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bilko@rgcmail.com Vol.21 No.5
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
FREE
Residents seek answers to financing questions Public meeting concludes to the satisfaction of few
See QUESTIONS Page 7
Column Six Why the name matters
BY KEITH EBERT
Special to the VOICE
I
Pelham resident Paul Bryant asks a question through facilitator Ted Mouradian.
VOICE PHOTO
It's the last straw for Sydney Snow, Grade 3 Pelham restauranteurs take note: young activist is headed your way
BY NATE SMELLE
The VOICE
Most Grade 3 students don’t spend much time thinking about how they can help save wildlife and protect the environment. Then again, Sydney Snow is not like most kids her age. After seeing a video with her mother, Erin, of a sea turtle with a plastic straw being surgically removed from its nostril, she decided that she wanted to do something about it. “A lot of animals are choking on straws and it’s really sad,” said Sydney.
“It’s really painful for the animals. We don’t want people to throw them out into the environment. It harms Mother Nature.” Because plastics take hundreds to thousands of years to biodegrade, straws and other plastic waste end up polluting the ocean and other aquatic ecosystems, where they kill and injure marine animals, contaminate sea food and leach toxic chemicals into the wa-
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History doesn't have an erase button
BY VOICE STAFF Responding to a motion tabled at Niagara Regional Council by Port Colborne Councillor David Barrick, which called into question the integrity of Pelham’s finances, the Town of Pelham hosted an “Evening with the Experts” on Monday night, April 28. Held at Fire Station #1, the meeting drew a crowd of 70–plus concerned residents hoping to gain clarity regarding the financing and construction of the Town’s new Community Centre. Presented as experts were a number of senior Town staff, including Director of Community Planning and Development,
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ter and soil. Making their impact on the environment even worse is the fact most of these straws are made from a petroleum-based plastic called polypropylene. According to a study in the Journal of Biotechnology, 1,000 kilograms of polypropylene releases 3,500 kilograms of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas. Considering Americans alone use 500 million plastic straws every single day, their production
contributes a significant impact on the climate. Thinking about how she could make a difference, Sydney asked her mom to take her around to local restaurants to ask the owners to stop carrying disposable plastic straws. Starting her campaign on Earth Day, she and her mom dropped off flyers Sydney made herself requesting that local restaurant owners find an alternative to single-use plastic straws. So far, Sydney said the response has been very good. Everyone she has See LAST STRAW Page 18
N T H E S P R I N G OF 1912, the year of the terrible loss of the Titanic, my mother, Hulda May Hill, her sister, and my grandmother sailed to Canada. Times were bad in England and my grandfather was unemployed. My grandmother had a brother in Canada with whom she corresponded. She was told that an American firm had come to Canada and built a factory at Dain City, in Welland County, to make binder twine for the farmers to tie up their grain into sheaves. My grandfather and a friend named Jack Brooks applied from England for work and were accepted. My grandfather was to go to John Deere, the American firm, formerly called, "The Dain". His friend Jack Brooks would be accepted as a blacksmith in Fonthill. My grandmother booked passage on the Titanic but, before it was time to sail, her elder daughter (my aunt), came down with scarlet fever and my mom got diptheria. So my grandfather came out alone on the ship "Alhambra," and because they had not recovered, my See COLUMN SIX back page
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