Machine guns on the Great Lakes

[ken hanly <northsunm@xxxxxxxxx>]

Globe and Mail



Great Lakes machine guns raise ire in Canada
U.S. Coast Guard conducting live-ammunition training
drills

MARGARET PHILP

>From Thursday's Globe and Mail

The United States Coast Guard have started to patrol
the Great Lakes with machine guns mounted on their
vessels and are conducting live-ammunition training
drills on the U.S. side to prepare officers to combat
terrorists flooding across the border from Canada by
boat.

The automatic-weapon drills started earlier this year
but came to light only in the past two weeks after
information about the Coast Guard's move to create 34
permanent live-fire training zones in the Great Lakes
was published in the U.S. federal register.

Since the beginning of the year, the Coast Guard have
conducted 24 drills, each time firing about 3,000
rounds of lead bullets about a third of the size of a
fishing-line sinker from light-weight machine guns in
waters at least eight kilometres from the Canadian
border and U.S. shores. Two more target practices are
scheduled for this year.

The high-powered drills have stunned
environmentalists, boaters and mayors in cities
dotting the lakes in both countries who are outraged
that the U.S. government would jeopardize the safety
of pleasure boaters and commercial fishermen who could
stray into the line of fire. Just as infuriating, they
say, is the risk of lead exposure to fish and the more
than 40 million people who draw drinking water from
the Great Lakes.

?It was a big surprise on both sides of the border. At
first I thought it was an Internet hoax,? said Mike
Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, Ont., who has written a
letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking him to
intervene.

?The longest undefended border in the world is gone.
It's passé. And this is an example of it.?

Toronto Mayor David Miller chairs a coalition of U.S.
and Canadian mayors working to restore and protect the
lakes.

He said the target practice violates a treaty signed
after the War of 1812 that outlaws military weapons on
the Great Lakes, tampering with two centuries of
peaceful history.

?This is very much the wrong direction, to militarize
the border between these two countries,? he said in an
interview. ?It's symbolically important and
practically important that the border remain open and
doesn't become militarized.?

?At a time ... when there is interest in restoring the
integrity of the lakes,? he writes in a letter to the
Prime Minister, ?it is most disturbing that the U.S.
is contemplating exercises that will militarize the
lakes, cause pollution and environmental degradation,
restrict shipping and recreation, and change the
peaceful border between Canada and the U.S.?

Far more people are killed on Toronto streets by
illegal U.S. guns crossing the border, he said, than
bloody-minded terrorists from Canada crossing south.
?The idea that terrorists are flooding across the
Great Lakes is utter nonsense,? he said. Until this
year, U.S. Coast Guard vessels carried only handguns
and small-calibre rifles. But anti-terrorist furor has
led to a bolstering of firepower.

?We're trying to be prepared in case something
happens,? said a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, Chief
Petty Officer Robert Lanier.

?I don't know what it is, but I know I want to be
prepared for it when it happens. We need to conduct
these live-fire exercises so we are prepared for
whatever it may be. If we are not prepared for it,
there are going to be questions about why we weren't
prepared for it.?

The Coast Guard said the drills have so far been
conducted without a hitch. By way of safety
precautions, broadcasts on marine radio bands will be
made repeatedly a few hours before training begins,
and a second Coast Guard vessel will monitor boat
traffic around the training zones during the shooting
exercises.

But critics on both sides of the border say that many
small pleasure boats are either not equipped with
marine radio, seldom tune in, or could mistakenly
wander into the unmarked firing range.

Others are raising alarms about the impact of tens of
thousands of bullets made from lead, which has been
linked to brain-development and behaviour problems in
children. In recent years there have been efforts to
reduce lead in the lakes, including the banning of
lead paint and a more recent campaign asking fishermen
to replace lead sinkers.

?We've spent years removing lead from the Great
Lakes,? said Mary Muter, a long-time cottager and
vice-president of the Georgian Bay Association, a
coalition of cottage owners and boaters. ?As a
Canadian, these are binational waters and this is just
offensive.?

The Coast Guard commissioned a study from a consulting
group, stating that while lead from spent bullets
could be passed up the food chain, the drills would
pose ?no elevated risk? to the environment or human
health.

As for the shaky status of the world's longest
undefended border, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Foreign Affairs, Ambra Dickie, said that Canada and
the United States signed a written agreement three
years ago articulating that moves to arm U.S.
law-enforcement vessels with light machine guns in
U.S. jurisdiction do not violate the spirit of the
treaty. That treaty, the argument goes, was drafted to
ensure peace in the Great Lakes by forbidding weapons
of war such as cannons on sailing ships.

?We don't have any cannons or rocket launchers or
anything like that,? CPO Lanier said.

Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All
Rights Reserved.