Urban waste sinks as a natural resource: The case of the fraser river

Urban History Review

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 58-70

  Keeling, Arn ^a  

^a MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENGINEERING; RESOURCE MANAGEMENT; RIVER; WASTE DISPOSAL;

BRITISH COLUMBIA; CANADA; FRASER RIVER; NORTH AMERICA; VANCOUVER;

EID: 27844518309     PISSN: 07030428     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.7202/1016047ar     Document Type: Review

References (172)

1. Much of the research for this paper was conducted for my dissertation, "The Effluent Society: Water Pollution and Environmental Politics in British Columbia, 1889-1980" (PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2004). Financial support was provided by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships. This research was ably guided by dissertation committee members, especially my supervisor, Graeme Wynn. Participants in the University of Saskatchewan's History Workshop Series discussed and commented on an earlier version of this paper. John Thistle, Stephen Bocking, and two anonymous referees offered helpful comments on this version.
2. Matthew Gandy, Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 22;
3. see also Matthew Gandy, "The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 24, no. 1 (1999): 23-44.
4. Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000);
5. Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1996);
6. Sarah S. Elkind, Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998);
7. Steven J. Burian, Stephan J. Nix, Robert E. Pitt, and S. Rocky Durrans, "Urban Wastewater Management in the United States: Past, Present, and Future," Journal of Urban Technology 7, no. 3 (2000): 33-62.
8. Prominent examples include Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995);
9. Melosi, Sanitary City; Dale H. Porter, The Thames Embankment: Environment, Technology, and Society in Victorian London (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1998);
10. Dale H. Porter, The Thames Embankment: Environment, Technology, and Society in Victorian London (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1998);
11. Joel A. Tarr, "Decisions about Wastewater Technology, 1850-1932," and "Water and Wastes: A Retrospective Assessment of Wastewater Technology in the United States, 1800-1932," in Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink;
12. and "Water and Wastes: A Retrospective Assessment of Wastewater Technology in the United States, 1800-1932," in Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink;
13. Joel A. Tarr and Terry F. Yosie, "Critical Decisions in Pittsburgh Water and Wastewater Treatment," in Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region, ed. Joel A. Tarr (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003).
14. For Canadian perspectives, see Douglas Baldwin, "Sewerage," in Building Canada: A History of Public Works, ed. Norman R. Ball (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988);
15. Douglas O. Baldwin, "The Campaign against Odors: Sanitarians and the Genesis of Public Health in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (1855-1900)," Scientia Canadensis 10, no, 1 (1986): 72-82;
16. Catherine Brace, "Public Works in the Canadian City: The Provision of Sewers in Toronto 1870-1913," Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine 23, no. 2 (Mar. 1995): 33-43;
17. Jennifer Read, "'A Sort of Destiny': The Multi-Jurisdictional Response to Sewage Pollution in the Great Lakes, 1900-1930," Scientia Canadensis 22-23 (1994-1995): 103-129.
18. A post-structural Marxian interpretation of these processes is offered in Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw, "Fetishizing the Modern City: The Phantasmagoria of Urban Technological Networks," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24, no. 1 (Mar. 2000): 120-138;
19. Erik Swyngedouw, "The City as Hybrid: On Nature, Society and Cyborg Urbanization," Culture, Nature and Society 7, no. 2 (June 1996): 65-80.
20. Adam W. Rome, "Coming to Terms with Pollution: The Language of Environmental Reform, 1865-1915," Environmental History (July 1996), 7.
21. John T. Cumbler, Reasonable Use: The People, the Environment, and the State, New England 1790-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001);
22. Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
23. Elkind, Bay Cities and Water Politics, 3.
24. This phrase is from Gifford Pinchot, head of the U.S. Forest Service and central exponent of conservation ideology, cited in David Stradling, ed., Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 8.
25. Key discussions of conservation ideology include Stephen Fox, John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement (Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1981);
26. Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958);
27. Clayton R. Koppes, "Efficiency, Equity, Esthetics: Shifting Themes in American Conservation," in The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster (Now York: Cambridge University Press, 1988);
28. Roderick Nash, ed., The American Environment Readings in the History of Conservation (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1968).
29. Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995).
30. David Stradling, Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881-1951 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999);
31. Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Covelo, CA: Island, 1993), chap. 1.
32. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, 123-127.
33. This description of the Lower Fraser is compiled from Richard C. Bocking, Mighty River. A Portrait of the Fraser (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997), chap. 10;
34. Graeme Wynn and Timothy Oke, eds., Vancouver and Its Region (Vancouver: UBC Press), chaps. 5 and 7.
35. On the complex circulation of the river's estuary, see Richard E. Thomson, Oceanography of the Pacific Coast (Ottawa: Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1981), 159-169.
36. Bruce Hutchison, The Fraser (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1950)
37. Arn Keeling and Robert A. J. McDonald, "The Profligate Province: Roderick Haig-Brown and the Modernizing of British Columbia," Journal of Canadian Studies 36, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 7-23.
38. For example, see Craig E. Cotten, "Illinois River Pollution Control, 1900-1970," in The American Environment: Interpretations of Past Geographies, eds. Lary Dilsaver and Craig E. Colten (Lanham, MD: Bowman and Littlefield, 1992);
39. Craig E. Colten, An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), chaps. 2-4; Cumbler, Reasonable Use;
40. Cumbler, Reasonable Use;
41. Edward K. Muller, "River City," in Devastation and Renewal.
42. Jean-Pierre Goubert, The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age (Oxford: Polity, 1989);
43. Porter, The Thames Embankment; Melosi, Sanitary City, part 1;
44. Melosi, Sanitary City, part 1;
45. Rome, "Coming to Terms with Pollution."
46. On the development of sanitary engineering in North America, see Martin V. Melosi, "Sanitary Engineers in American Cities: Changing Roles from the Age of Miasmas to the Age of Ecology," in Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001);
47. Stanley K. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture: American Cities and City Planning, 1800-1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), pt. 4;
48. Tarr, "Decisions about Wastewater Technology."
49. On sanitary engineers in Canada, see Alan F. J. Artibise, "Building Cities," in Building Canada, ed. Ball;
50. Baldwin, "Sewerage"; B. Sinclair, N. R. Ball, and J. O. Petersen, Let Us Be Honest and Modest: Technology and Society in Canadian History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974), 244-249.
51. B. Sinclair, N. R. Ball, and J. O. Petersen, Let Us Be Honest and Modest: Technology and Society in Canadian History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974), 244-249.
52. Martin V. Melosi, "Environmental Reform in the Industrial Cities," in Effluent America, 214-215, 222, 224;
53. Stradling, Smokestacks and Progressives, 58-59;
54. M. Christine Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City. The Myth of American City Planning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), 15-17;
55. J. Rodney Millard, The Master Spirit of the Age: Canadian Engineers and the Politics of Professionalism, 1887-1922 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
56. Tarr, "Water and Wastes"; Terence Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: From Cooperation to Confrontation (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997), 22-23.
57. Terence Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: From Cooperation to Confrontation (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997), 22-23.
58. The principle of efficiency guiding pollution control and resource conservation is explored in connection with the petroleum industry in Hugh S. Gorman, Redefining Efficiency: Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms, and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry(Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2001).
59. "comme un équipement public contrôlé par l'État." Translation mine.) Michel Girard, L'écologisme retrouvé: Esser et déclin de la Commission de la Conservation du Canada (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1996), 29.
60. Alan F. J. Artibise and Gibert A. Stelter, "Conservation Planning and Urban Planning: The Canadian Commission of Conservation in Historical Perspective," in Consuming Canada: Readings in Environmental History, eds. Chad Gaffield and Pam Gaffield (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1995), 158-159.
61. See also Girard, L'écologisme retrouvé, 177-192;
62. Thomas I. Gunton, "The Ideas and Policies of the Canadian Planning Profession, 1909-1931," in The Usable Urban Past: Planning and Politics in the Modern Canadian City (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1979);
63. Walter Van Nus, "The Plan-Makers and the City: Architects, Engineers, Surveyors and Urban Planning in Canada, 1870-1939" (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1975).
