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CMAJ on PMRA, November 2023 |
EV as empty vessel in car sewers, Eric Reguly, Globe & Mail, May 20, 2023 |
Comic Piccini opera, Redux, Ontario auditor general Env Report, Globe & Mail, May 18, 2023 |
Venal or Venial? letter to Globe, May 16, 2023 |
"Cry me a river over a few bats", Redux, Globe & Mail, May 12,2023 |
Greenbelt "Scam": Barbarian Ford invasions, Globe & Mail, May 12, 2023 |
Barbarian Ford invasions case: City of Belleville Bell Creek dvlpt, Intelligencer, April 25, 2023 |
Road building projects in Wales, UK, cancelled as climate clangers, the Guardian, Feb 14, 2023 |
Unpublshed letter to Globe, 1996 opioids revisited, February 6, 2023 |
Cathal Kelly on climate charade, Globe & Mail, January 27, 2023 |
Ontario Bill 23, letter to the Premier, and Todd Smith MPP, Nov 24, 2022 |
Canola conundrum, letter to Globe & Mail, October 2022 |
3rd (Canadian) arm of U.S. Air Pollution Health Effects Study, the Guardian, Aug 12, 2022 |
Atomic awe and Boris blight, letter to Globe, July 11, 2022 |
Your !!*^%! car, Part II, Globe and Mail editorial, July 16, 2022 |
Your !!*^%! car, Part I, Globe and Mail, June 20, 2022 |
CAPE report on fossil fuels, Globe and Mail, June 9, 2022 |
Traffic Air Pollution Health Effects report, CAPE, April 2022 |
EU Bans Toxics, the Guardian, April 2022 |
Comic Piccini opera: Ontario Auditor General Environment Report, November 2021 |
......RIP Trillium...... November 16, 2021 |
Covid-19 Parlour Sessions 2020/2021, April 1, 2021 |
Mitch Podoluk, Obituary, Globe and Mail, September 2019 |
Notice to (Big Bay) Mariners, August 2019 |
Air Head, Globe and Mail, August 2019 |
Leon Redbone, RIP, June 2019 |
Ontario Endangered Species Act at risk, letter to Rod Phillips, April 2019 |
Slide to Extinction, Chris Humphrey, letter to Globe, October 31, 2018 |
Peter Galbraith, FRCP, obituary, October 2017 |
White Pines on Death Bed, Bruce Bell, Intelligencer, July 17,2018 |
Thucydides Trap, letter to Globe, May 2018 |
Great Lakes toxics down, SUNY Oswego/Clarkson U, April 2018 |
Machine subversion of democracy, letter to Globe, April 2018 |
Air Pollution overrides Ancestral Genes, Globe, March 2018 |
Olympian Cathal Kelly, letter to Globe, March 2018 |
Environmentalists seeking unemployment, letter to Globe, February 2018 |
Less is more on Bike Lanes, National Post, January 2018 |
Tramadol, 10 years on, Globe and Mail, November 2017 |
White Stripes: Belleville bicycle lanes, letters, November 2017 |
Occupational Cancers, CCO research results, Globe and Mail, October 2017 |
Big Pharmoney and Canadian Drug Use Guidelines, Globe and Mail, June 21, 2017, Kelly Grant |
Oxycontin, 20 years on, letter to Globe, May 2017 |
Lake Ontario wind turbines to remain on hold? Feb 2017 |
Obituary, Raold Serebrin, September 2016 |
Sartorial slip or signal? letter to Globe editor, October 2016 |
Weapons of mass distraction, letter to Globe editor, Oct 2016 |
Point O turbines 99% Down the Drain, CCSAGE, July 7, 2016 |
Point O turbines Dead and Damned, PECFN, July 6, 2016 |
Rabid diplomat, letter to Globe, May, 2016 |
More on bats: rabid rocker? letter to Globe, January 2016 |
Lighthouses of eastern Lake Ontario, new book by Marc Seguin, March 2016 |
Continuing corporate windpower malfeasance: Windstream and Trillium Corp, Feb 2016 |
Amherst Island: the next fine mess, Feb 2016 |
Valerie Langer: Thirty years of effort pays off on the B.C. coast, Feb 1,2016 |
Trillium log, 6th annual ELO expedtion, September 2015 |
Trillium Wind Corp intent on Spoliation of eastern Lake Ontario and Main Duck Isle, June 2015 |
Turtles rule? Ontario Court of Appeal Decision: Turtlegate, April 2015 |
Obituaries, Mary Terrance (Luke) Hill, January 2015; Valerie Ingrid (Hill) Kaldes, July 2015 |
Ontario Court of Appeal turtle hearing, December 2014 |
Trillium Log, 5th annual ELO expedition, September 2014 |
