Saskatchewan's new
Environmental Management and Protection Act (EMPA) is scheduled to receive third reading in the spring sitting of the Legislature. The
Saskatchewan Environmental Code ("the Code") will be used to interpret the compliance to the Act.
The Saskatchewan Light Pollution Abatement committee (SLPA) and the
Rural Environment Preservation Association of Saskatchewan (REPAS) are working to get light pollution included in the Code, and needs to make a presentation by
February 12th.
The current
law (EMPA, 2002) defines pollutants as “substances”, meaning
any solid, liquid, particulate, or gas. Our goal is to
evolve the definition of a “substance” to include light**.
Note that light and sound were previously included in the
early revisions of EMPA, 2002, but were cut because, it is
rumoured, enforcement issues could not be worked out.
As light is not a recognized pollutant under the Act, the submission will also require extensive scientific referencing and justification to support it.
We are currently seeking summaries and links to provincial, federal and world-wide legislation in this area, including minimum regulations, how they are implemented, how they are enforced. Definitions of pollutants are especially important, especially any that might include light, noise or other intangibles in their pollutants list. Regulations dealing with crime, law, environmental impact, cost saving, scotobiology, species at risk, etc. are all useful if a reference to light is made.
If you know of any such materials that might be of use, please contact us
by email
or by
regular
mail. Of course, any letters of support from any other environmental or related organization and/or environmental or professional persons would be invaluable.
We would appreciate any information or personal support you can bring to our efforts.
**
The government dismissed a previous light pollution challenge to the current EMPA
using as an argument that light was not defined as 'particulate'
in that eminent scientific journal, The Concise Oxford
English Dictionary.
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