadmium is used to
dye the bags yellow. On burning
that cadmium goes straight int.o
the air. He emphasized again that
this incinerato~ has..absolutely no
pollution control.
But he also warned against
what he called "back-end thinking."
"Back-end thinkers" he
said would suggest that the best
way to solve the problem is to
attach all kinds of machines (e.g.
scrubbers) to the incinerator to
make it burn cleaner. This argument,
he said, is like the person
who finds a bathtub overflowing
and tries to bail it out in everincreasingly
complicated ways--a
bucker, then a hand pump, then
an electric pump, and so on.
"The front-end thinker, on the
other hand," he said "will turn
off the tap. That's what you have
to do with this incinerator. Stop
putting stuff into it."
.:;
"Turn off the tap"
C9nnett tells meeting
Deborah Cowman of Action
on Hospital Incineration then
outlined to the meeting the
group's demands for how to
"turn off the tap," and explained
that the Board of liealth would ·
be asked to endorse these
demand~ May 14.
The demands include
•that the hospital immediately
stopped burning mixed waste
(i.e. regular garbage included
with biomedical)
•that the hospital stop burning
for other institutions
, .
Up the creek without one!
Russell remembered
Continued from p. 1
The City of Toronto, lying in the
watershed of the Oak Ridges
Moraine, is situated at the
entrance to the oldest trade routes
to the north west. The Huron,
lroquois" and Chippewa nations
used the Toronto (meeting place)
river (now Humber) to connect to
the waterways flowing north off
the moraine to Lake Huron. The
Seneca had a settlement, Teiaiagon,
near the mouth of the river,
as did the Mississauga later on.
When Simcoe chose this place
for his town of York he charged
Alexander Aitken with the responsibility
of drawing up a plan of the
harbour. The area was sun' eyed
by A. Aitken in 1793 and his map
shows six streams .flowing into a
lagoon protected by a firm, dry
sand spit and island complex
extending out at the mouth of a
larger river.
The western-most of these six
streams is named Garrison Creek
referring to the fortification
erected at its mouth n the ruins
of an earlier French encampment.
Its course dictates the flow of
Niagara St. w est of Bathurst.
The next becomes Russell
Creel, named after Peter Russell,
(assistant secretary to the Commander
in Chief of the British
forces in the American War of
Independence, Receiver General
of Upper Canada, President of the
Executive and Legislative Councils,
1796-1799 and slave owner)
through whose e;tates it ran.
beth. She in turn left them to Mrs.
William Baldwin and her sister.
Mr. Baldwin, an amateur
architect, built himself a commodious
house in the country in
1818 on the banks of the ancient
Lake Iroquois (above Davenport).
He called the house Spadina ("/shapadenah",
an Ojibway word
meaning hill.
He also cut an avenue 132 feet
wide thr;ough the woods clear to
the shore ;;o that he could see the
vessels plying in and out of the
harbour. And here we are, this is
our .home place.
As you can see from the maps
"Russell Creek" flowed diagonally
right ~hrough the heart of Kensin~on,
through what is now the
Bellevue parking lot and a corner
of Denison Square park. So where
(and what) is Russell now?
''iff
ub
rt
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'\. ·•· :~' ,\-
. 11;\
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NEWS
•that the incinerator be replaced
with safe effective, non-inciner- ·
ation ·technology
•that the ministry of health
tighten up its standards for
emissions from existing incinerators
(some of these standards
are many times lower than in
other countries)
•that the ministry of health provide
financing for hospitals
looking for alternatives to incineration.
These estates ranged from
Queen St. to Eglington Ave.,
three miles from Y ark and were
inherited by his half sister Eliza-
"... six streams
flowing into
II
a l agoon ...
Water has no beginning and no
end. From oceans and lakes to ­
clouds, to rain, to rivers and
round again it is the living blood
of the earth. As the basis of life it
is a primary organizing force for
building community. Knowing
where the good water we drink
comes from and where it goes to
is a way to start developing a
consciousness of place.
Here in the Market in the early
1950s a family of recent immigrants
liying on Oxford Street
came to the attention of the authorities
when it was obserVed that
they were paying no water rates.
An inspector was sent to investigate
and it was discovered that an
old well existed on the property.
The authorities promptly
ordered it to be filled in. Anarchy,
as defined by cities, is not "being
out of control" it is "being out of
their control."
