Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s Log: Spring Forward Into Clean Water
We’re excited to introduce “Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s Log” a new series featuring the personal observations and insights of Gregary Ford, our Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.
I heard my first Canada Goose today, walking on the shores of Cootes Paradise.
This weekend, we turned our clocks forward. We lost an hour of sleep, but we gained an additional hour of daylight. An additional hour of bird chirping, icicles melting, and slushy puddles forming in our streets and on our walking paths. And, unfortunately, or fortunately, another hour of incessant honking.
These are the signs of spring. The way I can tell each year that our world is coming back to life. We’re about to get the rains, the flowers, the sun, and inevitably, the heat. But for all of these incredible things that spring brings us, I always feel a little bit of melancholy. The rains bring snowmelt. The snowmelt brings runoff. The runoff brings floods. And the floods? They bring CSOs.
Rainy Cootes Paradise, Hamilton, ON
Combined Sewer Overflows. CSOs. In following us at Swim Drink Fish, you’ve no doubt heard us mention this before. Our cities are built on old cities, and that means old infrastructure, old pipes, and old sewers. Back when we put sewers that carried both our stormwater (like snowmelt) and our wastewater to the end of the line until we wisened up and started separating them. But in many cities, these combined sewers remain. And year after year, when our winter blanket melts away and the spring showers come knocking, we’re greeted with the earthy, living, smell of petrichor, and often, sewage.
More than sewage, these overflows bring other chemicals and substances into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. They carry things like the pharmaceuticals we use, the caffeine we drink, and the “flushables” (hint: they’re not actually flushable) to the fish, frogs, and Canadian Geese that call those waters home. And, in a winter like we just had? With two feet of snow JUST before everything melted? We get salt. And a lot of it.
With the spring thaw, that salt washes through our sewers, overflowing, carrying a heavy burden into water bodies like Cootes Paradise. The minnows, once so lively, now struggle, their gills burning in the suddenly salty water. They can’t breathe. The dissolved oxygen content in the water altered. The tadpoles, their transformation interrupted, develop deformities, and their future is quickly uncertain. The familiar rhythm of Cootes Paradise, the delicate balance of life, is thrown off. The insects that once provided food for the minnows vanish, and the wetland falls silent, a stark reminder that even the smallest changes can have a devastating impact on a fragile ecosystem. Does it remain a Paradise?
It can. And people are doing a lot of work to ensure it does. CSO separation and the improvements to infrastructure are vital steps in protecting our waters, but they aren’t the whole story. It’s about recognizing that every action we take, scattering salt on our driveway or the things that we flush down the toilet, have ripple effects. It’s about understanding that places like Cootes Paradise are far more than just places. They are a reflection of our shared responsibility, “Biinaagami.” It requires a commitment from us all. If we’re all proactive and champions for our water, Cootes Paradise can remain a paradise for future generations to come.