64. Christopher Hamlin, A Science of Impurity: Water Analysis in Nineteenth Century Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
65. Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, Treating and Disposing of Sewage: Interim Report (London: Royal Commission, 1901), xii.
66. Dissolved oxygen in water is critical for supporting aquatic organisms. Organic materials in water are broken down through bacterial action, which consumes dissolved oxygen. Since the oxygen-consuming decay of materials takes place over time, the standard measure is BODx, where x is the number of days (usually five) over which the test is run. Normally, the test is conducted by the collection of samples that are then stabilized at 20 degrees Celsius, and a comparison of the dissolved oxygen levels between the samples before and after the test period yields the measure of the BOD of the effluent. BOD may be affected by other factors such as salinity, temperature, and toxic chemicals that inhibit the growth of oxygen-consuming bacteria. For useful definitions of BOD, see "Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)" in William Ashworth, The Encylopedia of Environmental Sciences (New York: Facts on File, 1991), 42-43,
67. and Allan M. Springer, Industrial Environmental Control: Pulp and Paper Industry (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1986), 6-7.
68. Joel A. Tarr, "Industrial Wastes, Water Pollution, and Public Health, 1876-1962," The Search for the Ultimate Sink, 366-369.
69. Gordon M. Fair, "Water Pollution Research and the Revolution in Science and Technology," Advances in Water Pollution Research, ed. B. A. Southgate (New York: Macmillan 1964), 1:xv.
70. The importance of this formula to contemporary engineering practice is underscored by the detailed historical and technical review in C. R. Forsberg, "Water Pollution" (master's thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 1943).
71. John M. Sidwick, "A Brief History of Sewage Treatment: 2; The Royal Commission," Effluent and Water Treatment Journal 16, no. 4 (1976): 199.
72. Sharon Beder, "Pipelines and Paradigms: The Development of Sewerage Engineering," Australian Civil Engineering Transactions, 35, no. 1 (Mar. 1993): 79-85. http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/sewage/ paradigms.html.
73. The term assimilative capacity was but one of several terms to describe this natural resource. To some degree, self-purification continued to be used. Other terms included aborptive or assimilation capacity, or purifying mechanism. For consistency, I will use the term assimilative capacity.
74. International Joint Commission, Pollution of Boundary Waters, Proceedings of conference with sanitary engineers, New York City, May 26-27, 1914 (Washington: IJC, 1914), 40.
75. Ibid.
76. See International Joint Commission, Résumé of Testimony of Consulting Sanitary Engineers in the Matter of the Pollution of Boundary Waters (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1914);
77. International Joint Commission, Final Report of the International Joint Commission on the Pollution of Boundary Waters Reference (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918).
78. For context and other aspects of the IJC pollution of boundary waters reference, see Read, "'A Sort of Destiny.'"
79. Tarr, "Industrial Wastes," 366-369.
80. Earle B. Phelps, Stream Sanitation (New York: James Wiley and Sons, 1944), 186. Emphasis in original.
81. Ibid., 187.
82. M. A. Churchill, "Waste Assimilative Capacity of Streams," in Proceedings of the 1st Sanitary Engineering Conference, Vanderbilt University Department of Civil Engineering (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 1962), 137-138,
83. Abel Woman, "An Inquiry into Standards Proposed for Stream Cleanliness" [1940], in Water, Health and Society Selected Readings, ed. Gilbert F. White (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1969), 110-111.
84. A. L. Van Luven, "A Study of the Use, Conservation and Pollution of Water Resources," Engineering Journal 43 (June 1960): 87-95.
85. Other articles in this issue, written by engineers and pollution control officials from across Canada, outline similar attitudes towards pollution and assimilative capacity and include a survey of the work of engineers in Greater Vancouver: T. V. Berry, "Pollution Control in the Lower Mainland Communities of British Columbia," 46-55.
86. Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995);
87. Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
88. David Demeritt, "Scientific Forest Conservation and the Statistical Picturing of Nature's Limits in the Progressive-Era United States," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19, no. 4 (2001): 431-59.
