Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Egan: Iris Street curbs enthusiasm over multimillion-dollar sidewalk

Ottawa Citizen

By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 2016

It is a curious thing about sidewalks. Not everybody wants them, even brand new and free.

I’ve been driving to work in the same building for more than 30 years, using Iris Street easily 10,000 times. Lots has changed. A dog-walking field turned into a neighbourhood mall that IKEA sampled and eventually ate, the Transitway arrived, restaurants lived and died, the spaceship Starbucks finally docked.

But there was always one sidewalk, on the north side of the street, as pedestrian traffic ebbed and flowed. A few weeks ago, road crews showed up and began digging a trench on the south side, nearly the whole length from Greenbank Road to Woodroffe Avenue.

City environment committee approves changes to water rates, stormwater fees

Ottawa Citizen

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 2016

There’s no stopping a new stormwater fee for rural landowners.

Council’s environment committee on Tuesday unanimously endorsed the controversial scheme to charge every property owner in Ottawa a levy to pay for stormwater mitigation. People who receive water and sewer bills already pay for it, but those not connected to municipal water and sewer lines don’t.

For all the uproar in the rural area about a stormwater fee being unfair, only a handful of people showed up to address the committee.

Deadline looming for plan to stop cave from being dynamited

Metro News

By Haley Ritchie, Ottawa Metro News, October 16, 2016

The deadline to decide the fate of a picturesque cave 45 minutes from downtown Ottawa is looming closer and dividing local residents in Quebec’s Papineau region.

On Friday, a group that wants to keep the site open, the Friends of the Mine, led a guided tour through the site. Attendees included media and local politicians as well as representatives from Laflèche Cave tours and Explora Geo-Rallye interested in turning the site into an eco-tourist attraction.

ottawa river, microbeads, microplastics, riverkeeper

CTV Ottawa News

By Joanne Schnurr, CTV News Ottawa, October 17, 2016

You may want to think about this when you’re brushing your teeth or scrubbing your face tonight.

Tiny little bits of plastic in many of our personal care products are going down the drain with that water.

Now a new study shows just how big a problem those little microbeads are.Researchers from Ottawa Riverkeeper and Carleton University have just completed this first ever study of microplastics in the Ottawa and Rideau rivers.

Tuesday's weather will feel like 29C

Ottawa & Region

News

Ottawa Sun

By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa Sun, October 17, 2016

Environment Canada is forecasting heavy cloud and a high of 23 C for Tuesday, however thanks to the heavy humidity expected those temperatures will feel more like 29 C

.It may be the last gasp that hot weather lovers get in 2016. The balmy temperatures are only expected to last through the day before we return to more seasonal temperatures of around 19 C on Wednesday with very little cloud cover. The weather watcher is forecasting rain for Thursday and Friday, with temperatures of 15 C and 11 C respectively on those days.

Jenkins: A tribute to the Ottawa River

Ottawa Citizen

By Phil Jenkins, Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 2016

A fall day, and the Ottawa River is calm and the colour of asphalt. I’m standing beneath Samuel de Champlain’s statue on Nepean Point. Staring initially in the same direction as our founding colonizer – upriver, with the Champlain Bridge just visible in the distance – I then circumnavigate his plinth. The river squeezes through the Chaudière Falls dam, runs under the creeping cars on the disrupted Alexandra Bridge, past an almost boatless marina, then a rowing club, under a plain commuter bridge, down to Point Gatineau (where once a governor general’s wife fell through the ice) and around a bend beneath the Rockcliffe cliffs and on down to Montreal.

Some facts about that contentious stormwater fee

Ottawa Citizen

By Scott Moffatt, Ottawa Citizen, October 17, 2016

An opinion piece in Monday’s Citizen by Carleton-Mississippi Mills MPP Jack MacLaren didn’t give an accurate account of the facts. Allow me to explain.

The issue at hand is the City of Ottawa’s proposed water, sewer and stormwater rate structure review, with the main focus on the stormwater component of that review. Mr. MacLaren insists that “rural property owners already pay a tax designed to maintain roads, culverts and ditches.” He is wrong. We actually do not pay a tax that goes toward culverts and ditches.

Today’s letters: Revising history, cellphone sins, cycling rules

Ottawa Citizen

By Avery Burdett, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, October 17, 2016

It’s perfectly legal to cycle side-by-sideRe: Letters, Oct. 14.

It’s unfortunate that a letter-writer attacked cyclists for not following the rules of the road. Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act (HTA) and Ottawa’s traffic bylaw have no prohibition against cyclists riding side-by-side, or anything that can be interpreted as such.

The HTA requires cyclists, like any driver, to stay to the right to allow another to pass to the left, but HTA S.148.(5) lays out the guiding principle very clearly. The driver being overtaken, including a cyclist “… is not required to leave more than one-half of the roadway free.”

CP exclusive: Ontario proposes new rules for bottled water companies

By Keith Leslie, Ottawa Citizen, October 17, 2016

TORONTO - Ontario is proposing a two-year hold on the creation or expansion of bottled water plants as the government moves to strengthen the rules around water taking permits.

The Canadian Press has learned the province plans to impose stricter scientific requirements for water taking permits such as studies on the cumulative impact of the practice on local supplies, especially during droughts.

Meteor cam confirms what Ottawans spotted early Monday

Ottawa Citizen

By Megan Gillis, Ottawa Citizen, October 17, 2016

Western University sky cams have captured video confirming that what Ottawans spotted streaking across the sky early Monday morning was, in fact, a meteor.

The university released footage from the Southern Ontario Meteor Network of the fireball seen by observers over Ottawa and Gatineau.

Sticking with red and green transit lines ‘offensive’ to colour-blind people, says advocate

Ottawa Citizen

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, October 17, 2016

OC Transpo is confident the red and green lines marking the O-Train Confederation Line and Trillium Line on a new rail map won’t cause problems for people with a specific form of colour blindness.

Pat Scrimgeour, Transpo’s director of customer systems and planning, said all transit signage was reviewed using the city’s and the province’s accessibility standards.

Today’s letters: Punishing consumers for energy conservation

Ottawa Citizen

By the Editorial Board, Ottawa Citizen, October 14, 2016

Energy-conservation, competition go together

In the battle against climate change, we are properly encouraged to conserve energy, which should be good for both the environment and our wallets. Alas, when it comes to electricity and water, two essential services, governments have proven either incompetent or irresponsible in managing costs to consumers.

In my household, we have shifted electricity use to off-peak hours as much as possible. Meanwhile, what has happened to off-peak hydro rates? They have increased from 2.7 cents per kilowatt/hour in May 2008 to 8.7 cents per KW/hr in May 2016. That’s a whopping 222-per-cent increase in eight years, well beyond the rate of inflation during the same period. I am not making these figures up. My source is the Ontario Energy Board.