Checking In with @waterkeepermark and Elise Mackie from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
This week for the Checking In series, Mark speaks with people from Waterkeeper Alliance member organizations about citizen science, Covid-19, and more. Here, Elise Mackie from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper answers Mark’s questions.
Elise Mackie is a Water Stewardship Specialist with Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Swim Drink Fish. In this role, Elise leads the Toronto Community Monitoring Hub and trains citizen scientists to sample water quality across Toronto’s waterfront. Elise also advises communities on achieving Blue Flag certification, including the City of Toronto, as part of Blue Flag Canada (Swim Drink Fish’s newest initiative).
Learn more about the sites Elise samples with citizen scientists here.
MM: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your watershed.
EM: What brought me to the Swim Drink Fish movement is spending time on Lake Ontario. I’m an avid swimmer, paddler, and rower, and have been all my life. I’m also passionate about investigating and tackling pollution that impacts our water and our connection to it. My Watermark is “the Gap” in Toronto’s Outer Harbour on Lake Ontario.
The watershed I live in is the Don River watershed, more specifically right near Yellow Creek which feeds into the Don River. On days where I’ve felt cooped up working from home, I often walk over to Yellow Creek to check out the outfalls and pipes that enter the creek, and of course, also enjoy the outdoors. Toronto is a city of ravines, but because of urban development and the ancient sewer infrastructure, our creeks and rivers are places that sewage pollution flows into. This is why it is so important the Toronto Community Monitoring Hub is out there sampling at key recreational spots along Toronto’s shoreline. The rivers across the city all flow into Lake Ontario, along with all the sewage pollution.
MM: How connected is your community to the water?
EM: People in Toronto are very connected to the water whether that is visiting the beaches, heading out for a paddle in the harbour, or going paddleboarding on Toronto Island. On any given day you will see people on the water in the Inner Harbour…yes, even in the winter.
The problem is, as the city grows there are fewer and fewer monitored places for people to access the water. And infrastructure projects to reduce sewage pollution are still underway. This is why the Toronto Community Monitoring Hub continues to engage hundreds of citizen scientists to monitor the water for E. coli. In 2019, we had over 540 volunteers join us to sample.
MM: What is the role of water quality testing in your work? How do you share results publicly?
EM: Since 2016, the dedicated citizen scientists in the Toronto Community Monitoring Hub have been collecting a variety of data on recreational water quality, environmental data, litter and sewage pollution, and the number of people using the water. All the data is shared publicly on waterkeeper.ca and on Swim Guide. Since there is such a huge community of people using the water we want to make sure they have accurate and up to date information on the quality of the water that they’re swimming in and paddling on.
In 2019, the Toronto Hub processed 1,252 water samples with the tremendous help of citizen scientists who donated 943 hours of time. A dedicated group of 57 returning volunteers made up the majority of the time donated. These dedicated community members helped publish 198 water quality results for the 8 Toronto Hub sites on the Swim Guide. The public accessed these results over 78,000 times during the summer of 2019.
MM: Has the health pandemic affected your work? How?
EM: The health pandemic has delayed the preseason assessments and fieldwork required to start up the water monitoring program. But I am confident that we will be able to get out to sample the water this summer in some capacity.
The biggest impact is that we won’t be able to physically connect with the dedicated citizen scientists who have helped generate such important information about Lake Ontario and the Toronto Harbour. We will be engaging virtually in many ways, and are encouraging everyone to submit photos to our “photo monster”, Gassy. We will not be gathering as we did in previous years, because we want to make sure we aren’t putting at risk all the efforts taken so far to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
MM: If you were a fish, what would it be?
EM: This is tough, but I think it would have to be a lake sturgeon. They can live up to 100 years old, and I would get to experience the changes and improvements we’re making to achieve a swimmable, drinkable, fishable future.
MM: Is there a role for citizen science in your watershed?
EM: Yes, there is always a role for citizen science in our watershed. The people outside walking in the ravines, or those who are out on the water paddling, are the eyes and ears for Toronto’s waterways and Lake Ontario. It can be as simple as taking a photo, reporting pollution, or going on to become a water sampler. Waterkeeper and Swim Drink Fish are about creating a movement of people working towards a swimmable, drinkable, fishable future for everyone. No one person, organization, company, or government can do it. We must all work together to achieve this and citizen science is a crucial part of the equation.
Read more from the Checking In with @waterkeepermark series here.
Connect with us on Twitter, @LOWaterkeeper and @waterkeepermark.