89. Linda Nash outlines a similar argument with regard to water in "The Changing Experience of Nature: Historical Encounters with a Northwest River," Journal of American History 86, no. 4 (Mar. 2000): 1600-1629.
90. See also James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes To Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), chap. 1.
91. Vancouver's sewerage history is explored in greater detail in Arn Keeling, "Sink or Swim: Water Pollution and Environmental Politics in Vancouver, 1889-1975," BC Studies 142/43 (Summer/Autumn 2004): 67-99.
92. R. S. Lea, Report by R. S. Lea to the Bunard Peninsula Joint Sewerage Committee, rev. ed. (1913; Vancouver: Vancouver and Districts Joint Sewerage and Drainage Board, 1917), 14.
93. Ibid., 16.
94. These concerns, raised repeatedly in the 1930s, are recorded in letters to the provincial public health officer, cited in file 1, box 20, and file 4, box 16, GR-0132 Health Department, British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter cited as BCA).
95. Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District (hereafter cited as GVSDD), Sewerage and Drainage of the Greater Vancouver Area, British Columbia (Vancouver: GVSDD, Sept. 1953).
96. Quoted in Michael Waldichulk, Sewage Pollution in British Columbia in Perspective, Canadian Industry Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences No. 153 (Ottawa: Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1984), 6.
97. A. M. Rawn and H. K. Palmer, "Pre-Determining the Extent of a Sewage Field in Sea Water," Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 94 (1930): 1036-1081.
98. See also Willis T. Knowlton, "The Sewage Disposal Problem of Los Angeles, California," Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 92 (1928): 984-993.
99. A. M. Rawn, Narrative: C.S.D. (Los Angeles: County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, 1965), 172.
100. See, for instance, Rawn's commentary on Bostwick H. Ketchum, "The Flushing of Tidal Estuaries," Sewage and Industrial Wastes 23, no. 2 (1951): 208-209.
101. and the discussion in Water Quality Criteria (Sacramento: California State Water Pollution Control Board, 1952), 43-47.
102. GVSDD, Sewerage and Drainage, 124.
103. Ibid., chap. 8.
104. On the establishment of the joint study, see, Minutes of meeting between Pacific Oceanographic Group and Vancouver and Districts Joint Sewerage and Drainage Board, 21 Apr. 1950, file 1, 63-F-5, Add. MSS 1257, City of Vancouver Archives (hereafter cited as CVA).
105. This "zoning" approach to urban pollution problems is echoed in Ken Cruil shank and Nancy B. Bouchier, "Blighted Areas and Obnoxious Industries: Constructing Environmental Inequality on an Industrial Waterfront, Hamilton, Ontario, 1890-1960," Environmental History 9, no. 3 (2004): 464-496.
106. On Canadian urban planning and the rationalization of space, see sources in note 21,
107. and Edward Relph, The Modern Urban Landscape (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
108. On zoning and planning in Vancouver, see Graeme Wynn, "The Rise of Vancouver," in Vancouver and Its Region, eds. Graeme Wynn and Timothy Oke (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1992).
109. Sturgeon Bank is a shallow, tidally inundated area at the mouth of the Fraser River formed by the river's sediments. The open channel was designed to carry the wastes further out towards the open water of the Strait of Georgia during low tide. It was assumed that ample mixing would occur during high tide, when the channel was covered by water, to prevent pollution. See GVSDD, Sewerage and Drainage, 155-156.
110. See display advertisements in Vancouver Sun, 14 Aug., 21 Aug. 1958. Rawn, Hyde, and other experts also appeared at a public hearing into the plan: see British Columbia, Pollution Control Board, Transcript of Hearing before the Pollution-Control Board, Sept. 5-6, 1957 (Victoria: The Board, 1957).
111. British Columbia Research Council, Fraser-Thompson River System Water Quality (Vancouver: BCRC, 1952).
112. See also the work of the Dominion-Provincial Fraser River Board's pollution committee, documented in files 5-6, box 5, GR-0132 Department of Health, BCA. Other studies are listed in Fisheries Development Council, Summaries of Fisheries Research on the Pollution Problem (Vancouver: Department of Fisheries, August 1965).
