The following letter to the Editor was published today in the Cape Breton Post. Father Maroun & the NSEF have set up a new board of concerned citizens to investigate the drinking water quality and the toxins that might be negatively impacting our water like the buried bunker C oil, the mine water treatment process, closed municipal dumps, etc. We will start a new study of "cancer rates by postal code" in the new year to see where the areas are in our municipality that have higher than average cancer rates. This will help us identify the areas that need water testing and further investigation into past industrial activities. The NSEF will seek volunteers to assist with this study in the new year. One area we looked at a few months ago had 18 out the 20 homes that have or had cancer in the past 5 years. Those are unacceptable numbers and we need to identify the areas of the municipality with higher rates, to proceed properly. Thank you to the community for your help and support and the NSEF would like you to know that we will continue to inform you of the many wrongs that have been bestowed upon this municipality. Here is the letter that was published today: Environmental Discrimination Needs To Be Addressed: Dear Editor Everyday we learn more and more about the pollutants that linger below our municipality from both past industrial activity and oil spills that have been cleaned up and buried beneath our towns that make up the CBRM. Now I would like the community to know that the NSEF, who has been fighting the grave injustice of the unfair distribution of the yearly equalization payment that the province receives from Ottawa, has not put that fight on the back burner in any way. We will be getting more involved in the legal side of things in the new year, and we are looking at class action activity to move this issue forward. The work has already started on this front. Environmental discrimination as well as past economic and fiscal discrimination, needs to be addressed next. We have been told that politicians on the mainland used to say, “it is not the coal in the ground we want, it is the hole in the ground we want”. The sinking of the Kurdistan alone was enough to open our eyes to this, new form of discrimination. We have learned that between 800,000 and 1,000,000 bags and barrels of cancer causing, bunker c oil was buried in our dumps and other locations in the municipality. Lately, we are hearing some discussion about removing the tax “CAP” in the CBRM, but I assure you that to do this, equalization must be addressed province wide. Equalization is sent to Nova Scotia so that we are not overtaxed as Canadians, and we firmly believe that the cap was placed by the province many years ago so that equalization could be misused and abused by the politicians of the day. Now here we are in a bad situation that is about to get worse because of past political tinkering and interference with a federal program designed to help us not be overtaxed. The CBRM council and Mayor will be considered negligent by the NSEF if they continue to ignore the equalization issue while they attempt to remove the tax cap. Mayor MacDougall is now the president of the NSFM (Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities) and is now in the best position possible to officially lobby the other struggling Nova Scotia municipalities to all come together and work together to bring fairness to the rest of the province as well. The only reason she would not do so is because of future political aspirations for herself. I give you my word that the NSEF will continue to fight for our fair share of funding, and we will continue to educate the residents on the simple facts like it is Cape Breton and rural Nova Scotia who generates the total transfer for the province. It is important that we fight all the injustices we have faced for many decades to heal and correct the wrong doings of the past. On behalf of the NSEF…Happy New Year to all. Regards, Rev. Dr. Albert Maroun & The NSEF