Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

OC Transpo looks to add 2 electric buses to fleet

By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa, June 19, 2019

Just four months after saying electric buses wouldn't work in Ottawa, the general manager in charge of OC Transpo is urging council to skip a pilot project and add two of the vehicles to its fleet.

"You don't need to pilot this, you should do this," John Manconi told the city's transit commission Wednesday.

Manconi said other cities have conducted pilots to test batteries and study integration with existing fleets.

"We're plugged in," he said.

Manconi is recommending the city skip the normal tendering process and buy two 12-metre electric buses from Quebec-based Nova Bus. The buses would run on shorter downtown routes such as the 5, 9 or 10 starting in 2020.

Denley: Let's (finally) get behind a botanical garden for Ottawa

By Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen, June 18, 2019

Why do good ideas have such a difficult time in this city? Too often things that are the norm elsewhere are considered beyond the scope of our civic imagination. For example, botanical gardens are featured in cities around the world. Many have been in place since the 19th century, and yet Ottawa is still struggling to get one started.

Determined community volunteers have been trying to create a botanical garden at the Central Experimental Farm for more than 20 years, and that’s only the latest effort. The original plan for the experimental farm called for a botanical garden to supplement the Fletcher Wildlife Garden and the Arboretum. That was back in 1886. We don’t do things in a hurry here.

Finally, the group championing what they call “Canadensis: The Garden of Canada,” is making real progress, but there is a long way to go. The volunteers are unveiling an arty sun shelter this Thursday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the experimental farm site, where they hope to eventually build a 34-acre garden. It is an attempt to draw attention to an idea whose time has come, and then some.

Are bird feeders making birds lazy?

By Luke Carroll, Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2019

Birders can rejoice as a study recently published out of the University of Ottawa found bird feeders are not making black-capped chickadees lazier.

The animal cognition study, by researchers Megan Thompson, a master’s student in biology, and Julie Morand-Ferron, her supervisor, provided a rare look into the memories of the birds.

“There has not been that many studies on how animals learn and memorize things,” Morand-Ferron said.

Morand-Ferron said the black-capped chickadees have a system called caching, where they hoard food and burrow it in hundreds of different locations — meaning they need a spatial memory.

New LeBreton Flats consultations take 'from the ground up' approach

By Jacob Hoytema, Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2019

With the previous failed LeBreton Flats development plan in the past, the National Capital Commission moved forward on Tuesday night with in-person community consultations for a new master plan.

The consultations illustrate a process that is more open-ended than the previous one, but some residents are still holding their breath to see if the development will match their wishes.

(...)This new round of consultation appears to be more open-ended. Now that the area has been divided into several sections that will be developed in stages, the NCC is seeking input from residents before meeting with stakeholders and seeing development proposals.

Transpo wants to buy electric buses without having a trial run

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2019 OC Transpo is charged up over the prospect of buying electric buses, even proposing to skip a pilot project and just start acquiring them without going through a procurement competition.

“You don’t need to pilot this. You should do it,” transportation general manager John Manconi told the transit commission on Wednesday.

Transpo senses that city council is eager to acquire electric buses, so legally sole-sourcing the purchase from an existing supplier who previously won a competitive process (Nova Bus) could be the quick way to introduce two 40-foot battery-powered transit vehicles.

Coca-Cola products and other single-use plastic bottles could be banned at city buildings

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2019

Beverages sold in single-use plastic bottles could be banned from City of Ottawa programs and facilities under a recommendation from council’s environment committee.

Coun. Catherine McKenney’s motion to get staff working on a plan to eliminate single-use plastics and foamed plastics “where there is an environmentally responsible alternative” received unanimous support from the committee on Tuesday.

It’s timely for council to consider plastic trash since the city is refreshing its solid waste management policy and the upper-levels of government are pushing tougher waste-reduction strategies.

Committee backs Ottawa councillor’s motion to study ditching single-use plastics in city buildings

By Beatrice Britneff, Global News, June 18, 2019

The City of Ottawa should study how to phase out single-use and foamed plastics, including plastic bottles, from city facilities and programs where possible, councillors sitting on the environment committee recommended on Tuesday.

