Tuesday, 07 September 2010 14:22

By Barbara Toncheff

This summer there has been unending coverage of all of the marine life, birds and fishermen suffering because of BP and their alleged “negligence” regarding the oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the anger directed at them. We are told by BP that the leak has now been permanently plugged. Anyone not living under a rock is familiar with the horrifying still photo of the poor brown pelican on the beach immersed in oil, but there are much more hidden ecological effects in our ocean waters that occur daily that the press seems to almost all but ignore.

Have you ever really wondered how unbridled free trade and those so-called “cheap’’ imported goods are effecting the planet? Even those “made in China” energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs that make you “feel” like you’re helping the environment are culprits. Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of those compact fluorescent light bulbs, but there is more to the story. The problem with those light bulbs is that most can break before they get to our landfills. Think about that. But that is not the only problem, it’s the long and destructive voyage that those light bulbs and all of the imported goods make from overseas before being unloaded onto our own shores. Our oceans are at stake and we have yet to understand the lasting effects of the dispersants used to clean up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. To date it has been said that 50% of the oil is still in the water from the disaster in the Gulf, but the oil from those behemoth cargo ships crossing our oceans daily deserves our attention too.

All trade needs to be scrutinized better and I happen to feel that as the super power that we claim to be, we should not import anything that we can and have made for ourselves in the past. Especially when it harms the planet simply because those goods fall under the guise of “cheap” and us being told we are living a better lifestyle because of them.

Our EPA is a moot point to the rest of the globe. The US cannot control the shippers bringing those imported goods to our shores when they too are motivated by cutting costs the same way we supposedly are by consuming their cargo. I will start with a few of the latest examples that were in the news these past few months that are conveniently played down so as not to alarm Americans and the love affair they have with cost cutting imported goods:

JULY, 2010: The Greece based cargo ship company, Transmar Shipping Co, S.A. , pleaded guilty to violations that involved dumping oil residue, sludge and other substances into the ocean. The cargo ship M/V New Fortune, a 26,136-gross-ton cargo ship registered in the Marshall Islands — traveled from South Korea to the Port of Oakland. Inspectors found the crew had been using a "magic hose" to dispose of oil-containing waste overboard, bypassing the vessel's pollution prevention equipment.

JULY, 2010: Irika Shipping S.A., a ship management corporation registered in Panama and doing business in Greece, pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice charges and violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.They pled guilty to concealing pollution from ships that stopped in Baltimore, Tacoma, Wash. and New Orleans. The investigation began in January after a crew member passed a note to a customs official after the ship arrived in Baltimore saying waste oil was dumped overboard through a hose used to bypass pollution prevention equipment

AUGUST, 2010: Gunduz Avaz, 50, a Turkish citizen and chief engineer of a cargo ship docked at the Port of Tampa pleaded guilty in a case involving oil dumping. The U.S. attorney's office said that Avaz, who served aboard the cargo ship The M/V Avenue Star, failed to accurately maintain an oil record book on board the vessel and failed to record in the book illegal discharges of oil waste. The waste was disposed of at sea while the vessel traveled from Honduras to Tampa.

These are just examples of the few polluters that have been caught. Can you imagine how many have not? Considering those examples were intentional, how about the unintentional ramifications on our oceans from those cut-rate imported goods?

Within a cargo ship’s discharged ballast water (water that helps stabilize and balance a cargo ship), come hitchhikers from far away waters. Tiny invasive species of invertebrates, algae, young crabs and fish picked up in distant harbors. These invaders threaten to crowd out the sea life native to our waters, and can even pose a danger to humans There are more arriving in the U.S. because of the increase of global trade and the Great Lakes alone are now known to have over 183 non-native species. With the spread of marine invasive species also comes an increased risk of pathogens that pose a threat to human health. The Chinese mitten crab, which has spread in San Francisco Bay and Oregon and was seen recently in Chesapeake Bay, hosts a parasitic worm that has infected people in East Asia with a tuberculosis-like illness. All mainland coasts of the U.S. including East, West, Gulf, and the Great Lakes, as well as the coastal waters of Alaska, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands have felt the effects of aquatic species invasions.

Each year, ocean vessels from overseas discharge enough of this ballast water in US waters to fill about 20,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. In 1993, the United States passed a law making ships exchange their ballast water in the open ocean for saltwater before arriving in the Great Lakes. But the ballast-water assailants hasn't slowed because those "empty" ballast tanks still carry loads of sludge and permanent pools of residual ballast water. Studies have shown that both harbor organisms and invasive species can jump when that water gets dumped in exchange for cargo. The Center for Aquatic Conservation at the University of Notre Dame released a report this past July about the costs of Invasive Species in the Great Lakes region. Annual losses were calculated at $200 Million, with the sport fishing industry leading as the hardest hit.

In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would have regulated treatment of ballast water, but the measure died in the Senate. Any further efforts to curb the negative effects of transoceanic shipping is stymied by fear of the powerful International Association of Independent Tanker Owners. Needless to say the majority of those cargo ships are foreign owned, thus reiterating our futile attempts to curb the rest of the globe’s appetite for profits despite the devastation that we already know about, let alone that we have yet to discover.

