Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Bottled water distribution to continue in Mississippi Mills until Fall 2018

By Ted Raymond, CFRA News, November 23, 2016

Residents in Mississippi Mills, whose groundwater was contaminated by chemicals traced back to the National Fire Laboratory, will be getting bottled water from the National Research Council until at least the fall of 2018.

NRC Spokesperson Charles Drouin tells CFRA that seasonal testing on the groundwater is ongoing.

“We’ve committed to continue doing that through the fall of 2018,” Drouin says. “That means we will continue to provide bottled water to residents who have requested it, and provide maintenance on the filtration systems that we’ve provided for the duration of that sampling program.”

Province increases waste intake, operating hours for Springhill landfill

Ottaw

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, November 25, 2016

The province is allowing the operator of the city-owned Springhill landfill to accept more construction waste and stay open longer.

Tomlinson filed its application in 2014 and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change recently approved it.

Lee Timmins, Tomlinson’s manager of technology, landfills and regulatory affairs, said the company wanted to increase its maximum intake of construction and demolition waste because the province has been considering ways to divert more of the material from dumps. Most of the construction and demolition debris brought to Springhill, located in Metcalfe, is recycled.

Reevely: Jim Watson and John Tory become unlikely champions of road tolls

Ottawa Citizen

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, November 25, 2016

Ottawa and Toronto are talking about charging tolls to help reduce the massive subsidies we give road projects, a conservative idea that is finding little support from professional conservatives.

We made the first tentative move a couple of years ago, when our city council asked for permission to erect toll gates on Highway 174 at the eastern edge of Ottawa. It’s a former provincial highway, forcibly downloaded onto the city in the 1990s, and a meaningful percentage of the traffic on it comes from Clarence-Rockland and points east. Ottawa taxpayers pay for snowplowing and repaving and culverts and some councillors hoped to get the road’s other regular users to kick in.

(...)

Brown bangs on about how expensive electricity is these days but has no plan for making it less so, any more than the Liberals or New Democrats do. We had him in our newsroom this week for a sit-down meeting and he repeated what purports to be a plan but isn’t: Stop privatizing Hydro One, stop signing new green-energy contracts and restore municipal planning authority over where new wind and solar farms go. Only not signing new generation contracts has much to do with prices — and at best, it’ll head off future increases.

City to study alternate routes for phase 2 of Brian Coburn extension

By Jennifer McIntosh, Ottawa Community News, November 18, 2016

City staff might have to go back to the drawing board for the second phase of the Brian Coburn extension.

But that's perfectly okay with some community members, who have been pushing for an alternate route to be considered. Construction is currently underway on the first leg of the extension, which takes the road from Mer Bleue to Navan roads. The price tag on the project is $22 million.

City warned O'Connor bike lanes less safe than other options

Metro Ottawa

By Ryan Tumulty, Ottawa Metro News, November 21, 2016

The city was warned the unique construction of the O’Connor Street bike lanes was “less safe” than other options, but went ahead with the plans anyways .

As CBC first reported, Dutch firm Mobycon Concordis was brought in to take a second look at the city's bike lane plan. The company suggested that two bike lanes be built on opposite sides of O’Connor, rather than having one lane with bikes moving in opposite directions.

Ottawa a hotspot for wasps in North America - Technology & Science - CBC News

By Nicole Portillaro, CBC News Ottawa, November 21, 2016

If you're afraid of wasps, Ottawa is not the place to live.

A new study published in the journal Zookeys analyzed about 2,000 specimens of wasps from the Canadian National Collection of Insects collected between 1894 and 2010.

There are roughly 200 known wasp species from Canada and about 350 from North America.

Letters: LRT bridge opponents can’t complain now

Ottawa Citizen

By Pierre Quesnel, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, November 22, 2016

LRT bridge foes should have spoken earlier

Re: City’s plan for LRT flyover in park angers neighbouring homeowners, Nov. 22.

With all of the public forums, newspaper articles, councillors’ newsletters, floods of notices and information online, exactly how does someone not know that a massive, multi-year project is going through their neighbourhood ?

Andrew Coyne: How a carbon tax without the U.S. can work for Canada

By Andrew Coyne, Ottawa Citizen, November 22, 2016

Thirty years ago, when Canada entered into negotiations on a free trade deal with the United States, opponents of the deal knew, absolutely knew, that our economy could not possibly survive it.

Industries in Canada, they were sure, faced much higher costs than their American competitors, to pay for our vaunted social programs. Without the protective buffer that tariffs provided, they would be decimated — or we should have to jettison the policies that made up our distinctive Canadian way of life, to level the playing field.

Pembina Institute: The many benefits of phasing out coal power

Ottawa Citizen

By the Editor, Ottawa Citizen, November 21, 2016

The following is an edited excerpt from a Pembina Institute report, released Monday, entitled Out with the coal, in with the new.

As the world ratifies the Paris Agreement and works to reconcile existing climate plans with the long-term need to decouple greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth, the pace of coal plant closures has begun to define climate leadership. In order for countries like Canada to live up to the ambition of the Paris Agreement, they must work to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, and power their economies through clean energy. Because of this, an accelerated phase-out of coal-fired power is a critical piece of Canada’s climate action puzzle. Limiting the role of coal-fired power and promoting clean alternatives on Canada’s grid will ensure the process of electrification results in maximum emissions reductions for the country, and would support the country’s long- term climate ambitions.

City’s plan for LRT flyover in park angers homeowners

Ottawa Citizen

By John Willing, Ottawa Citizen, November 21, 2016

Homeowners near Connaught Park say they didn’t know the city wanted to build an LRT flyover through the greenspace, but their councillor maintains there was plenty of warning.

“It’s not just a couple of whackos saying we don’t like this,” David Sharpe said Monday morning after participating in a rush-hour protest involving about 15 people on Carling Avenue. “We have some substance to this.”

Vanier Beautification Committee loses its way

By Michelle Nash Baker, Ottawa Community News, November 17, 2016

Studies show if you clean up a place, people respect it more.

It’s called the broken window theory.

According to Crime Prevention Ottawa, “If a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken … one unrepaired window is a signal that no one cares.”

So fix the windows.

For almost 10 years, a group has worked tirelessly to clean up Vanier by attending meetings, reporting crimes in progress, reporting on property standards, gathering and planting flowers and picking up garbage.

Money set aside for grocery store in Hull could be used for other projects

Metro Ottawa

By Haley Ritchie, Ottawa Metro News, November 17, 2016

A city councillor in Hull is reaching out to see if the community wants to continue holding on to $300,000 to attract a grocery store or use the money for other projects.

“The $300,000 that has been reserved for the grocery project was done 10 years ago,” said Coun. Denise Laferrière.

“What we’re doing ... is asking the people if they still want me to reserve the money for this special project, or do they want something else, another project to be done with that money,” she said.