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More Cold War Hanford Workers Approved for Cancer Compensation

9 Apr 2008 at 8:05pm

Thousands of people who got cancer after working at the Hanford nuclear site may automatically qualify for 150-thousand dollars in federal compensation. Advisors for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health yesterday expanded the pool of eligible workers. We get more from correspondent Cathy Duchamp

Explainer: Why Don't Miners Carry GPS?

22 Aug 2007 at 11:46am

Why Don't Miners Carry GPS? Isn't there some way of tracking people underground? By Michelle Tsai Officials began drilling a fifth hole in the Crandall Canyon mine on Sunday, in an effort to locate the six men who became trapped inside nearly two weeks ago. Why don't miners carry GPS-tracking devices to help rescue workers find them? Because those gadgets don't work underground. The wireless signals that we use on the surface to make phone calls, send e-mails, or find our GPS coordinates have a hard time traveling through the earth. All of these signals can be obstructed by the concrete, mineral water, and coal in a mine. To send a signal through a tunnel that runs for miles, you might need to place wireless receivers in a relay at each bend or turn, which would be very expensive. On the surface, engineers can use high-powered transmitters to boost a signal and help it to get through physical obstructions like walls or doors. But this would be impossible in a methane-filled mine, where communication devices need to operate on very little power—say, 1,000 to 2,000 times less energy than an average cell phone. Otherwise, an antenna could put out enough energy to ignite a gas explosion. For now, miners have to rely on rudimentary locating means. They might call a dispatcher each time they move to a different part of the mine, using phone lines that are strung along the tunnel ceiling. A more high-tech version of this same system uses radio frequency sensors-RFID tags-on each person to track them when they reach certain areas. Placed at key tunnel intersections or work areas, RFID reader pick up each worker's tag and note when a person is in a particular place. All these data go back to the surface through a physical communication line, like the fiber optic cables that connect office workers to the Internet. The men in Utah did have one-way, wireless communications devices, called PEDs, that can receive short text messages from the surface. These gadgets use low-frequency waves that can travel very slowly through the earth and deliver small amounts of data. But it would take a lot of power to send one of these signals (not to mention a device the size of a small TV), so miners can't use them to pass messages back to the outside world. Accidents in mines often destroy parts of the main data lines, making phone communication or RFID tracking impossible. To address this danger, scientists are developing technologies to send wireless signals through hundreds of feet of coal, water, limestone, sandstone, and other types of rocks, which all have different transmission properties. (Sending radio waves through a layer of limestone turns out to be pretty easy, for example; coal and water tend to absorb the signals.) The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency charged with encouraging mine safety technologies, tested about 50 wireless systems after the accident in West Virginia's Sago mine, but none were up to snuff (PDF). Officials there now hope a hybrid wired-and-wireless system might be the answer. They want to take advantage of medium-frequency waves, which can travel through air as well as metal structures. In theory, a medium-frequency signal could jump onto a metal pipe to skip the damaged portions of a physical line.

"Livestock Lost - Part I (Slaughterhouses and the Culture of Meat)

5 Jul 2008 at 2:53am

Listen

www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/070308.htm

The Livestock Lost series will examine the farming and business of meat, dairy and egg production in far more depth than has already been done here on the show. It will examine the known and unknown dangers of meat production and what people can do to source alternatives to what many would refer to as a cultural staple of the North American diet.

Part I - Slaughterhouses and the Culture of Meat
On this Part I of the series we hear from Toronto author Susan Bourette. After going undercover at the Maple Leaf Foods slaughterhouse and processing plant in Brandon, Manitoba, Susan became deeply disturbed at the state in which meat and animals have been degraded. It was this experience that led her to embark on a journey to learn if meat still maintained any cultural significance in North America other than as an industrial commodity. She titled the product of her journey "Carnivore Chic", because as Susan discovered, meat eating does continue to be a cultural experience in some areas of the continent while in others, meat is once again becoming "cool".

Whether it be food safety, animal welfare, human health and environmental concerns, Canadians are no doubt being presented with every reason to rethink where our meat is coming from. There's just one problem: The availability of meat that one may feel safer purchasing (meat that is healthier, that is more humanely produced and has less of an environmental impact) is not so easy to source. This is especially the case in British Columbia.

In May of 2006, Deconstructing Dinner was the first media outlet to cover the controversial new meat inspection regulations. The topic was revisited in 2007 and will be covered once again as a part of the Livestock Lost series. Prior to October 2007, it was legal for a British Columbian to show up at a farm and purchase meat from a farmer. That choice is no longer afforded to anyone because all meat sold in the province must now be processed at a federally or provincially licensed facility. Many areas of the province are without such a facility and as a result, farmers across the province have been closing up shop and/or considering an occupation change.

Meanwhile, the Province of British Columbia continues to promote local food!

Guests/Voices

Susan Bourette, Author, Carnivore Chic (Toronto, ON) - Susan is an award-winning writer with a reputation for investigative journalism. Formerly a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she is now a freelance writer.

Corky Evans, MLA Nelson-Creston / NDP Opposition Critic for Agriculture and Lands, "New Democratic Party of British Columbia" (Winlaw, BC) - Corky Evans was elected as the MLA for Nelson Creston in 1991, and was re-elected in 1996. He was once again elected to represent his constituents on May 17, 2005. Corky has ten years experience as an MLA, during which time he served in many cabinet portfolios, including Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. He now serves as Opposition Critic for Agriculture and Lands.

Jenny MacLeod, Secretary, District 'A' Farmers' Institutes (Gabriola Island, BC) - The District 'A' Farmers' Institutes represents all farmers' institutes on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and Powell River.

Tony Toth, Former CEO, BC Food Processors Association (BCFPA) (Vancouver, BC) - The BCFPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to represent all segments of the food, beverage and nutraceutical processing industry, and to coordinate common industry activities and resources under one umbrella. The organization was asked by the province to manage the implementation of the meat inspection regulation changes announced in 2004. In August 2007, Tony Toth was interviewed by Connie Watson on the CBC's The Current. Segments from this interview are featured

Audio Clips

"Meats With Approval" (1946) United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

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