Is it possible that beneath the
surface, beyond the city's control,
that creek called Russell still
flows?
Kensington Market DRUM
·Photo taken one hour after
the AHI meeting, May 12 . .
Emissions continued for
eight to ten minutes. Friday
May I 5 continuous dense
smoke like this was
photographed from 9:10pm
to'9:30 pm.
COMMUNITY SHOWS UP;
. HEALTH BOARD DOESN'T
About twenty people from the
community showed up at the
board of health May 14 to support
AHI's demands for restrictions
on the Western hospital
incinerator. But the board didn't.
The meeting was cancelled when
only seven of the board's fourteen
members showed up in
time. Eight are needed for a
quorum.
A member of the City Clerk's
office commented to someone
from the community that it was
the first time in her four years
work with the board that they
have failed to have a quorum.
The incinerator item has been
rescheduled for the board's June
4 meeting:· Fo-._ details coo.t.c.t.
AHI at 368-0407 or .the Clerk's
office at 392-7025.
NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWS~~SNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWS
ROUNDUPROUNDUP ROUNDUPROUNDUPROUNDU
87 BELLEVUE SOLD
THE MOONIES DEPARTURE FROM 87 BELLEVUE HAS BEEN CON­
FIRMED. THE PROPERTY HAS BEEN BOUGHT BY HOMES FIRST
SOCIETY, ONE OF TORONTO'S MOST INNOVATIVE AND EXPERIENCED
PROVIDERS OF NON-PROFIT HOUSING. 28 APARTMENTS WILL BE
CREATED. MORE IN JUNE.
LRT APPROVAL CONDITIONAL ON CONSULTATION
WITH "EACH AFFECTED COMMUNITY"
THE DRAFT CONDITIONS WE PUBLISHED LAST MONTH TURN OUT TO
BE VERY CLOSE TO THE REAL THING. ENVIRONMENT MINISTER
GRIER HAS IMPOSED STRICT LIMITS ON WHAT TIC/METRO CAN DO
IN IMPLEMENTING LRT ON SPADINA. STREETCARS ONLY, NO•
AROUND THE STREETCAR TRACKS, NO MORE THAN A 2 " DIFFER­
ENCE IN THE HEIGHT OF THE TRACKS AND THE STREET, TURNS
PERMITTED ACROSS THE TRACKS AT ALL OFF-PEAK TIMES. ON THE
DOWN SIDE, UNLESS LOCAL PEOPLE PARTICIPATE VIGOROUSLY IN
THE REMAINING CONSULTATION, MUCH MORE ATTENTION WILL BE
PAID TO THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE DRIVING THROUGH SPADINA THAN
PEOPLE DRIVING OR RIDING TO COME HERE. FOR MORE DETAILED
INFO, PHONE DRUM AT 363-3786.
SCHOOL BOARD BACKTRACKS ON· ALPHA, DAS?
LESS THAN TWO MONTHS AGO THE TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCA­
TION ANNOUNCED TO THE TWO ALTERNATIVE PRIMARY SCHOOLS
OCCUPYING TJ-{E OLD BRANT STREET SCHOOL THAT THEY'D HAVE
TO MOVE TO MARKET LANE PRIMARY (AT JARVIS AND ESPLA­
NADE). MAIN REASON GIVEN: MARKET LANE PRIMARY WAS GOING
TO BE EMPTY AND IF THE PUBLIC BOARD DIDN'T ALL IT THE
SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD COULD ASK THAT IT BE HANDED OVER
TO THEM.
Now SUDDENLY THE BOARD HAS CHANGED ITS TUNE·. DAS AND
ALPHA ARE PROBABLY TO BE LEFT WHERE THEY ARE AT BRANT,
WHILE THE BOARD GRAPPLES WITH BIGGER FISH (LIKE METRO
PARKS REFUSAL TO RENEW THE LEASE ON THE TORONTO ISLAND
SCHOOL. AND WHAT TO DO WITH THE THREE HUNDRED PRIMARY
AGE STUDENTS IN BA THUltST QUAY WHOSE LONG PROMISED
SCHOOL IS GROWING DAILY INTO AN EVEN LONGER PROMISE.)
No DAMAGE DONE. EH? EXCEPT TO THE COMMUNITIES OF DAS
AND. ALPHA. Do THE EX-FOOTSOLDIERS IN THE BOARD'S BATTLE
WITH THE ROMANS GET MEDALS?