Planetary public health manifesto, The Lancet, March 2014 |
Ostrander Bioblitz, butterfly inventory walk, August 10, 2014 |
Victory at Cape Vincent: British Petroleum withdraws turbine proposal, February 2014 |
Stay of execution granted by Ontario Court of Appeal, March 2014 |
Never say die: Will the Court of Appeal let the Ostrander Phoenix fly free again? March 2014 |
Divisional Court ruling in Ostrander: turtles belly up, Trojan horses win, February 2014 |
Lafarge 2020, pushing the air envelope again, Hazardous waste as cement kiln fuel proposal, Jan2014 |
Another fine mess in Port Hope: municipal waste incinerator proposal, January 2014 |
Ostrander: fiasco, or snafu? you decide, December 2013 |
Ostrander rises again, Noli illegitimi carborundum, December 2013 |
British Petroleum backing off Cape Vincent after a decade of aggression? December 2013 |
Turbines best Bald Eagles in U.S law, December 2013 |
SARStock 10 years after, letter to Globe, August 2003 |
Trillium log September 2013: Surfin' USA: Hanging Ten in a Hughes 29 |
ERT Post mortem: Garth Manning lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
ERT post mortem: Cheryl Anderson lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
ERT Post Mortem: Ian Dubin lets it all hang out, August 2013 |
Great Lakes United turns thirty, goes down, RIP GLU, July 29, 2013 |
ERT decision, Ostrander turns turtle, goes down, July 3, 2013 |
PECFN Thankyou, and Appeal for funds, July 6, 2013 |
Minister of Env on Lake Ontario Off shore wind turbine status, June 2013 |
Lake Ontario water level control plan, June 2013 |
Play by Play, Part II, APPEC Ostrander ERT Appeal, June 2013 |
Ostrander ERT June 2013, Appendix VI, an indirect cause of human morbidity and mortality ? |
ELOERG Presentation to Ostrander ERT, Part II, Human Health, May 2013 |
The Dirty E-Word, Terry Sprague, Picton Gazette, April 2013 |
Toxics in Great Lakes Plastic Pollution, April 2013 |
Bill Evans on Birds and Wind farms, April 2013 |
Mayday, Naval Marine Archive, April 2013 |
Experimental Lakes Area, Kenora, Closing by Federal Gov't, March 2013 |
Fishing Lease Phase out on Prince Edward Point, March 2013 |
Windstream makes $1/2 Billion NAFTA claim, March 2013 |
Play by Play, PECFN Ostrander ERT Appeal, March 2013 |
Offshore Wind turbine moratorium 2 years later, The Star, Feb 2013 |
ELOERG ERT submission on Ostrander: Appendix V: Pushing the Envelope of the MoE SEV, Feb 2013 |
Wente on Wind and Bald Eagle mugging, Globe and Mail, February 2, 2013 |
Sprague on Wind and Bald Eagle mugging, Picton Gazette, Jan 25, 2013 |
Cry Me a River over a Few Bats: Submission to Env Review Tribunal, ELOERG, January 2013 |
Lake Ontario's Troubled Waters: U of Michigan GLEAM, January 2013 |
Letter to Minister of Environment re: Ostrander, January 2013 |
No Balm in Gilead: Ostrander IWT's as Trojan Horses, January 2013 |
Ostrander Turbines: another Christmas gift by the MoE, Dec 2012 |
Occupational carcinogens: Ontario Blue Collar breast cancer study, November 2012 |
Fresh water fish Extinctions, Scientific American,November 2012 |
Great Lakes Toxics revisited, November 2012 |
Frack the What ? November 2012 |
$ 2 1/4 Billion Trillium Power lawsuit knockback Appeal, November 2012 |
Canada Centre for Inland Waters decimated, October 2012 |
Birds, Bats, Turbines, and the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, October 2012 |
Ecological public health, the 21st centurys big idea? British MedicalJournal Sept1,2012 |
Trillium log, Sept 2012 |
George Prevost, Saviour of the Canadas, 1812 - 1814. June 2012 |
The Victory at Picton: Bicentennial Conference on War of 1812-1814, Differing Perspectives, May 2012 |
Carleton Island and the 1812, letter to the Globe, October 2011 |
Queen's Fine Arts Department Succumbs, letter to Principal, December 2011 |
Mr. Kumar and the Super 30, November 2011 |
Letters, Articles and Projects from the Nineties |
