Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Harvest Moon a chance to dig in and get your hands dirty

OttawaCommunityNews.com

By Brier Dodge, Ottawa Community News, August 25, 2017

The Harvest Moon community celebration will be a chance for people to get their hands dirty.

The Canada 150 celebration, a joint effort between seven community associations, will be a “fully immersive” experience, said Laura Dudas, one of the organizers and the Blackburn Community Association president.

“Everyone that’s participating ... is doing it so they’re educating you on something you can take away with you,” she said. “It’s going to be educational, but it’s not going to be boring.”

The event will take place on Sept. 9 from 3 to 10 p.m. near the Orléans branch of the Ottawa Public Library at 1705 Orléans Blvd. The rain date is Sept. 10.

Sunday is last day for lifeguards, water tests at city beaches

Ottawa Citizen

By Megan Gillis, Ottawa Citizen, August 25, 2017

Swim at your own risk.

It may feel like summer has just began in earnest, but lifeguards and public health water testers will wrap up their season at city beaches Sunday.

Lifeguards are on-duty and Ottawa Public Health tests water daily from June 17 to Aug. 27 at Petrie Island, Mooney’s Bay, Westboro and Britannia beaches. As of Friday, Mooney’s Bay, Brittania and Westboro were cleared for safe swimming, while Petrie Island’s East Bay and river beaches were red-flagged.

Reevely: Let’s pave the city hall lawn to save on upkeep, the city says

Ottawa Citizen

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, August 25, 2017

The city wants to pave the remaining grass on the north side of city hall because the bills are piling up for maintaining it under regular assaults from the Rink of Dreams and big festivals.

Paving the 30,000 square feet of grass would cost between $450,000 and $500,000, city staff say, but would save annual re-sodding bills that have reached $21,500.

Awkwardly, the city recently approved guidelines for downtown developments that bang the drum for “soft landscaping” over and over again. Gardens and plants are more expensive and more work to maintain than “hardscaping” like asphalt and paving stones, but look, do we want nice things or not?

StittsvilleCentral.ca

By StittsvilleCentral, August 24, 2017

Re: NOTEBOOK: New bike repair station at Village Square

Further to your article regarding bicycle infrastructure safety. I was travelling south on Stittsville Main the other day and a teenager was riding his bike on the sidewalk going in the same direction facing the traffic on the opposite side of the road.

An SUV was exiting Bradley’s Insurance and I guess she wasn`t expecting a bike coming from her right while she was looking at traffic coming from her left. The bicyclist did a quick turn out onto the roadway to avoid being hit.

Every day you see people riding their bikes on the sidewalk which I believe is illegal. I can see young children riding on the sidewalk on Stittsville Main, but not adults.

Labchuk: If zoos didn’t already exist, we wouldn’t invent them

Ottawa Citizen

By Camille Labchuk, Ottawa Citizen, August 24, 2017

Zoos can’t seem stay out of the news, but not for the reasons they would like.

Whether it’s the Ottawa-area Papanack Zoo, facing allegations of mistreatment of animals, the tiger-whipping Bowmanville Zoo re-opening under a new name or gorilla Harambe shot to death at the Cincinnati Zoo, the dark side of the zoo industry has seldom been more clearly illuminated.

(...)Inherent space limits mean zoos can never provide most animals with an environment that even remotely resembles the fields, forests, skies and oceans to which they are adapted. This lack of space can have horrifying consequences. Elephants roam dozens of kilometres every day to forage, bathe and socialize.

Uber, City of Ottawa agree on accessibility surcharge - Ottawa - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, August 23, 2017

The City of Ottawa and ride-hailing service Uber have agreed on the amount of a surcharge that will eventually go toward supporting accessible transportation in the capital.

Seven cents from every Uber trip will now end up in a municipal reserve fund, said Anthony Di Monte, the city's general manager of emergency and protective services, in a memo to city council Wednesday.

The "voluntary" surcharge will be applied retroactively to trips taken since Oct. 4, 2016 — the date Uber was licensed to operate in the city, Di Monte said.

Was the Lachute twister exceptional? Here's how many tornadoes hit Eastern Canada in 30 years - Montreal - CBC News

By Roberto Rocha, CBC News Ottawa, August 24, 2017

The tornado that tore through Lachute, Que., on Tuesday left behind a trail destruction, and forced several dozen people from their homes.

But twisters aren't entirely unusual in the province. On average, 17 tornadoes hit Quebec and Ontario every year, according to Environment Canada. In the peak summer season — between June and August — an average of six hit Quebec alone.

But because most of them land far from populated areas, you rarely hear about them. Tuesday's twister in Lachute is a rare exception.

Ottawa ecologist’s lifetime achievement award has roots in murky waters

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, August 24, 2017

He could have been happy studying turtles and plants that live in Canada’s wetlands, but Paul Keddy felt that ecology had bigger questions than that.

What about a model? he wondered. Physics has models, he notes; physicists have obtained billions of dollars for labs like CERN, looking for the Higgs boson and other particles in order to test the Standard Model of matter and forces.

“(Physicists are) very clever, and we ecologists are kind of hesitant to do that … But we can’t be continually collecting observations,” Keddy said Thursday. “We need an underlying body of theory to unify them. We have 350,000 species of plants in the world and no rules for how they get assembled into forests or wetlands.

Ottawa sets record during nasty day of weather

By CFRA News, August 23, 2017

A series of late summer thunderstorms left a trail of damage across the National Capital Region.

Environment Canada issued two Thunderstorm Warnings/Watches and a Tornado Watch on Tuesday as severe weather moved through the region.

The storms dropped a record 30.2 mm of rain on Ottawa. The previous record for greatest rainfall in Ottawa on August 22 was 27.6 mm set in 2002.

Tornado rips through Lachute, leaving up to 40 homeless - Montreal - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, August 22, 2017

Environment Canada is confirming that Lachute, Que., was hit yesterday by a tornado, causing severe damage to more than a dozen homes. Investigators are still trying to determine the strength of the tornado, which touched down around 6:10 p.m. Tuesday.

It developed as part of a storm that hammered parts of southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. At least one home's roof was torn off, but there are no reports of injuries.

Kanata condo complex gets committee's OK to add units - Ottawa - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, August 22, 2017

The City of Ottawa's planning committee has approved a developer's request to increase the number of units in a low-rise condo building in Kanata, despite concerns from neighbours and a petition with more than 240 signatures opposing the proposal.

Brigil, the developer behind the condo complex at 124 Battersea Cres., applied to lift a restriction that limits the number of units in the building to 100.

(...)A number of residents spoke against the proposed four-storey building, which is the fourth and final building in the condo development. They expressed concern over the lack of green space, loss of privacy and blasting that will be necessary to construct the underground parking garage.

'Sneaky' mosquito capable of carrying Zika virus found in Windsor

By Kelly Steele, Ottawa Citizen, August 22, 2017

The mosquito species capable of carrying the Zika virus — a “sneaky” daytime biter — was discovered last week in Windsor, the first known adult mosquito of its kind to be found in Canada, the local health unit reported Tuesday.

An adult Aedes aegypti mosquito, commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, and the species responsible for the majority of human cases of Zika virus infections in the Caribbean, South America and Florida, was found in a single mosquito trap somewhere in the city. The Windsor Essex County Health Unit would not reveal the location, but the mosquito tested negative for Zika virus and West Nile virus.