Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Ottawa reacts to potential advisory bike lanes for Byron Avenue - Ottawa - CBC News

,

By CBC News Ottawa, March 14, 2016

Ottawa could become the first Canadian city to use advisory bike lanes, and road users are reacting strongly to the idea online.

The City of Ottawa is looking at installing the lanes on Byron Avenue between Island Park Drive and Sherbourne Avenue in hopes of slowing down traffic.Advisory bike lanes are used on roads that are too narrow to accommodate two-way traffic and traditional bike lanes at the same time. Defined by dashed painted lines, they give vehicles an option to edge into the bike lane to avoid oncoming traffic, all the while yielding to cyclists.

What are perfluoroalkylated substances, or PFAS? - Ottawa - CBC News

By Kristy Nease, CBC News Ottawa, March 14, 2016

Some homes in the Mississippi Mills, Ont., community of South Ramsay are showing levels of potentially toxic chemicals ​called perfluoroalkylated substances in well water near a government fire safety testing facility.​

Perfluoroalkylated substances, or PFAS for short, is the term used to describe a family of nine substances.They are used in a wide variety of industrial and consumer products, including adhesives, cosmetics, cleaning products and firefighting foams, "as well as water-, stain-, and oil-repellent coatings for fabrics and paper," according to a Health Canada fact sheet about drinking water screening values for PFAS.

City shouldn't treat unhooked landowners as 'villains', resident says

Ottawa &

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, March 13, 2016

Agnes Warda is tired of the city treating landowners who aren’t hooked into municipal water and sewer lines as “villains” because they don’t pay into the stormwater program.

Warda said it’s not only rural residents who are unfairly painted as rogues, since there are thousands of landowners in urban and suburban communities, like she, who have private well and septic. None of them pays a water bill, and to this point, they haven’t paid into the $42-million annual stormwater program since amalgamation.

Roundabout, Walkley Road West redesign unveiled in pkwy plan

By Erin McCracken, Ottawa Community News, March 11, 2016

Walkley Road West is facing a redesign with the future construction of a widened Airport Parkway, which came as a surprise to about 150 people who gathered for the final open house on the proposed widening of the parkway and Lester Road.

Project officials unveiled their recommended plan, which includes a controversial southbound off-ramp at the parkway and Walkley Road, a roundabout at that connection, downsizing Walkley from four lanes to two up to McCarthy Road and installing raised-barrier medians in sections as well as bike lanes along that strip.

Your letters for Saturday, March 12: Photo radar and road tolls

Ottawa Citizen

By Mike Van de Water, Brian Hays, Sheila Pollard and Eve Schnitzer, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, March 12, 2016

Road tolls make sense, Your Worship

Re: Mayor Watson has ‘no interest’ in road tolls, March 5.

I am surprised that Mayor Jim Watson is against a congestion charge because “he feels very strongly that Ottawa residents should not be penalized because of where they choose to live.” After all, without a congestion charge, he penalizes every commuter for the time they spend stuck in traffic jams, no matter where they choose to live.

Reevely: New Eastern Ontario wind farms a betrayal, mayors near Ottawa say

Ottawa Citizen

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, March 11, 2016

The Ontario government has betrayed rural municipalities by approving new wind farms in places that have explicitly voted against them, mayors say — including just east of Ottawa.

“Since we declared ourselves unwilling hosts, we thought we had it made,” says François St. Amour, mayor of The Nation Municipality. “Because there was some talk in the last provincial election that they would honour municipalities that declared themselves unwilling. But I guess that was just another electoral promise.”

Experimental Farm ‘greenness’ helps our health, experts say

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, March 12, 2016

The open, green space of the Central Experimental Farm boosts people’s physical health, say two Carleton University professors who don’t want 60 acres re-developed as a hospital.

Paul Villeneuve has published two recent studies on the effects of green space in Canadian cities. One concludes green spaces clean the air and give other direct health benefits; the other says it makes people — especially young women — more active outdoors.

Residents wary after fire lab prompts water scare in Mississippi Mills

Ottawa Citizen

By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, March 12, 2016

MISSISSIPPI MILLS — The folded paper tucked inside J.D. and Melanie Heffern’s front door on Christmas Eve was not a letter from Santa Claus.

Instead, the National Research Council was writing to inform the couple, who live with their three children about 600 metres from the NRC’s fire research laboratory in Mississippi Mills, that trace amounts of toxic chemicals had been detected in the groundwater on the NRC’s property.

Stormwater fee would fund rural projects beyond a single road, city says

Ottaw

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, March 10, 2016

Rural residents need to look beyond their own neighbourhoods to see where major stormwater investments are helping manage rainfall and snowmelt in their communities, city officials say.

“They drive on the main roads which have ditches and which have culverts, and that’s what this is covering,” city treasurer Marian Simulik said Thursday. “It’s the work on those bigger roads with the bigger culverts and the bigger ditches. This is not their own individual property.”

Your letters for Friday, March 11: The Lord Elgin, the conservative mind, preserving farmland

Ottawa Citizen

By Adrienne Morey, Sharon Oake, Catherine Devonport and Dieter Riedel, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, March 11, 2016

Who cares if our food is ugly?

Re: Food getting ugly at Loblaw; Line of imperfect produce expands, March 3.

Reading about the Loblaw Naturally Imperfect line of food products introduced last March, I notice that the trial run was reportedly successful and due to be expanded to additional items such as less-than-perfect apples and peppers. The article went on to say “The uglier version of a fruit or vegetable costs up to 30 per cent less than its good-looking counterpart. That can be appealing to consumers who have been smacked with sticker shock on the produce aisle over the past year.”

Dying bats have new hope to survive infection

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, March 10, 2016

There’s good news for Eastern Canada’s bats, which have sickened and died in huge numbers: Bats in China have developed resistance to the same white-nose syndrome that is lethal here.

The syndrome is spread by a fungus that causes infections in hibernating bats and often kills them during the winter.

Vehicles on the mall sparking pedestrian concerns: ‘It’s to the point where someone’s going to get hit’

Ottawa Citizen

By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen, March 10, 2016

For a pedestrian street, the Sparks Street Mall sure does have a lot of traffic on it.And at least one public servant who walks the mall to work says the cars, delivery vans and construction trucks that increasingly use Sparks Street are imperilling the safety of unwary pedestrians.William Wells, who works in the Thomas D’Arcy McGee Building, says he regularly sees cars driving down the mall at 30, 40, even 50 kilometres an hour.