News

A few weekends ago it rained all day Saturday and during a heavy rain, especially at spring time, our combined sewers which carry waste water and storm water will reach their maximum and over flow into the Red River. Our professor told us in class that the waste water and storm water mixture had over flowed for five hours during this day! I know from my environmental action that Winnipeg has 79 different spots where this can occur along the Red River! What I didn't realize when I was doing my action and thinking about the 18 average over flows a year is the length of time an overflow occurs for. Five hours is a long time and that is a lot of untreated waste and storm water going directly into the river, plus most of the chemicals, garbage, and salt that has collected over the winter. This combined sewer infrastructure that exists in the old parts of the city is so bad for the environment and I can only image the "damage" that occurs when it rains for days straight! Because we cannot destroy our city to build new waste water infrastructure we must develop new technologies and better practices. Some solutions that I know about are green roofs, retention ponds, and more vegetation throughout the city. I think that by adding more trees and shrubs into the city we can benefit in so many ways and will lead to less storm water runoff, a reduction in the time of overflows, and a healthier environment for people to live and work in.

Class Discussion

In class on April 5 we watched a movie called FAT lake, which talked about the eutrophication in lake Winnipeg. A lot of the nutrients are coming from Winnipeg via the Red River and Manitoba from agriculture and hog farms. After talking to my friends, they feel a big concern to them is that even though Manitoba's hog and agricultural industry is large, we should be able to continue into the future by reducing the impact that these industries have on lake Winnipeg without sacrifice to their production. They feel that more money needs to be invested into technology. I totally agree with this but my concern is the nutrients coming from the city of Winnipeg. As a large city we are responsible for the bodies of water that we are connected to and the nutrients that we dispose, which are affecting others like the fishermen in lake Winnipeg. I am not from Manitoba but I know that lakes are important to people of the area because they provide jobs and a place for recreation. On the video they interviewed some people on the beach at lake Winnipeg and a lot of their answers were unintelligent like, "is this even lake Winnipeg?" I think that this documentary wanted to create the effect that no one knows about the nutrients in lake Winnipeg but I believe that those who are in contact with the lake or people associated with it know. It is just the task of getting the awareness out to the remaining public about what we are doing to lake Winnipeg, what they can do to help, and why they should help. One thing that I do to try and reduce my impact is only use phosphorous-free soap because it is available and has less of an impact on water ecosystems. I try and do as many good things that I can for the environment when I have the choice, but sometimes when I don't have a choice I try and reduce my impact by doing that activity less frequently. Before I moved to the NWT I used to live on Katepwa Lake in Saskatchewan and I only remember one year when we had a really bad out break of algae on the lake, which most likely was because of excess nutrients. This summer I went back to Katepwa lake for two weekends and both times there was algae on the lake and fish bones washed up on shore! Katepwa lake has most likely seen an increase in nutrients like Winnipeg and it is sad because it's such a beautiful place to go in the summer.

Blog Reflection

Where does your sludge ("biosolids") go? Does this surprise you? Do it for either Winnipeg rural or your hometown.

In my home town, Fort Smith, NWT, the sludge from our waste goes into the slave river! Our waste water is sent to a three cell system that we have on the north end of town, where it is treated and some chemicals are removed. From here the biosolids are sent into the slave river downstream from the town.

This does not surprise me because I knew it was happening. A lot of northern towns do not have adequate enough treatment centers for waste water and almost all of them dump into neighboring rivers. The area surrounding Fort Smith is mostly forest and the dirt has a high concentration of sand, so we cannot use the biosolids for agriculture. The slave river which runs from lake Athabasca to the Great Slave lake is a fast flowing river. It has many sets of rapids and the water quality is full of sediments. Not much plant life grows in the river but this does not make it ok to dump sewage into it. There are still some who fish from it and there are parts of the river upstream from the sewage pipe where you can safely swim and kayak. However, there is a very small community called Fort Fitzgerald just south of Fort Smith on the slave river and I don't know if they get their sewage pumped out by truck or dumped directly into the river. But if they did dump theirs directly into the river then that could be contaminating our recreational areas in the river. This is not a good thing to be dumping biosolids into a river but in a small northern town I believe that it makes less of an impact then keeping them around and creating a health hazard. I think that the environmental issues dealing with larger cities are a greater concern because they have more of an impact.

