magazine / ja11
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July/August 2011 issue |
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Reverberations
Into the water
Water has been much on my mind
since I attended a water forum at
the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in
Toronto last winter and met environmentalist
Alexandra Cousteau after her presentation.
So I was thrilled to receive the June 2011 Canadian Geographic and find that
water is the focus of the entire issue. I
particularly enjoyed reading “The source of
life” action guide by Anne Casselman (who
also happens to be the writer for Cousteau’s
Expedition Blue Planet 2010, the 138-day
odyssey showcased at the ROM).
In her first section, Casselman really
gave me food for thought, suggesting
that we start by identifying the conservation
groups that are stewards of our local
creeks, lakes or swamps. In the second
story, she grabbed my interest in the first
line, speaking of a “tributary of New
Brunswick’s Saint John River” (and
spelled it correctly). As a product of the
New Brunswick school system, I remember
having to memorize the names of the
province’s rivers and tributaries in grade
three. I guess our teachers — bless them!
— must have felt that was very important.
I admire Maude Barlow’s challenge
in the third story: “If you really love
Canada’s water, you’ve got to work to
protect it.” I agree. Conservation, preservation
and sustainability are hard work, and I believe in building an
awareness today to protect tomorrow’s
generations. In the fourth
story, Casselman speaks of us as a
“nation of water lovers.” There
have been more forums, displays,
exhibits, tours, museum presentations,
documentaries and film
events in the past three years than
there were in the previous 30.
Michael D’Andrea, director of
water infrastructure management at
Toronto Water, echoes Casselman’s
sentiments, leaving us with this
thought-provoking conclusion: “The
more that is done on a daily basis
across the watershed, the better off
the health of the watershed will be.”
In all, I loved the issue!
Anne Marie Beattie
Oshawa, Ont.
“The source of life” by Anne Casselman is very timely, given the threat to
four vital watersheds in Dufferin County,
northwest of Toronto. The Ontario government
is reviewing an application from
The Highland Companies (backed by a
multi-billion-dollar Boston hedge fund)
to excavate a 931-hectare quarry for limestone.
It would be deeper than Niagara
Falls and 61 metres below the water table.
To keep the pit from turning into a lake
and draining the local watersheds,
Highland says it will have to pump 600
million litres of fresh groundwater from it
each day, forever. Forever is a long time.
The water will be stored in wells and then
“recharged” into the ground. The risk of
contamination is huge for the approximately
one million people downstream
who rely on these watersheds. The battle
to protect the headwaters of these watersheds
is just beginning. For more information,
go to www.citizensalliance.ca.
Donna Tranquada
Toronto
The watersheds issue started me
pondering on expanding my annual
limnology course to be more “watershed-inclusive.”
My students and I have always done a watershed project on a local
stream and its environs, but now I’m
thinking about upping the ante. So this
year, I’m rejigging the course to make
use of the educational modules available
through the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s Watershed Academy. Canadian Geographic is
adding to these very important initiatives
about issues that couldn’t affect all
Canadians more!
Brian Scully
Professor of Aquatic,
Environmental & Geospatial
Sciences, Vanier College
Saint-Laurent, Que.
In the issue on protecting our water,
you didn’t talk about the water used
by golf courses in Canada and the contamination
of waterways due to their
use of pesticides (six to seven times
higher than in the agriculture industry).
Each of the 2,400 or so Canadian golf
courses uses, on average, 517,808 litres
of water a day. In 2007, the United
Nations estimated that the water used to
irrigate the world’s 34,000 or more golf
courses (more than 50 percent are in the
United States) is 9.5 billion litres a day,
enough water to support 4.7 billion
people at the UN daily minimum.
Rene Ebacher
Toronto
The article “A new Don” (June 2011)
raises some fundamental questions.
Do management of storm sewers or
creation of dog-walking paths really
contribute to conservation of Canada’s
ecological systems? Does the urban public
know that the “green” label actually
means ecological improvement across
Canada’s rural and wilder environments?
Ecology means the interaction of
organisms with their environment.
Certainly, this includes the human
organism. But we are not alone and
should not be not the primary focus.
Gray Merriam
Arden, Ont.
I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation
for having been selected as the
Waterscapes category winner in The Blue
Water Photo Contest (June 2011). There
are no real winners or losers in this contest.
