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by Peter Warren
The Winnipeg Sun
October 13, 1990
The following column is offered as an open letter to whomsoever
believes it concerns them. It has been written on behalf of my
children and grandchildren, and YOUR children and grandchildren.
It also offers everyone in this city and in the southern Manitoba
to yank themselves out of the sack on Saturday, Oct. 13, gently
nudge the kids away from the Saturday-morning cartoons - and do
something for God. I invite other newspapers and other radio and
TV stations to get invlovled - this is not a beat-me-to-the-story
issue; this is an issue that concerns the whole community. CJOB
and The Sun are solidly behind the Manitoba Naturalists' Society
on this one…but, damn it, this is a campaign that concerns every
man, woman and child (and animal) living in our community. For
the Public good, I hereby invite every newspaper and every radio
and TV station to lend their support…to get the S.O.S. (Save Our
Seine) campaign stamped down as an annual event.
Excuse me, if it's corny, but…
Dear God: Thanks for giving me life. I know I wind and curl
and, in some places, just trickle. But I am the Seine River, and
the people in Winnipeg seem to have forgotten that there is more
to this city than just the Red and the Assiniboine. You know your
creatures along my banks - the painted turtles (most disappeared),
the Blue Herons (dying from pollution), the chicks from the magnificent
Wood Ducks (no water for them for food and shelter), the big snapper
turtles (now almost extinct), owls, falcons, osprey, red fox,
otters, wood chucks, beavers, visiting Canada geese, hundreds
of migratory birds, and thousand of frogs and fish.
You also know the other items along my banks and in my waters
- shopping carts, old tires, garbage bags, newspapers, two automobiles
(at last count), countless kitchen tables and junked television
sets, advertising sheets, tampons, and all the rest of the stuff
that humans decide they do not want. You also know, God the people
who live in those highrise apartment blocks along some of my banks.
Could you ask them to remember every time they throw something
on my banks or dump something in my water, they are sticking a
dagger in my heart. You also know the politicians.
Give them guidance, God, and tell them that allowing three golf
courses (Niakwa, Windsor and St, Boniface) to drain 1.5 million
gallons of water from my very soul EVERY DAY si simply immoral,
particularly when you realize that a guzzling golf course pays
only $50 for a 20 year licence. You also know of the golfers,
God. Perhaps ask them to get involved in the S.O.S. campaign.
You, God, have given me down through the centuries the right to
be graceful, a gentle home for bird and beast, latterly even humans,
as Mother Nature decides. I have tried. But I cannot battle, as
a simple, canoeable, beautiful waterway, the fact that I am being
used as a garbage dump, so that now most people just think of
me as a cesspool. You have enough to do, God, but are you aware
that at minus-30 (Celsius) temperatures, the ice melts when somebody
or some company lets loose with blue-and-white chemical. Where
does it come from? Why doesn't anybody take action? I will keep
flowing (as long as some bureaucrat okays the intake from the
Winnipeg Flodway), and my creatures, animal and human, will continue
to flock around my banks. But not for long. God, please help.
Yours Respectfully,
THE SEINE RIVER
A public clean-up of the Seine River - with the help of the
Manitoba Naturalists' Society and the Girl Guides of Canada -
will be held at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13 at the old Safeway
lot, Fermor and St. Anne's. Bring boots and garden gloves and
garden rakes.
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