From: Vancouver Observer
by Mychaylo Prystupa
Severe headaches, dizziness, rashes and loss of memory: all symptoms reported to a new hearing examining health effects of Alberta's rapidly expanding heavy oil industry
Photos submitted by A. Labrecque
Northwest Alberta grain farmer Alain Labrecque
recalls the first winter in 2011 when the fumes from oil tanks near his
home in the Peace River area seemed to trigger terrible health effects
for himself, his wife and two small children.
"I started getting massive headaches. My eyes twitched. I got dizzy spells. I often felt like I was going to pass out."
“Next
thing I knew, my [3-year-old] girl had trouble walking. She had no
balance. She would sit at the table, and she would just fall off her
chair."
"My [4-year-old] son - he was really black under his eyes all the time, and had big time constipation.”
“Then my wife fell down the stairs while carrying a laundry basket."
“We want through a weird winter like that," Labrecque told the Vancouver Observer by phone Sunday.
Labrecque, his family, and neighbours are part of a group of rural home owners now giving testimony to an unprecedented Alberta hearing,
examining the health effects of the odour and emissions from bitumen
extraction. About 75 people packed the conference centre, each day of
the first week of proceedings.
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