113. British Columbia. Pollution Control Board, Pollution and the Fraser (Victoria: Department of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources, 1967).
114. These concerns were also documented in Arnie Myers, "Sewers Have No Sex Appeal - So Pollution Goes On," Vancouver Sun, 11 Sept. 1965.
115. Report by L. Percival to J. A. Stringer, sanitary control officer, 22 July 1970, 2, file 17, box 146-C-2, City of Vancouver Health Department files, CVA.
116. "Suit Cites Sewage Pollution," Vancouver Sun, 21 Nov. 1969.
117. British Columbia, Legislative Assembly, Debates and Proceedings (23 Mar. 1970), pp. 719-720, 729 (E. LeCours and D. G. Cocks, MLAs),
118. Moira Farrow, "Iona Plant Effluent Blamed for Pollution," Vancouver Sun, 22 Nov. 1973. Ironically, neither Richmond nor New Westminster treated their sewage, but disposed of it directly to the Fraser.
119. Rod Morgan, "A Mighty Sewage Struggle," Vancouver Sun, 10 Dec. 1970; this controversy is discussed in more detail in Keeling, "Sink or Swim."
120. Joel A. Tarr, "Industrial Waste Disposal in the United States as a Historical Problem," Ambix 49, 1 (Mar. 2002): 14-16;
121. Tarr, "Industrial Wastes," 376-378.
122. See G. Tanner. G. Trasolini. and L. Nemeth, A Study on Wastewater Characteristics of Greater Vancouver Sewage Treatment Plants and Major Sewers (Vancouver: Environmental Protection Service, Dec. 1973).
123. B.C. Research, Summary of the Effects of the Annacis Island Sewage Discharge on the Water Quality in the Fraser River (Vancouver: B.C. Research, 1978); scientists with the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission undertook a series of studies in the early 1970s into the toxicity of municipal sewage and chlorinated effluent to salmon.
124. For a listing, see John F. Roos, Restoring Fraser River Salmon: A History of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission, 1935-1985 (Vancouver: Pacific Salmon Commission, 1991), 179-180.
125. Anthony H. J. Dorcey, ed., The Uncertain Future of the Lower Fraser (Vancouver: Westwater Research, 1976)
126. "The Answer Is Yes," Vancouver Sun, 26 Apr. 1976.
127. Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 36-37.
128. "Submission by the BCWF to the Pollution Control Board Public Hearing on the Report Pollution and the Fraser," Aug. 1967, file 3, box 112, Roderick Haig-Brown Papers, University of British Columbia Special Collections and University Archives Division.
129. Lee Straight, "Lee Straight," Vancouver Sun, 3 Dec. 1971.
130. Norman Hacking, "Pollution Worries Fishermen," Vancouver Province, 7 Apr. 1967;
131. Ron Rose, "'I won't rinse my dishes in that slime anymore,"' Vancouver Sun, 30 Aug. 1967.
132. The United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union was prominent in the fight over Fraser pollution: see "In This Day and Age?" Vancouver Sun, 16 Feb. 1967.
133. "Sewage Treatment Plant Draws Angry Protests," Vancouver Sun, 4 Dec. 1972.
134. Canada, House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, 21 Apr. 1969, 534,
135. Ron Rose, "Sludge, Stench Clog Fraser Cruise," Vancouver Sun, 21 Aug. 1970. These concerns were shared by shoreworkers, longshoremen, and fishery support workers: see their 1974 petition to the provincial Pollution Control Board, file 2, box 18, acc. no. 88-0407 Environmental Appeal Board, BCA.
136. Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry, ibid., 833,
137. "Fraser Sewage Plan Protested," Vancouver Sun, 17 July 1968;
138. "Pollution Foes to Protest Richmond Sewage Dumping," Vancouver Sun, 23 July 1968.
