Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

The new central library must be downtown – not at LeBreton

Ottawa Citizen

By Jevone Nicholas, Ottawa Citizen, January 31, 2017

Ottawans are becoming increasingly engaged in the plans for a new central library. With a recommended site on LeBreton Flats, many residents are asking important questions about the process and its result. With a total $168-million public investment at stake, politicians must weigh the risk of the library being chronically underused if it is not where people live, work and visit. Based on the demographic evidence, a LeBreton Flats location is a gamble with taxpayers’ dollars on the question: “If you build it, will they come?

”The city and Ottawa Public Library (OPL) have three elements to their plan for a new central library: how to build it; its proposed size and its proposed site.

Science of winter: Why your voice carries farther on a cold morning

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, January 31, 2017

This winter, Postmedia’s Tom Spears looks at what makes our coldest season tick. It’s a series we call The Science of Winter, and today we ask why sound itself behaves differently on a very cold day

.“Never tell a secret on a cold day,” says David Phillips, who is Environment Canada’s senior climatologist and the country’s resident expert in all things weather.

Cold air slows down the speed of sound compared to warm air. But it also makes sound travel farther.

Service remains disrupted as contract talks resume at STO

Ottawa Citizen

By the Ottawa Citizen, January 31, 2017

The Société de transport de l’Outaouais is offering compensation to clients who have suffered through the company’s labour pains over the past few weeks.

Holders of the January transit pass will be entitled to a 25-per-cent refund credited automatically into their ‘Multi” electronic wallet.

The same discount will be offered to those buying February passes electronically. The credits will be deposited by mid-February at the latest, the company said.

Brigil applies for revision to north-Kanata build

By Jessica Cunha, Ottawa Community News, January 30, 2017

Brigil Construction has applied for a site-plan revision and zoning bylaw amendment to allow for higher density and less parking in a north-Kanata development.The construction company wants to build a four-storey, 79-unit condominium at 124 Battersea Cres. near Kanata Avenue and Richardson Side Road.

(...) The proposed condo – to be located in the northwest portion of the property – would take the total number of units past the density cap to 134 units per hectare. In Brigil’s site-plan proposal, the company says an analysis on the upgrades to the Signature Ridge Pump Station – which deals with sanitary sewer water in the area – and its capacity “confirmed that the system can accommodate an increase in density beyond the 100 units/hectare without impacting other development in the area.

”The pump station’s previous capacity, before the upgrades were made, was listed as a reason for the original density cap, according to the submission.

OC Transpo returns most of its double-deckers to city's roads - Ottawa - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, January 30, 2017

All of the double-decker buses OC Transpo sent to the garage last week because of a potential wiring problem should be back on the roads today, the city says.

OC Transpo pulled 43 buses off the road — about one-third of its double-decker fleet — for inspection Friday, after a driver reported fumes coming from his bus the night before.

The problem was blamed on an overheated wire harness.

Reevely: $100M subsidy for natural-gas distributors latest move in Liberals’ re-election bid

Ottawa Citizen

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, January 30, 2017

The provincial government will spend $100 million to build natural-gas lines and help rural Ontarians get off electric heat, calculating that high hydro bills are a bigger problem than greenhouse-gas emissions.

The provincial Liberals have been roasted for years over the high cost of electricity. Lots of rural residents are hit by two whammies: they’re stuck with Hydro One as their power company, which is much more expensive than service from municipal utilities like Hydro Ottawa, and they heat their homes with electricity because there simply aren’t gas mains where they live.

Section of Rideau Canal Skateway reopens Tuesday morning

Ottawa Citizen

By Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen, January 30, 2017

It’s time to pull out your skates again. The Rideau Canal Skateway reopens Tuesday morning to skaters.

The colder weather — forecast to dip to -17 Monday night — has allowed the canal operators to reopen a three-kilometre stretch, from the Concord Street rest area to the Bank Street bridge, of the 7.8-kilometre skateway Tuesday at 8 a.m.

Wildlife group worried tree cutting in Kanata will endanger animals

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, January 30, 2017

A wildlife coalition in Kanata says tree-cutting by developers should be delayed until fall to lessen the danger to wild animals.

KNL Developments, a joint venture from Richcraft and Urbandale Homes, is clearing forest between Goulbourn Forced Road and Terry Fox Drive. Opponents of the work say they realize the development will go ahead, but argue Ottawa shouldn’t allow it in winter.The developers recently began cutting trees on about 175 acres.

Donna DuBreuil of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre says the rule book — a protocol at city hall for the protection of wildlife during construction— “is not being adhered to at all.”

Library decision looms as mayor goes on Confederation Park offensive

Ottawa Citizen

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, January 30, 2017

Mayor Jim Watson says he needed to quickly quash the far-fetched idea of using Confederation Park for a new main library so library trustees don’t pursue it on Tuesday.

Community group Bookmark the Core released a video last Friday suggesting the federal park could be an alternative to the site recommended by the Ottawa Public Library at 557 Wellington St., near the intersection of Albert and Commissioner streets, just west of Bronson Avenue.

“They’re the ones that produced a video advocating for Confederation Park, and the more people I heard from said, ‘Are you serious about it going in the park?’, I said, no absolutely not. I wanted to shoot it down right away,” Watson said Monday.

Group makes last-ditch effort to change new library location

CTV Ottawa News

By CTV News Ottawa, January 29, 2017

A library advocacy group ‘Bookmark the Core’ is making a last-ditch effort to change the proposed location of the new central library.On Friday, the group released a video suggesting space near the Rideau Canal or Confederation Park as better alternatives to the recommended site at LeBreton Flats.

“We have this idea of going for a skate then coming to warm up in the library, or running errands at City Hall and then popping into the library because we want to see multi-destination visits and the library being in the centre of everything,” said Emilie Taman, Co-Chair of Bookmark the Core.

Taman is concerned the space on Wellington St. is not centrally located, as well, that the steep sidewalks surrounding the area will be a challenge for people with walkers, those in wheelchairs, or those pushing baby strollers.

After viewing the video Mayor Jim Watson dismissed Confederation Park as an option, tweeting: “Concern by public that some advocates want to tear up Confed Park to build library! I will NEVER take scarce greenspace away from Centretown.”

Winter pavilion unveiled at Rideau Hall - Ottawa - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, January 28, 2017

A new winter pavilion — a warm place to lace up your skates, and take in a bit of history — has been unveiled on the grounds of Rideau Hall.

The 121-year-old building is the first of ten underused, but architecturally significant structures the NCC is working to revive ahead of Canada's 150th birthday as part of its "Confederation Pavilions" series.

The winter pavilion houses a new exhibition on the history of winter sports and festivities at Rideau Hall, which is the official residence of the Governor General.

Patrick Brown visits Ottawa to attack Liberals over ‘energy poverty’

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2017

Ontario Conservative leader Patrick Brown spent Sunday in Ottawa meeting riding association officials and having an hour-long town hall attacking Liberal energy policies in the afternoon.

“Ontarians in particular are living in energy poverty and it’s not right,” he told a crowd of supporters at a Scottish pub in Stittsville.

“Businesses are struggling to keep jobs in Ontario … You look at other states and provinces, and they are going to be poaching jobs from Ontario.“Anything that makes us less competitive, I think we should be worried about.”

Brown blamed the Liberal green energy plan for locking Ontario into contracts for overproduction of power, “knowing that we don’t need it … We give it away to Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York.” He also attacked the province’s cap-and-trade program, saying that will raise energy costs more.