BEHINDTHELINES

In a scenario befitting an episode of any of the popular Crime Scene Investigation television shows, the city of Toronto and Environment Canada are applying high-tech science to determine whose poop pollutes. The city has already spent millions on storm and sewer works that drain into Lake Ontario with the goal of keeping beaches open -- and success has been evasive.

The beach closures in Huron County, where tourism, retirement communities and agriculture of all scales meet, have received a high profile for the last couple of summers. Huron's municipalities would love to do what Toronto is doing, but for now the cost would be ruinous -- as much as $1 million or more per watershed to determine if the bacterial plague is of human, wildlife or livestock origin.

Meanwhile, the old adage that "the solution to pollution is dilution" remains a truism in the case of Toronto at least, where a broken sewer main ran for days following the "one-in-100-year storm" on Aug. 19, which poured millions of litres of the residents' untreated flushings into a creek in Toronto's east end. Highland Creek, it seems, does not flow into Lake Ontario near any beaches. If an "accident" of such proportions and scope occurred on a farm, would it be considered a crime?

In our annual report on environmental issues, Better Farming has again compiled effluent spills of all sorts across the province, as reported to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, including manure and human effluent spills. Check it out for spills and bypasses in your municipality. See page page 34.

And moving from environmental issues where farmers have been under a microscope and faced with a double standard when compared to urban sewage discharges, to another, we look at animal welfare, where producers have faced a mixture of legislation and recommended practices. After reading our cover story by Treena Hein, you might even conclude there's a double standard with animal welfare too -- at least when it comes to communication.

Whole Foods Market (WFM), the world's largest natural and organic supermarket chain, is vowing to raise the animal welfare bar. The company is happy to speak with consumer publications but unfortunately won't grant interviews to farm magazines. Grober, a Cambridge-based veal producer and nutrition company, is a WFM. supplier. Grober is known as innovative and progressive with animal welfare, but was tight-lipped about its relationship with WFM or the welfare standards for WFM veal calves.

We think writer Treena Hein has worked around this double standard nicely to bring you up to date on this essential part of our industry. The story, "Whole Foods Market raises the bar for animal welfare standards", begins on page 12 BF

ROBERT IRWIN & DON STONEMAN