Latest news with #OttawaRiverkeeper
CBC
a day ago
- General
- CBC
Swimming now allowed at new Dow's Lake dock
You can now swim off the NCC's dock at Dow's Lake 22 hours ago Duration 2:22 Social Sharing Grab your goggles and water wings, Ottawa: Swimming is now permitted from a recently installed dock at Dow's Lake. New buoy lines marking off the deep-water swim area were unveiled Thursday, with a separate lane coming soon for swimmers "wishing to get their laps in," the National Capital Commission (NCC) said in a news release. The accessible dock was installed on the lake early last month, along with Muskoka chairs, bike racks and native plants. At that time, the NCC said it was waiting for the results of water quality testing to see if a pilot project allowing swimming would be possible. On Thursday, they said testing carried out over the past year had shown the lake's swimming area has "consistently" met or exceeded health and safety guidelines. "We tested more than 140 different parameters for contaminants, for pesticides, for petrochemicals, for a lot of the things that people worried about. And we didn't see those there," said Jen Halsall, the NCC's real estate adviser. "The data is doing the talking. It's not Jen from the NCC saying, 'Get in there!' It's really the lake telling us what's possible." The Ottawa Riverkeeper will test the water five times a week, Halsall said, with results posted throughout the summer on the NCC's website. 4 metres deep Swimming will be unsupervised this summer, the NCC said, with no lifeguards on duty. The unsupervised area is part of the natural lakebed, meaning it should be used by experienced swimmers only, according to the NCC's website. "Our water depth starts at four metres, and it gets deeper from there," said Halsall, adding that the dock has plenty of ladders, grab bars and other safety features. According to those who jumped in Thursday, Dow's Lake should prove enticing for Ottawans seeking somewhere to cool off this summer. "The water's so fresh! And it's warm, and it's clean," said Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi, who was on hand for the unveiling.
Ottawa Citizen
2 days ago
- General
- Ottawa Citizen
Cannonballs at Dow's Lake: Return of swimming marked at new recreational dock
Article content Swimming at Dow's Lake is now permitted in the first time in more than a century. Article content The inauguration of the Dow's Lake recreational dock began with a splash on Thursday as politicians, National Capital Commission representatives and community members cannonballed into the water. Article content Article content It was warm, warmer than the wind that left swimmers shivering after their collective dip. Article content Article content Tobi Nussbaum, CEO for the NCC, was one of those swimmers. He told the Ottawa Citizen, while wearing a drenched watersuit, that he wanted swimming in the capital in the summer to be 'what skating is in the winter.' Article content Article content For many Ottawans, swimming in Dow's Lake is unthinkable. Those feelings were played upon when Nussbaum joked about the parallels to Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who jumped into the River Seine before the 2024 Olympic Games. Article content But Laura Reinsborough, Riverkeeper and CEO at Ottawa Riverkeeper, said Dow's Lake and the Siene were incomparable. The Ottawa Riverkeeper is responsible for testing water quality in Dow's Lake for the NCC, and for the entirety of this year it has passed with 'flying colours,' she said. Article content In Ontario and Québec, levels of E. coli, a bacteria of concern that can cause infection and gastrointensional illnesses, must be under 200 per 100 millilitres of water to be considered safe for swimming, whereas in Europe the standard is 900. Article content Article content Article content 'This is excellent, excellent water quality,' Reinsborough said. 'And even after a significant rain event, when we'd expect in an urban area that conditions would deteriorate, Dow's Lake is showing excellent water quality.' Article content The Ottawa Riverkeeper will continue to monitor Dow's Lake water quality, five days a week. Article content It has been a decades-long wait for Dow's Lake's conditions to improve to meet swimming standards. Throughout that time there have been sweeping changes to area waterways. Article content Jennifer Halsall, the project lead on the Dow's Lake dock project and a real-estate advisor for the NCC, said tests for contaminants in the waterways were coming back consistently good, to a point that contaminants were either 'not picking up' or were 'less than half of human health thresholds.' Article content Dow's Lake's history has also changed over the years and it is 'very different from the Dow's Lake we would have seen 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago,' Halsall said. For example, what is now Commissioner's Park was once a lumber yard and the shoreline wrapping around the lake didn't exist until 1958.
CTV News
22-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
The Ottawa Riverkeeper Gala raises money to support a clean and healthy river
The Ottawa Riverkeeper Gala was expected to raise more than $300,000 for the Ottawa Riverkeeper. (Shaun Vardon/CTV News Ottawa)
CBC
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
'It will kill life': Cambridge councillor urging city to curb road salt use
A Cambridge councillor is hoping to reduce the amount of road salt used by the city, saying overuse could contaminate groundwater and "kill life." "I mean if you add enough salt to anything, it will kill life," Ward 7 Coun. Scott Hamilton said. He is speaking in front of city council on Tuesday to present a notice of motion that urges the city of Cambridge – and ultimately the province of Ontario – to tackle the problem of road salt. This comes a week after Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe presented a similar notice of motion during a regional council meeting. Hamilton said the "spirit of this motion is to ask the province," as they have the jurisdictional authority to do significant change. Hamilton says Cambridge uses 5,856 tons of salt per year. With salt registered as a "toxic substance" under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, he said there is inherent danger in its overuse. Several studies support Hamilton's claim. Ottawa Riverkeeper, a non-profit based in Ottawa that advocates for sustainable use of the Ottawa River, found in a study they published in January that among water samples taken from streams across the National Capital Region, " the vast majority were toxic to wildlife due to road salt levels." The five-year study, which started in the winter of 2019-2020, found that only 10 per cent of 500 water samples had safe levels of chloride. Chloride is a "key component" of road salt, the report explained. In a separate study, Taryn Smit, an ecologist volunteering with the Canadian Conservation Corps, explained that too much salt can make living organisms "become sick or die." "Think about if you have not had enough water and now you're starting to get headaches, feel sick and dehydrated." she explained. "The same kind of process will happen with anything that lives in the stream of the river because there's salt in the water." Hamilton said this is why he hopes to see changes on the provincial level. "Whether you're in Guelph, Preston, Hespeler, Blair, you're affected all the same by the quality of our drinking water," he said. Waterloo mayor presented a similar motion Last Tuesday, Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe presented a notice of motion at regional council that also deals with salt pollution. Joe Salemi, the executive director of Landscape Ontario, was one of the delegates who spoke to council about the motion. Salemi urged the Ontario governmet to develop limited liability legislation, create and fund an expert stakeholder advisory committee, and send the resolution to all municipalities. At that meeting, North Dumfries Mayor Sue Foxton expressed concern about the limited liability legislation. "When you waive the right to lay the liability on someone, you're giving up your rights," Foxton said. "You're also allowing people to be negligent." Hamilton said he hopes Cambridge will support his motion in May when he outlines similar steps to deal with the over salting problem in that city and the province as a whole. Similar to McCabe's motion, Hamilton will bring up the development of a limited liability legislation, a public awareness campaign about best salt practices, the creation of an "expert stakeholder advisory committee" that would advise the province about the best courses of action, and a review of bylaws to support further reductions in salt use. Hamilton says he hopes the public will see his motion in a positive light, explaining that his motion is meant to be "ultimately for our own benefit." "If we have toxic drinking water, if levels of sodium chloride in our water are at unhealthy levels and it's at the point where it's killing off our ecosystems, our plants, in our lakes and our rivers, I think ultimately this [plan] is definitely a net positive," he explained. "The majority of the public would understand that."
