Idling city trucks fouling the air, wasting fuel

I would like to extend congratulations to Sheila Watt-Cloutier on her Global Green award, especially in the face of the unwarranted, naive criticism of the Sea Shepherd Society.

Their web site urged a mass boycott of the awards because of her views on the seal hunt. Kudos to Sheila for presenting a good face, and representing the peoples of the Arctic with dignity on an international scale.

Today, after finishing lunch, I stepped onto my back porch after having noticed a loud hum outside all lunch hour.

Sure enough, I saw the City of Iqaluit’s blue and yellow dump truck idling for the whole duration of the lunch hour. It was only -2 C outside, if it was that low. The cold could not have been the reason for this. I looked up Hamburger Hill and saw the city’s white tanker idling outside a house, as usual, for lunch.

I have to ask, with an international champion of environmentalism living in our town and the number of complaints people make about “southern pollution” affecting our climate, wildlife, and water, is it really necessary to be so negligent and ignorant?

We shouldn’t be complaining about the South so much when we cannot keep our own backyard clean. The City of Iqaluit, with all its wondrous bylaws and big ideas should be enforcing more rules with the operators of these vehicles. All other vehicles, business or civilian, should follow suit.

Idling vehicles, especially large trucks, is one of the largest contributors to toxic emissions. Also, as taxpayers, we should be asking the city what gives them the right to allow our precious taxpayer dollars to fuel the waste of idling trucks for one hour every day, not to mention coffee breaks and many other frequent stoppages of work.

I can understand some idling when it is 40 below, but it was like a spring day today.

Come on now and get it together. Let’s see a good example for our peers and children by protecting our environment by starting at home.

Aaron Watson
Iqaluit