The committee unanimously supported a motion put forward by Coun. Catherine McKenney that calls on city council to direct staff to both build a plan for eliminating single-use plastics in the city’s solid waste master plan and study the feasibility of banning them in contracted services.

WATCH (June 10, 2019): Feds look to ban single-use plastics by 2021

“It’s something that we can control here at city hall … so I’m happy to see that we’ll be moving forward [and] looking for a way to eliminate them here,” McKenney told reporters.

Study tries to bring human behaviour into climate change projections

By Bob Weber, National Observer, June 10, 2019

Climate change can seem like a problem too vast for everyday people to influence, but research using computer models suggests that public attitudes and social learning can have a measurable impact on global warming.

"It feels like it's a bit of a hopeful study, in that it is possible for this change to happen," said Madhur Anand of the University of Guelph. "It's a big challenge and a lot of things have to change."

Mathematical models of how climate responds to different levels of greenhouse gases are a mainstay of climate science. Those models, however, don't take into account how humans respond to those changes.

That's a potential feedback left out of calculations.

Is Ontario really doing its fair share on climate change?

By Daniel Kitts, TVO, June 12, 2019

Last month, Ontario’s environment minister, Rod Phillips, stepped up to a podium at a convenience store in north Toronto and delivered an attack on the federal carbon tax.

His argument was one that the Tories have used many times before: the province is doing its “fair share” — more than its fair share, in fact — to fight climate change.

“While Ontario has reduced its carbon emissions by 22 per cent since 2005,” he said, “the rest of Canada has increased emissions by 6 per cent.”

The implication is that the province has done so much already that it can afford to step back from the climate-change targets set by the previous government. Under Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, Ontario was supposed to have 37 per cent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions in 2030 than it did in 1990. Under the Progressive Conservatives, the 2030 target has been reduced to 30 per cent below 2005 levels.

How this Ontario cemetery is going green

By David Rockne Corrigan, Climate Watch, June 14, 2019

PICTON — Most of Glenwood Cemetery’s 25 hectares are manicured and marked with gravestones, but not those in its southern end. They’ve been left in their natural state: sunlight pokes through towering maples; deer graze on flowers on the forest floor. But sticking out through the underbrush are 35 orange flags, each one marking a future burial lot — and signalling that, at Glenwood, interment is going green.

On this day in early June, Helma Oonk, the cemetery’s general manager, and Sandra Latchford, its board chair, are surveying the section and explaining why it represents the next chapter in the cemetery’s 136-year history.

“Number one and two are gone,” says Oonk. “And, last week, I sold grave number seven. And number 17, in the corner, is on hold for someone from Kingston.”

In May, Glenwood became the second Ontario cemetery to receive certification from the Green Burial Society of Canada, a national non-profit organization that sets standards for green burials, and announced that it would be adding more environmentally friendly burial options.

Ambassadors sort for zero trash in Argenteuil

By James Morgan, The Review, June 13, 2019

Nine ambassadors of the Municipalité Régional du Comté (MRC) d’Argenteuil’s 3-2-1-0 campaign recently proved that it is possible to produce very little or no household waste.

The challenge took place from February 4 to March 3, 2019.  The nine ambassadors had to weigh the materials they did not reuse, compost, or recycle.

According to the MRC, the amount of so-called residual waste was well below the Québec average.

The ambassadors, also known as “The Zeros” because of their achievement of zero waste were first named by the MRC in January.

Province launching working group to take a look at compostable packaging materials

By Louise Sproule, The Review, June 13, 2019

TORONTO — Ontario says it is protecting what matters most by continuing to tackle the serious problem of plastic pollution and litter that is increasingly plaguing our parks, highways, lakes and rivers.

That is why it is launching a Compostable Products Technical Working Group made up of experts from municipalities, industry and the waste management sector to set clear rules for compostable packaging materials in Ontario and to ensure these materials are accepted by existing and emerging green bin programs across the province.

“We know Ontarians want to use more eco-friendly materials and reduce the amount of plastic litter and waste,” said Rod Phillips, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. “By working with municipalities, product producers and private composting facilities we will build consensus around requirements and set clear rules around compostable products and packaging to ensure they don’t end up in landfills and are accepted in green bin programs.”