Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Tim Kehoe, former Ottawa councillor, enters Chelsea mayoral race

Ottawa & Regi

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Sun, September 23, 2017

More than two decades after he left Ottawa city council, Tim Kehoe is back in municipal politics — this time in Chelsea, where he announced Saturday he is running for mayor.Incumbent Mayor Caryl Green said in an email Saturday that she is running for a third term.

(...)Kehoe, 62, was an Ottawa councillor from 1988 to 1994, but said he has owned property in Chelsea for many years and has been a permanent resident since the beginning of 2016.

He recently asked a Quebec judge to stop Chelsea from tearing up the tracks of the former Wakefield Steam Train to create a walking and cycling trail.

Transit tax credit was getting more and more expensive: Documents

Metro Ottawa

By Ryan Tumilty, Ottawa Metro News, September 24, 2017

The Public Transit Tax Credit the government ended this year was rapidly growing in cost having risen by 90 per cent over the last decade, according to government documents on the program.

The credit on public transit passes began in 2006 and was ended by the Liberal government in their budget this spring. Through access to information Metro obtained dozens of pages of documents about the decision.

Most of the documents highlight the government’s previously stated concerns that the credit wasn’t incentivizing people to take transit as it was designed.

Advocates want to ensure Ottawa LRT access is affordable

Metro Ottawa

By Ryan Tumilty, Ottawa Metro News, September 24, 2017

Making sure that the city’s LRT line will truly serve everyone was a major concern Friday as experts, activists and city staff got together for a summit on equity.

Trevor Haché, vice president of the Healthy Transportation Coalition, who organized the summit at City Hall on Friday, said as the LRT system opens up, the city has to pay attention to the development around the new stations.

He worried about the danger that the new stations will increase property prices and make it hard for people to live close.“Low-income people are going to have to move further away and new developments are going to be more expensive,” he said.

Canada is actually running short of bugs

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 2017

When Jeff Skevington’s parents used to take the family camping in Algonquin Park, they needed to stop the car halfway and buy windshield washer fluid because of all the squished bugs. But Canada is actually running out of bugs

Skevington is now 52, and his windshield rarely hits bugs today. He is also an Agriculture Canada scientist who studies insects — and why there’s a shortage of them.

“Insect numbers are way down,” he says. “It’s a little under the radar from the public perspective, but it’s really high on the radar in terms of research.”

September is finally bringing what July forgot — heat records

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 2017

Someone forgot to pull the plug on summer.

Want a weather record for Sunday? You can pick your favourite because we broke a lot of them at once, the way Wayne Gretzky used to. Here’s a sampling:• Hottest Sept. 24. It reached 31.4 C at 3 p.m. The old heat record for Sunday’s date was 28.5 back in 2010, but Ottawa burned through that around lunchtime.

For context, the average high for Sunday’s date is 17.7 C.• We just had our 13th day in a row with a temperature of at least 25 C. That’s another first. A tip to weather historian Rolf Campbell who worked out that one.

Extreme heat warning issued as humidex set to reach 40 degrees

Ottawa Citizen

By Adan Helmer, Ottawa Citizen, September 22, 2017  Ottawa and area residents headed for beaches and splash pads and plain old backyard sprinklers Saturday as the region embarked on a definitely un-fall-like heat wave.

A stretch of unseasonably hot and humid weather has meteorologists issuing a heat warning, with summer-like humidex values expected to peak at 40 degrees for the first weekend of fall.

Environment Canada issued a heat warning Friday afternoon, with “unseasonably warm temperatures” expected to hit 30 degrees Celsius while the humidity will make it feel more like 40 degrees. The late-arriving heat wave, after a cool and wet summer, is expected to persist into next week.

New light-rail system could leave disadvantaged Ottawans in the lurch: transportation summit - Ottawa - CBC News

By Amanda Pfeffer, CBC News Ottawa, September 22, 2017

Ottawa housing advocates and urban planners worry the new light-rail system will inadvertently make neighbourhoods inaccessible to the very people the LRT was meant to benefit.

About 200 people, including community advocates, city planners and elected officials took part Friday in a summit called "Transportation Equity" hosted by EnviroCentre and The Healthy Transportation Coalition, which examined the possible consequences when the needs of some of Ottawa's most vulnerable communities are not considered in planning.

Environment minister confident Canada’s green goals can be met in new NAFTA

Metro News

By TorStar, Ottawa Metro News, September 23, 2017

OTTAWA—Despite Canada’s different view on climate change from that of the United States — namely, that it is real — Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is optimistic that progress can be made on the Liberal government’s goal of bringing tough environmental rules into the heart of a new NAFTA.

McKenna struck the hopeful note on the eve of the third round of talks to reform the trade agreement between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, as union demonstrators marched past Parliament Hill and a blimp bearing the message “NAFTA hijacks democracy” floated in the sky.

“We’re going to be pushing hard for strong environmental standards. We actually think that’s good for North America,” McKenna told reporters Friday, after she met with the government’s NAFTA advisory council for environmental issues.

Huge wind turbine blades will be slicing though city traffic for weeks

Ottawa Citizen

By Megan Gillis, Ottawa Citizen, September 20, 2017

Trucks moving massive wind-turbine blades will continue to cause turbulence on the Queensway for the next several weeks, officials say.

Commuters have been tweeting pictures and complaining on Reddit about trucks carrying the giant green power components.

Turns out the big blades have been traveling since Aug. 22 from a factory in Tillsonburg, Ont. to the Saint-Sylvestre, Que. area, where a new wind farm is under construction.

Newest public hire to transit commission highlights city's private process - Ottawa - CBC News

By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, September 21, 2017

Todd Mattila-Hartman describes himself as working in the entertainment business, but he's better known for trying to resurrect the Storyland theme park off the highway near Renfrew, Ont.

He's been a member of a number of chambers of commerce, and ran unsuccessfully in 2013 for Ottawa city council in River ward.

As of Wednesday, he can add another entry to his resume: Ottawa transit commissioner.That gives him all the same powers as an elected city councillor to vote on everything from OC Transpo bus route changes, to transit fares, to spending upwards of $500 million.

Lawn sprinkler ban in Hull/Aylmer due to water plant work

Ottawa Citizen

By the Ottawa Citizen, September 21, 2017

The weather has been terrific for the last few weeks, but residents in Gatineau’s Hull and Aylmer areas are going to have to let their grass suffer until the end of the year.

The City of Gatineau is reminding residents that restrictions on water use in the sectors kicked in Sept. 1 and continue until the end of the year.The use of automatic lawn sprinklers is banned and residents are asked to try to limit their consumption in the mornings and afternoon/evenings.

The restrictions are due to continuing work at the main water treatment plant in Hull.

Millennials find a home in neighbourhood associations

TVO.org

By Mary Baxter, TVO, September 21, 2017

LONDON — Skylar Franke and her partner, Nick Soave, had finally found a house to their liking in west London, one within walking distance of downtown. When their offer was accepted, she thought they’d cleared their biggest hurdle: they were now homeowners. But weeks later, she realized they faced another, more subtle challenge: How the heck do you get to know your neighbours?

(...)Millennials also tend to gravitate toward groups that deal with specific issues, he says. A group like Ecology Ottawa, for example, has a “ton of young people that love to volunteer for that type of stuff.”