Alban Goddard Hill, web site manager |
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Lake Ontario will rise higher and fall lower under joint U.S.-Canada planJoint Commission
plans to return lake to more natural rhythm, worrying south shore residents too close to the edge. ALYSHAH HASHAM / TORONTO STAR Tys Theysmeyer,
left, head of natural lands at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and John Hall, coordinator of the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action
Plan, were among those attending a public meeting in Jordan, Ont., to express support for a plan to adjust the way Lake Ontario
levels are regulated. By: Alyshah Hasham News reporter, Published on
Mon Jul 29 2013 It can come down to a matter of centimetres. A few too low, and commercial shipping vessels must carry less cargo, losing their competitive
advantage over road and rail — and the recreational boating season is cut short. A few too high, and homes are damaged
and wetland plants killed. So adjusting the regulations governing
how the water levels of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River are managed is a tricky business to navigate — and one
that has been done very slowly. If you’d told John Hall,
the co-ordinator of the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan, 14 years ago that he’d still be waiting for the change,
he’d have scoffed. But a $20 million, five-year study and $360,000 in public and technical hearings
later, he is hopeful that the tide has finally turned.
After a 2008 plan was resoundingly rejected by stakeholders, a new plan is poised — barring some tweaking — to be recommended by the a new plan for federal approval by both the U.S. and Canada by early next year.
The International Joint Commission, a body of six Canadian and U.S. members, was created to handle issues in shared waters
like the Great Lakes. Conservation groups on both sides of the
border, including Conservation Ontario and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, have given it their blessing. So
has the Montreal Port Authority. Boating Ontario sees, as executive director Al Donaldson put it, “no need to panic.”
Robert Houze, who owns Iroquois Marine Services, says the new
rules may allow the boating season for deep-keeled boats to go on a few weeks longer. The Canadian Shipping Association is
concerned about the plan’s ability to allow quick changes when water levels are too low, says president Robert Lewis-Manning,
but he’s optimistic that can be addressed. But still beating
ceaselessly against the current are property owners on the south shore of Lake Ontario — where the water is lapping
almost at their front doors. “We are disproportionately
affected,” says Dan Barletta, a member of the Lake Ontario Riparian Alliance. It is their homes, their sewer systems
and their flood insurance premiums that will suffer most under the new plan, he says. Barletta has lived in Greece, N.Y., since 1985, in a lakeshore neighbourhood that has existed since
1887. “The lake has come to us,” he says of the thousands
of homes he says will be affected by the new plan. “We didn’t go to the lake.” Lake Ontario
levels are adjusted by controlling the amount of water released by the Moses-Saunders dam at Cornwall, Ont., and Massena,
N.Y. The current system, in place since 1958, aims, despite the best efforts of Mother Nature, to keep lake levels within
a 1.2-metre range, depending on time of year. The new system
intends to mimic the natural seasonal water levels of Lake Ontario, which means there will be both higher and lower water
levels than now. That means that homes on the Lake Ontario shoreline
will face an increase in erosion and risk of flooding from the current plan — $2.22 million annually. Overall, there
is a $3.12 million economic benefit to the new plan over the current one, due to $5.26 million in increased hydropower generation.