Did you know that elevated ocean noise levels from those huge ships can interfere with sounds produced and/or used by marine organisms, especially marine mammals? Sound is an efficient way to transmit energy through the ocean. Marine mammals rely on sound as a means of communication, for finding food and mates, and for detecting predators. Increasing the background noise levels decreases communication ranges, and may potentially also modify behavior and/or induce a stress response. Have you ever thought about how more “lost” mammals like whales seem to be ending up on beaches and dolphins ending up in Brooklyn’s notoriously polluted Newtown Creek and other anomalies lately?

So as our coastal water states have been recently advertising how safe their beaches are after the oil rig disaster, we need to keep looking for American made products with special attention to the words “Made in the USA” to help keep them and our ocean waters from other unforeseen consequences.

My upcoming columns will be about the devastating impact that unbridled free trade has on our air and land and why we need to be good stewards of the planet regardless of the lax environmental protection that the rest of the world has regardless of retail prices. The US has always set a good example regarding environmental safety, but now more than ever we need to keep practicing what we preach. We only have one planet for our descendants, let’s not destroy it before they are born because we insist upon indulging in discounted booty from afar.

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 14:22

By Barbara Toncheff

What does the July 4^th Holiday mean besides picnics and fireworks? Does the formal title of Independence Day still resonate with you? On that day we commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4^th, 1776.

However, although we are still considered independent, more and more of our industries that we relied on and employed us have left our shores thus making us beholden to those nations that now host them. That is not what our founding fathers intended.

We all know that Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence. The free trader elitists who sent middle class jobs overseas love to portray him as a proud free trader also. As to be expected, they are not telling the entire truth.

Thomas Jefferson was a free trader until his senior years. Most believe that seniors are older and wiser having lived and learned and Thomas Jefferson was no exception.

Yes, he was a free trader prior to the War of 1812. He allowed the military and defense of America to decline because of our involvement in trading with foreign nations.

After Thomas Jefferson almost lost the War of 1812, he became a trade protectionist.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted from a letter written January 1816 to a Mr. Benjamin Austin from a book titled “The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia” printed in 1900 by Funk & Wagnells:

“Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them, at the will of a foreign nation?

He therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins, and to live, like wild beasts, in dens and caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence at to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of a domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we soon do not have a supply equal to our demand, and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has wielded it”

There are many modern variations of those same words, but they all point to the same undisputed fact that the drafter of our Declaration of Independence was concerned for our independence if we should stop manufacturing anything we need ourselves.

The unbridled free traders need to stop spreading Jefferson’s old theories and look upon Mr. Jefferson’s face carved in granite with the other three great protectionist presidents on Mt. Rushmore. Mr. Jefferson is in good company with those who thought this nation’s sustenance was worth protecting. Sure they were fledgling industries back then, but what would you call them now, non-existent?

Did you know George Washington insisted he have an American tailor make his suit for his inaugural address? He said, “Their safety and interest require that they promote such manufacturers as tend to render them independent of others for essentials, particularly military supplies.”

Honest Abe Lincoln said, “If you buy from them we get the goods and they get the money, but if you buy from us, we get the goods and the money!”

Last but not least, the rough rider Teddy Roosevelt proudly once exclaimed, “Thank God I’m not a free trader!”

Unfortunately those with concerns for their own bottom line have conveniently vilified the word protectionism and equated it with isolationism. I wonder if they feel the same about protection when it applies to their own family, homes and standard of living?

It’s one thing to trade for something we don’t have ourselves, but another to give away the farm, especially for items we can make or grow ourselves!

I say if it was good enough for the founders, it’s good enough for me. After all, they wrote Article 1 Section 8 of our U.S. Constitution which provides for Congress the right to lay duties for the common defense and welfare of the United States and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Why is their original intent for this nation now being ignored for the sake of greedy profiteers? Because the world’s profiteers can afford expensive lobbyists, that’s why.

Another word being vilified and equated with isolationism the past few decades is tariff. Those expensive lobbyists now spin the truth and use scare tactics saying the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff caused the Great Depression, when in fact it wasn’t passed until after the depression started in 1929. The Great Depression lasted 10 years and Smoot-Hawley Tariff lasted only four. Our exports were 6% and imports were only 4.5% of the GDP, how can that collapse this nation? We’ve had higher tariffs in our history, such as 62% in 1828, and no depression was caused with those either. The cause in 1929 was unwise speculation in the stock market starting in 1928. Sound familiar Wall Street fans?

However, since the gutting of tariffs with the Underwood Tariff Act of 1913, the American citizens were made to replace the lost revenue every April 15^th. It’s called income tax, and voila, we now have our beloved IRS to go with it. Considering the fact that Warren Buffet even said he knows he pays less income tax then his own secretary, we obviously have elected foxes to watch the hen house.

So the next time a politician, friend or family member insist that foreign owned manufacturers or foreign made items are helping us achieve a better lifestyle and nation, just tell them you’ll defer to the four great men on Mt. Rushmore. I myself believe they had something more important than corporate profits in mind when they were at the helm.

This holiday, treat yourself to American owned micro brew, maybe some wine from a local winery and if you have one close by, buy something fresh from the local farmer’s market to pack into your coolers. After all, aren’t you and this grand nation worth it?

Happy Birthday United States of America, let’s all strive to KEEP it independent!