139. Society for Pollution and Environmental Control, Fraser River Report (Vancouver: SPEC 1970).
140. Bob Hunter, "Bob Hunter," Vancouver Sun, 28 May 1971.
141. See also the editorial "Is Half-Safe Safe Enough?" Vancouver Sun, 9 Feb. 1971.
142. The "Fraser Savers" campaign was launched against the primary sewage treatment plant at Annacis Island on the Fraser: see the B.C. Environment Council circular, file 2, box 18, acc. no. 88-0407, BCA. See also "Compromise Made on Sewage Plant," Vancouver Sun, 13 February 1974;
143. "A Dark Cloud," Vancouver Sun, 24 Apr. 1976;
144. "Getting Polluted," Vancouver Sun, 25 May 1976.
145. Government of British Columbia, Lieutenant-Governor in Council, "In the Matter of the Appeal - Pollution Control Act. Greater Vancouver Regional District - Annacis Island Plant," Apr. 21, 1975, box 18, acc. no. 88-0407, Environmental Appeal Board, BCA.
146. Waldichulk, Sewage Pollution in British Columbia, 11.
147. See, for instance, the briefs filed by environmentalists opposing the construction of a primary treatment plant at Annacis Island, cited in box 18, acc. no. 88-0407 Environmental Appeal Board, BCA, and a study by the B.C. Environment Council: Reid Pate and Paul Cardwell Jr., eds., Fraser Estuary Study Project (Vancouver: BCEC, 1972).
148. For examples of the debate among aquatic pollution scientists on assimilative capacity versus the "precautionary principle," see M. MacGarvin, "The Implications of the Precautionary Principle for Biological Monitoring," Helgolander Meeresuntersuchungen 49, nos. 1-4 (1995): 647-662;
149. J. E. Portmann and R. Lloyd, "Safe Use of the Assimilative Capacity of the Marine Environment for Waste Disposal: Is It Feasible?" Water Science and Technology 18, nos. 4-5 (1986): 233-244;
150. A. R. D. Stebbing, "Environmental Capacity and the Precautionary Principle," Marine Pollution Bulletin 24, no. 6 (1992): 287-95.
151. "River of Tears," Vancouver Sun, 22 Feb. 1980;
152. see also Moira Farrow, "'Beautiful B.C.' Befouled by Waterway Sludge, Algae," Vancouver Sun, 25 June 1977.
153. British Columbia, Pollution Control Board, Conclusions of the Board Regarding the Lower Fraser River Public Hearing on 18-22 February 1980 (Victoria: PCB, 1980), 35.
154. "Observations of the Chairman" (draft), 10 Mar. 1980, box 21, acc. no. 88-0407 Environmental Appeal Board, BCA.
155. Phil Needham, "Fraser Pollution Like Nightmare, Witness Testifies," Vancouver Sun, 7 May 1981;
156. Phil Needham, "GVRD Gets $10,000 Fine for Polluting," Vancouver Sun, 8 May 1981.
157. R. v. Greater Vancouver Regional District and Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District (1981), cited in Environmental Protection Service,
158. Prosecutions under the Pollution Control and Habitat Protection Provisions of the Fisheries Act (Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1984), 3:136.
159. Stradling, Smokestacks and Progressives.
160. Melosi, "Environmental Reform in the Industrial Cities";
161. Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991).
162. Rosalind Williams, "Nature Out of Control: Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems," in Cultures of Control, ed. Miriam Levin (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), 43.
163. Samuel P. Hays, "The Role of Urbanization in Environmental History," Explorations in Environmental History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 93.
164. Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring, 157-158;
165. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence, 70.
166. Tarr, ed., Devastation and Renewal;
167. Gandy, Concrete and Clay;
168. and Matthew Mingle, "Urban by Nature: An Environmental History of Seattle, 1880-1970" (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2001).
169. For an overview of these problems in Canada, see The National Sewage Report Card, Number 3 (Vancouver: Sierra Legal Defence Fund, 2004).
170. On Vancouver's continued struggles, see David Lane, Hidden Killer (Vancouver: T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, n.d. [2001?]);
171. Scott Simpson, "Treating Rivers of Human Waste," Vancouver Sun, 25 Oct. 2001,
172. and Scott Simpson, "Sewage Plan Creates Anxiety: Trout Die in Effluent from Primary Treatment," Vancouver Sun, 26 October 2001.