Minamata city love fest

[Ketou]

50 years on, echoes of tragic past haunt Japan's Minamata city

MINAMATA, Japan (AFP) - First cats began to die. Then dead fish floated to the surface of the sea and crows fell lifeless to the ground. But still the people of Minamata had no idea what was about to happen to them.

Long before health problems were officially reported 50 years ago -- and much later found as being caused by massive mercury poisoning -- residents of this small Japanese fishing town in southwestern Kyushu island had seen eerie portents.

As rats ran amok, people began to notice inexplicable problems with their bodies -- shivering arms and legs, seizures, and difficulty in walking and talking. Some adults died and infant mortality rocketed...more

More tuna please.

Ohh but it never ends.....

The people of Minamata are enraged by a plan to create an industrial waste dump on top of a nearby mountain, which they say will contaminate the town's water supply.

"Methyl mercury that contaminated the fish and sea was industrial waste. Why do we have to suffer from industrial waste again?" asked Minamata city assembly member Koji Nakamura.

[amdg]

More tuna please.

Ohh but it never ends.....

An old yet still very disturbing image of the Minamata quicksilver poisoning.

[Mulboyne]

[dimwit]

NAM: Overcoming the Ghost of Minamata

Dunno, but if I were visiting Minamata City, I think I would be a little hesitant about drinking the water there.

[Takechanpoo]

Princess Masako's grand father was a president of Chisso Corp., which caused Minamata desease, at that time. In other words, Masako's grand father was a principal offender of this issue. But major J-media never try pointing out it.

[Greji]

Dunno, but if I were visiting Minamata City, I think I would be a little hesitant about drinking the water there.

Naah, it'd be alright, just splash in a little 100 proof adultrant..

[Mike Oxlong]

'Guilt' drives former Dryden, Ont. mill worker to reveal his part in dumping toxic mercury
Grassy Narrows First Nation concerned hidden mercury dump is the source of on-going contamination

A former employee of the paper mill in Dryden, Ont., has written a letter describing what he says is a hidden dump of dozens of mercury barrels that could be the source of on-going health concerns downstream at Grassy Narrows First Nation.

Mercury contamination from Reed Paper's chemical plant in Dryden during the 1960s and 70s is a well-studied environmental disaster.

But a recent government-funded report by environmental scientists revealed there is an on-going, yet unknown, source of mercury in the water where people at Grassy Narrows continue to catch and eat fish, their staple food.

"I am writing this letter out of guilt and possibly to share some info you might not be aware of," Kas Glowacki writes in an email sent last summer and obtained this week by CBC News.

Glowacki says in the letter that he worked at the mill in 1972 as a labourer and as part of his job he filled more than 50 barrels with a mixture of mercury and salt and then drop them in a pit.

Drums of mercury 'dropped' in a pit

"I was amazed at the amount of mercury that was pooling around my shovel as I dumped it into the drums," he writes, later saying, "The drums were dropped, not placed, into the pit."

He describes the pit as being lined with plastic and "up on the hill above the river."

Glowacki's letter prompted a flurry of correspondence between Grassy Narrows and Ontario's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

The chief wrote to Minister Glen Murray saying his community, where people continue to suffer mercury poisoning, was surprised by Glowacki's letter and unaware of the dump site.

An ministry official wrote back to say the Ministry has known about it all along.

"A mercury disposal site was established on a hillside west of the mill in 1971," wrote the senior environmental officer in Kenora. "Since its establishment the groundwater around the site has been sampled twice yearly with analysis for mercury...This site is not a source of mercury contamination."

But the chief of Grassy Narrows First Nation doesn't believe the Ministry has even located the dump that Glowacki wrote about and says mercury levels in the river that flows into his community haven't been monitored by the government since the 1980s.

"I am shocked and dismayed by Ontario's failure to protect our people who live downstream from this reported toxic mercury dump," Chief Simon Fobister Sr said in a news release on Monday.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-b ... -1.3643352

[kurogane]

So Marx was wrong. History everywhere repeats itself, first as tragedy, and next as..........tragedy.

'member this one? I was in Grade 6.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Minamata_disease

Grassy Narrows: Why is Japan still studying the mercury poisoning when Canada isn't?
Canadian officials have never admitted to a single case of Minamata disease in northwestern Ontario
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/grassy-na ... -1.2752360

Goddamn we treat not rich Indian bands like crap. WWDD????????????

[wuchan]

Japan is still studying it so they can dodge responsibility when it happens, like nuclear accidents.

[Coligny]

So Marx was wrong. History everywhere repeats itself, first as tragedy, and next as..........tragedy.

'member this one? I was in Grade 6.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Minamata_disease

Grassy Narrows: Why is Japan still studying the mercury poisoning when Canada isn't?
Canadian officials have never admitted to a single case of Minamata disease in northwestern Ontario
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/grassy-na ... -1.2752360

Goddamn we treat not rich Indian bands like crap. WWDD????????????

Come on it should not be talked aboot in the news or by anyone not affected, it's only dangerous if you fish always at this same place and actually eat what you catch. There is no risk whatsoever for people living in another country and not eating fish. You are just a panicking illiratrated idiut who dun't know nothing aboot mercury.

[matsuki]

Because the government has failed to conduct a thorough investigation, the overall picture of the Minamata disease case, including the scope of the damage caused by mercury and the symptoms caused by mercury ingestion, remain a mystery.

In March of this year, a group of Minamata disease patients demanded that the central government and Chisso Corp. conduct a health survey on residents of the Shiranui coast, centering on the city of Minamata, and review the Minamata disease certification criteria. It was a desperate demand brought 60 years after the first case was confirmed.

The Minamata disease case is not over. Not until the government pursues a comprehensive investigation on the damage that has been done, and re-establishes certification criteria that aligns with the current reality.

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/201 ... na/005000c