All of us who submitted their best
work are on the same page: we all have a
real understanding of the importance of
our planet’s freshwater reserve and how it
is being taxed to capacity. As more pertinent
information is passed on about current
and pending water shortages facing
our planet, solutions and better waterconservation
practices will evolve. Again,
a very humble and sincere thank you.
Stu McKay
Lockport, Man.
I read the issue on national parks (April 2011) with much interest because I
have been pushing for national park status
for the now federally owned farmlands
that were expropriated in the 1970s to
build an airport in Pickering, Ont. The
proposed development was shelved due to
intense public opposition. Most of the
viable green space in the area has been
eliminated by urban sprawl, leaving tiny
fragments of nature surrounded by suburbs,
big-box malls and roads. The federally
expropriated land is the only island
of intact habitat left. If it had not been
expropriated, it, too, would probably have
succumbed to sprawl. We have a chance
of a lifetime to create one of the first
accessible national parks next to Canada’s
most populated area — a way to balance
the impacts of overdevelopment.
According to your articles, one of the
issues with creating national parks is that
land often has to be expropriated, which
is contentious. This land has already been
expropriated — at the expense of family
history and livelihood and great sorrow.
Those whose history is entangled in this
mess will never forget that. And today,
many of us in the next generation are still
trying to preserve this land.
Bernadette Zubrisky
Toronto
The federal government’s Speech from the Throne
on June 3 included an announcement that an
urban national park will be established in the
Rouge River valley in eastern Toronto. — Ed.
On the waterfront
When I returned home to Halifax
recently, I read with interest your
article “In the eye of the storm” (October
2010). Are you aware that Halifax and
the surrounding areas have a large number
of “pre-Confederation” water lots?
These were created prior to 1867 when
individuals and companies bought the
land under the sea for some distance out
from their shore properties. Alas, these
continue to exist, and today, they are
being filled in and built on.
Dartmouth Cove is disappearing.
More than eight hectares are being filled
in. Developers want to put a whole town
out at sea. Even more sea has been filled
in Bedford Basin. Environmental regulations
are routinely changed to suit the
developers. We don’t live in Hong Kong
or Dubai. There is still land to build on.
I suggest you look into the issue of pre-
Confederation water lots here in Nova
Scotia and elsewhere in Canada.
Bev MacInnes
Dartmouth, N.S.
Pre-Confederation water lots are part of the
Halifax area’s long seafaring history. Prior
to 1867, people could purchase or be granted
underwater land adjacent to their properties, primarily
so that they could build wharves. After
Confederation, the federal government claimed
ownership of all remaining water lots, but those
already sold remained in private hands and have
seen plenty of development over the decades,
in places such as downtown Halifax and
Bedford Basin.
The $300 million King’s Wharf development,
a residential and commercial project under way
on Dartmouth Cove, will infill about 75 percent of
eight hectares of water lots. There was not enough
land available at the site to build on, says developer
Francis Fares. “This is in the downtown core
and is economically viable.”
When the project went through a public-approval
process in 2006, many Dartmouth residents were in
favour because of the economic benefits and property
taxes the development would generate. It also
had to receive approval from Transport Canada,
which determines whether infilled land will disrupt
the passage of ships, and Fisheries and Oceans
Canada, which assesses the impact on fish habitat.
Building on infilled land presents a greater challenge
than building on other land, says David
Haley, the environmental engineer at King’s Wharf,
where the first phase is scheduled to open in the fall
of 2012. “You have to understand what you’re
building on,” he says, “and do the engineering
required to support the loads that you’re planning.”
In a sense, construction projects on these
water lots are a throwback to their original intent:
helping merchants in the port city conduct trade.
But, it seems, many people want a piece of
the waterfront. “There are people who would
like to be on the water,” says Shawn MacPhail,
operations manager of Dartmouth Cove-based
Dominion Diving, “and there are people who need
to be on the water.”
— Michelle Hampson/Canadian Geographic
Correction
The poster map “Watersheds of Canada” (June
2011) contained the following errors: a provincial
capital symbol was inadvertently used for Montréal,
and a symbol and label for Québec, the provincial
capital, was omitted. To request a corrected copy of
the poster map, please contact watershedmap@canadiangeographic.ca.
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* Letters may be edited for length, accuracy and liability.
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