Class Discussion

In class on March 26 we watched a video from tedtalks.com called Catp. Charles Moore on the seas of plastics and then talked about plastics. It was the first time I had heard about this sea of plastic that is three times the size of Texis! It makes sense that all the garbage in the ocean would accumulate in the middle of the currents. I think that plastic is one of the deadliest things to animals because it's not naturally made and they don't know what it is, so they try to eat it and it kills them. I believe that this sea of plastic will be with us forever and we can only stop it from growing, and even that will be very difficult. I don't like how our society has decided that it is ok to use plastics in a large percentage of packaging and products even though it is not recyclable or environmentally friendly. We even ship plastic beads to different countries and then ship back the products! Plastics definitely make my life more convenient, but I try to only use them when I absolutely must. I think that plastics are beneficial for convenience and ease but there are other materials that are more environmentally friendly that we could be using instead. Recently, I have seen a slight reduction in plastics. Now, people have the option to buy re-usable grocery bags, sunchips now makes a chip bag out of compostable material, and some products have reduced their amount of packaging. This is only a small reduction and I believe that the power lies with the choice of the consumer.

Online Activity

For an online activity I watched the ewaste video "eDump" found on http://www.babelgum.com/118286/edump.html. This documentary talks about the ewaste that is being imported and dismantled in developing nations such as Guiyu, China. Companies send there ewaste here because it is cheaper and there are less strict laws on pollution and workers health. It cost approximately 1/15 the cost to dismantle a computer in China compared to the United States! For these companies that build the products it is all about money and only doing things that you are required by law to do. So if there is no incentive for them to make more environmentally friendly computers then they are not going to. The level of pollution that the dismantling of ewaste creates is not good for anyone and that is why the companies choose to take advantage of developing nations. The pollution that comes from this includes acid being dumped in rivers, toxic chemicals being released into the air, and massive amounts of garbage. I think that not only China but developed nations need to stick up for the direct victims of ewaste. This is definitely a major issue because environmental pollutants will eventually affect everyone and we only have one planet. I believe that more money needs to be invested by the producers of electronics into new technologies for greener components that are safer to disassemble. Even if we start by making safer ways to disassemble the components so that we can save human lives. The hardest part is getting the companies to do this because they don't want to invest in something that won't make them any money. We need to help them realize that it is wrong and that they should have some sense of product responsibility.

Online Activity

I watched Paddle to the Sea (NFB, 1966) which is found on http://www.nfb.ca/film/paddle_to_the_sea/. This film is about a curious boy who was told that all rivers lead to the sea, so he carved an Indian in a canoe, named Paddle, which fell into a river near Lake Superior. This film was interesting because it described the journey that one would go through on your way to the sea. It is the journey that all water goes through. It starts in the spring when water is melting and all the streams are full. I would have liked it to have a timeline but we do know that winter does occur once because he gets frozen in a lake. I wonder how long it would take an object to travel from Lake Superior to the ocean? A very long time for sure. It included natural dangers that happen along this route such as a bush fire. The interesting part is that Paddle witnesses some environmental issues such as dredging, garbage and sewage pollution. Now this video was made 44 years ago! If it was made today he might of not even made it half of the way because we have way more pollution and issues that deal with our fresh watersheds today. Maybe the river he originally fell into has dried out. Or maybe he would get caught in with a bunch of garbage and sink. I think that this is a good video for young children to teach about how our fresh waters ecosystems work and the pollution that is going into them. I also think that this is a very neat idea but I think he also should have carved where Paddle started his journey so that the man in the light house could of known and anyone who would have found him after that, maybe even in Africa! I think that this would be a cool thing to do with our recent GPS technology, except there would have to be multiple boats because I believe most would get stuck or washed up on shore. I also noticed that Paddle was caught by a lot of people who where fishing. Today, that would be different because not all fish from freshwater are edible because of contaminants and our fishing industry has suffered. Also, parents do not like their children playing around water that could have harmful chemicals in it. This video is evidence of how we have continued to pollute our freshwater over the last 44 years.

Online Activity

For an online activity I reviewed the Waterlife documentary found at http://waterlife.nfb.ca/. It was really an eye opening in-depth look at the importance of fresh water and the great lakes. I believe it deals with some important concepts and problems with watershed areas in the United States and Canada. We need global support because our freshwater ecosystems affect everyone and can be affected by others actions, such as the pollutants, like DDT, that are banned in Canada but are traveling from China to our watersheds through the grasshopper effect. As humans we have physically altered these natural bodies of water by dredging and building canals and this has lead to more problems. The problem of most concern to me personally is the fact that our freshwater, which is required for us to survive, has chemicals in it that we don't know exactly what they are and what they can do to us. Chemicals in the water mean that we can't drink the water, swim in it, eat fish from it, and it basically ruins all the benefits of having a freshwater lake. The great lakes have become such a big issue because so many people/companies have negatively affected them and even small contributions will add to large impacts because they occur more frequently. I know that we cannot completely stop everything and try and restore the great lakes to the condition they used to be in, but we can raise awareness and try and reduce our current and future impact. Because the more people that care, the easier it will be to help our largest fresh water resource. I think that this was a very cool, interactive, and informative website that provides a vast viewpoint on our great lakes.