Living Lakes Canada Gathering: Day One

May 22, 2012 - 8:44 pm

Amid challenging times for federal programs and local initiatives, this afternoon's doom and gloom factor was noticeable. Opening Living Lakes Canada's members-only meeting, Global Nature Fund's executive director Udo Gattenlöhner discussed Canada's presence (or lack thereof) on the world stage...

Tags: Living Lakes Canada

The Long Haul

May 18, 2012 - 8:58 am

Most of Alberta’s 3.6 million residents rely on regulated water systems. But, according to Brent Paterson*, a significant number of Albertans still use water from unregulated groundwater or dugouts. Nearly 700,000 Albertans rely on holes or dammed gullies filled with snowmelt and runoff for year-round...

Tags: Alberta, Alberta Agriculture & Rural Development, Alberta Environment and Water, Brent Paterson, dugouts, farm water, irrigation, nutrient loading, Peace Region, Peace River, wastewater, water, Water for Life

Slash and Burn

May 18, 2012 - 7:20 am

It's another sad week for federal employees and Canadian science. Yesterday, more than 1,000 Fisheries and Oceans Canada employees received notice that their jobs could be affected by impending cuts. "These are radical changes," Jeannie Baldwin of Public Service Alliance of Canada in Halifax told...

Tags: Experimental Lakes Area, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Jeannie Baldwin, PSAC, Public Service Alliance of Canada

How Do You Envision a Friendly, Accessible Waterfront?

May 16, 2012 - 2:45 pm

As part of our January/February 2012 issue, we offered Water Canada readers the chance to win a copy of Reshaping Toronto’s Waterfront (University of Toronto Press). We asked: how do you envision a friendly, accessible waterfront? One of our winners, Ian D. Robertson of Whitehorse, YK, provided...

Tags: waterfront

Spring Cleaning

May 1, 2012 - 3:14 pm

With our May/June 2012 issue sent to the press, this afternoon I set to work cleaning my disaster of a desk and unearthed this gem from Water Canada's publisher, who is a big fan of press clippings (evidence). In case you can't read it, Todd's writing reads: "Why isn't the mayor drinking Toronto...

Making Water Utilities More Energy Efficient

May 1, 2012 - 2:14 pm

How can water utilities use energy more efficiently? I was pleased to investigate the finer details of the water-energy nexus--right down to microbubbles--for the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association's bi-annual publication, the Canadian Municipal Water News & Review. PDF: Electricity...

Tags: Canadian Municipal Water News & Review, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association, CWWA, efficiency, energy, water-energy nexus

Pitching In

April 30, 2012 - 1:46 pm

Everything but the kitchen sink? Wait--we definitely found one of those, not to mention a few tires and some rusty shopping carts. Last Friday, the Water Canada / ReNew Canada team (and friends) spent some quality time cleaning up Toronto's Humber River shore for Pitch-In Canada. What better way...

Tags: Pitch-In Canada

Blue Bash Success!

April 27, 2012 - 10:34 am

Last Wednesday, Water Canada hosted The Blue Bash, a party at Toronto’s historic Steam Whistle Roundhouse to raise funds and awareness for WaterCan’s Kilimanjaro Climb for Life effort. In October, I'll be part of a team of 15-20 people who will scale Mt. Kilimanjaro to support WaterCan’s projects...

Tags: The Blue Bash, The Water Brothers, WaterCan

Poop: The 4-Letter Word Nobody's Talking About

April 18, 2012 - 12:59 pm

Here at Water Canada, dealing with poop (that is, water, wastewater, and sanitation) is right up our alley. So when @ohtinytony shared his human waste infographic, I had to share it with Water Canada's readers. It really helps to put the global water and sanitation crisis into perspective. Graphics...

Tags: clean water, poop, toilets, wastewater

Salki on Storage

April 15, 2012 - 4:12 pm

The Water Canada team spent last week in Banff at the fifth annual Water Technologies Symposium. Thursday's keynote speaker, Lake Winnipeg Foundation's Alex Salki, took some time to chat with me about Manitoba's developing surface water strategy. We also chatted about one of the possible solutions to...

Tags: Alex Salki, flooding, Lake Winnipeg Foundation, Manitoba, surface water