By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa
The partners behind the future Ottawa suburb of Tewin say they've been cleaning up brush and trees felled by last year's wind storm on a parcel of land just outside the urban boundary, but aerial images appear to tell a different story.
Drone cameras sent up first by concerned neighbours and then CBC News show a swath of about 70 hectares has been clear-cut in recent weeks.
No permit was issued to remove the trees, according to the city.
Par Lila Mooch-essers, TFO, le 17 février 2023
En 2022, quatre autobus électriques ont été mis en service pour desservir les habitants d’Ottawa. Une flotte de 26 nouveaux véhicules devait entrer en fonction dès 2023, mais des retards financiers ramènent le projet à 2024.
Là aussi, la Ville prévoit, pour 2027, une flotte de 350 autobus verts au lieu de 446 comme annoncé en 2021. Un projet revu à la baisse et jugé plus réaliste.
Le coût total estimé par la mise à jour financière de l’Hôtel de Ville pour le programme d’autobus non polluants incluant les 350 véhicules était de 974 millions de dollars.
Lisez l'article au complet ici.
By Brett Poppinwell, The Walrus, February 22, 2023
From the sky, Canada’s capital looks like a city on the edge of nowhere: an urban pocket surrounded by forests, farms, and a confluence of meandering rivers. Officially, metropolitan Ottawa takes up 2,790 square kilometres of space—more than four times the geographic size of Metro Toronto and roughly six times the Island of Montreal.
...Times change, but many things in Ottawa don’t. Nearly 200 years after being founded as the northern terminus of an ambitious yet accursed transit project, the city is more than eleven years into a $6.7 billion civic calamity once promised as a “world-class transit system” but which—with the help of two train derailments, one monster sinkhole, countless engineering failures, and general bureaucratic ineptitude—has become a local disgrace and a national joke.
By Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen, Feb 27, 2023
The city’s proposed budget is pretty much status quo — and that raises questions about the future of issues from transit to food security, say the members of a coalition of community groups.
The Peoples Official Plan, which is tracking the city’s official plan, includes more than 20 community organizations representing environmental and social justice causes. The groups have combed through the proposed city budget to identify areas they believe need watching on Wednesday.
...Alice Irene Whitakker, the executive director of Ecology Ottawa, applauded the $5 million in funding for city’s climate change master plan, but added that it’s not nearly enough to fully fund and implement the plan.
“It will require a significant investment, but we know that climate change is going to cost us dearly,” said Whitakker.
By City News, the Sam Laprade Show
For the first time in its 50 year history, the Rideau Canal Skateway is closed for a winter season in Ottawa.
...Professor and associate chair of undergraduate studies in civil and environmental engineering at Carleton University Shawn Kenny is collecting data on Ottawa's changing climate in the hopes of developing strategies to ensure the Rideau Canal Skateway opens for another season.
By Blair Crawford, Canada.com, February 23, 2023
A group of physicians is challenging Ottawa’s downtown truck route by lodging a complaint under Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act.
The complaint, filed Thursday, argues that air pollution from the trucks poses a health hazard to downtown residents. A 2021 air quality study by the Sierra Club and Ecology Ottawa found particulate matter concentrations in Lowertown and Sandy Hill seven times higher than those in outlying municipal wards.
By Evelyn Harford, InsideOttawaValley, February 25, 2023
When Dan Cunningham, store manager of REAL Deal in Smiths Falls, spreads Eco Ice Grip — a traction product made of softwood chips — around the front and back of the reuse store to help prevent slips and falls due to ice, he feels good about improving safety for patrons while having a minimal impact on the environment.
“It's a totally biodegradable product,” he said. “It’s actually sourced from the residual of forests — it's a certified forestry operation.”
Cunningham said with the freeze-thaw cycle that is becoming more common as climate change progresses, the eco-friendly salt alternative keeps working for a while after it’s applied and will provide grip if additional ice forms — so long as it’s not too thick that it covers the wood.
By Lauren Kierans, Capital Current, February 23, 2023
It’s been a year since the Freedom Convoy trucks rolled out of downtown Ottawa, but the main site of the occupation — a stretch of Wellington Street in front of the Parliament Buildings — has remained closed to traffic.
Opinions on what to do with the street — opening it to cars or keeping it closed — have been at the centre of discussion for months.
City Council voted Feb. 8 to re-open Wellington to vehicles, though the change won’t happen until sometime after March 1, and likely not until after April 1.
However, Ecology Ottawa and other critics are advocating for a different vision
By Brigitte Pellerin, Ottawa Citizen Op-Ed
... When I saw Ecology Ottawa coming out with a campaign to get us to switch our diesel school buses to electric ones, I said to myself: if that ain’t the juiciest, lowest piece of juicy low-hanging fruit I ever saw. Yes! Let’s gradually replace the fleet with electric buses! At the moment there are only about 20 EVs out of Ontario’s 20,000 yellow buses. I call this ample room for improvement.
And then … nothing. People ignored the issue. I was trying to fluff up the story on social media and even my usual do-gooding suspects were uncharacteristically quiet.
...Why? The usual objections to electric vehicles don’t apply here. You don’t need a huge amount of autonomy between charges. The typical school bus doesn’t actually go anywhere. It just drives around in circles, morning and afternoon. Perfect for the EV lifestyle.
By CBC News Ottawa, All in a Day, February 20, 2023
A local environmental group is pushing to shift the city's school bus fleets from diesel to electric.
Earlier this month, Ecology Ottawa released a report making the case for the change, raising the health and climate change implications of keeping the fleet running on fossil fuel.
..."The list of negative health impacts from diesel emissions is unbelievably long," she told on CBC's All In A Day, adding Health Canada has done extensive research on the effects of diesel emissions on children.
Par ICI Radio Canada Ottawa Gatineau, le 20 février 2023
Un groupe environnemental d’Ottawa milite pour que les parcs d’autobus scolaires de la Ville et de l’Ontario soient alimentés à l’électricité plutôt que par des énergies fossiles.
Plus tôt ce mois-ci, Écologie Ottawa a publié un rapport qui plaide en faveur de cette transition en plus de détailler les conséquences des autobus au diesel sur la santé, mais aussi sur l’environnement.
...La liste des effets négatifs des émissions de diesel sur la santé est incroyablement longue
, a expliqué l’organisatrice de la campagne sur le changement climatique d’Écologie Ottawa, Cheryl Randall, lors d’une entrevue accordée à CBC.