Barletta says most of that damage will be on the south lakeshore,
and that the potential damage has been drastically undervalued. “This
plan is awful,” Barletta said at a recent public hearing organized by the commission. “It is beyond imagination
that you are considering it.” At the week of public hearings
held in July, battle lines were drawn between property owners and the environmental groups. It became, as the IJC commissioners observed in a technical hearing in Toronto, a matter of muskrats
versus homes. The new plan, with the periods of high and low
water, does indeed benefit muskrats — a species used as an indicator of the healthiness of wetlands — as well
as “vegetation, fish and other critters,” says Dick Hibma, the chair of Conservation Ontario. Without that variation
in depth, you end up with marshes full of nothing but cattails.
John Hall, who sat on a public advisory committee during the five-year study, said he “wanted the south shore people
to understand that those public agencies and private property owners that own wetlands are also property owners and have a
major public investment in wetlands that have an economic value … A big reason people visit and spend tourism dollars
is because of the natural lands like Cootes Paradise marsh, in the Royal Botanical Gardens.” It’s easy to look to the south shore from Toronto “and say public safety should
be first,” says Nancy Gaffney, a waterfront specialist with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. The new plan hardly affects homes in Toronto and much of the Ontario side because
shoreline development regulations put in place by the province after the devastation of Hurricane Hazel in the 1950s mean
that homes are mostly well out of the hazard zones, she says. “The
coastal wetlands are our focus, and the south shore isn’t even close to that. But this issue isn’t about people
versus muskrats at all, it’s about public safety ... I would hope these people have a sober second thought. If the waves
are brushing against your window, it’s not the best place for your family to be, regardless of your rights.” She hopes the plan’s much-touted “adaptive management strategy”
will help find ways to provide people in vulnerable shoreline areas the assistance they need, whether it be moving houses
entirely or providing some kind of protection. The strategy
boils down to monitoring the effects of changing water levels — something that could help the commission react more
quickly to changing conditions caused by climate change, says Hall.
But as commission co-chair Lana Pollack notes, “monitoring isn’t sexy.” And since no specific pilot programs have been listed and no provisions for funding have been made in
the plan, there is concern that it will be a challenge to persuade various levels of government to sign off on it. The commission is accepting public comments on the plan until the end of August.
If stakeholders, including Ontario, Quebec and New York State, support the plan, it could go up for federal consideration
next year. Bluffer’s Park marina owner Ross Merikallio
isn’t holding his breath, though. When it comes to water management issues, from Lake Ontario to the dangerously shallow Georgian Bay , he says waiting for change is “like waiting for the Scarborough subway.” NPR
Story 9:12 am
Fri June 14, 2013 New water management plan for Lake OntarioBy Kate O'Connell Originally published on Fri June 14, 2013 10:28 am The body regulating water levels on Lake Ontario, the International Joint Commission (IJC),
has released a proposal for a new management plan. Lake levels have a significant impact on the economic and environmental viability of harbors in upstate New York and Canada.
The
last proposal, known commonly as plan Bv7, was highly controversial and received such backlash during the public comment period
that the commission had to re-draft it. The IJC’s new proposal aims to strike a compromise between the concerns
of environmental groups and harbor residents. For years management plans have focused on maintaining levels conducive
to maximum economic benefit and minimal damage to shoreline property. However, losses of ecosystem diversity and drops
in bird and fish populations have raised concerns about the environmental impact of unnatural water levels. Plan Bv7 tried to correct this issue by introducing
more extreme highs and lows to water levels more frequently. But, residents argued this plan would come at the price of recreational
boating revenue and damage to shoreline property. “There was a lot of support and a lot of opposition
to plan Bv7. The new plan performs nearly as well for the environment as plan Bv7. So there’s a very small trade off
that’s being made to provide greater protection to the shoreline communities,” says IJC spokesman Frank Bevacqua.
He says the new plan identifies a range of water level ‘trigger points’. If water rises above or drops
below those levels, dams upstream will be used to adjust them. He says this should protect shoreline properties and
protect revenues for commercial and recreational boating. The public comment period for the new plan is open until
August 30th. ----- Click here to tell us what you think about this issue and the new plan.
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Eastern Lake Ontario Environmental Research Group
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