Skip to main content

zine scene

REBEL - FEBRUARY 2004

Undoing Environmental Damage

BY Penn Whithers, REBEL Zine

Reduce, Reuse and Recyle. Walk or use public transport when you can. Plant trees. Tear down a highway. Tear down a highway??!!What a radical idea! It's not really when you think about it for a minute. Man has always made colossal, and often, unfair demands on the environment. Planet Earth is struggling every second of every day to support its ever growing population, and is barely coping under the strain of pollutants constantly being thrown into its atmosphere and oceans. The possibility of several wildlife forms going extinct poses a serious threat to the rather delicate food chain - the web of life. It is impossible for nature to regenerate itself faster than the rate at which pollutants are being released. Mother Nature is in desperate need of our help to sustain life on this planet. We need to reverse some of the damage we have inflicted upon the planet. Tearing down unnecessary highways, and restoring natural flora and fauna is a brilliant idea that a local Hamilton activist, Randy Kay, has come up with.

The unnecessary highway that Randy, who lives in Dundas and works at McMaster University, is referring to is Cootes Drive, a four-lane access that links downtown Dundas to Hamilton. The highway cuts through Cootes Paradise and separates it from the Spencer Creek Watershed. Cootes Paradise is a nature sanctuary home to a variety of amphibians, fish, birds and plant life, some of which are threatened species.

Cootes Drive poses a very real and serious threat to the threatened Blanding's Turtle. The Blanding's Turtle is considered to become an endangered species if "limiting factors are not reversed" by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. In 2003, there were only about 6 Blanding's Turtles in the area. The Ontario Game and Fish Act prohibits the hunting and trapping of the Blanding's Turtle. Yet, road kill statistics compiled by the Royal Botanical Gardens show that a significant population of wildlife is killed each year because of traffic on Cootes Drive. In 1999, 41 birds, 19 mammals and 1338 herps (amphibians and reptiles) were killed in traffic. In 2001, 31 birds, 40 mammals and 238 herps were killed. The numbers are significantly smaller in 2001 than in 1999 because of the closure of the west-bound lanes to install a new sewage system pipe.

The restoration project aims to rehabilitate the natural floodplain that existed before the road was constructed and reduce water pollution in Cootes and the Harbour. It would provide more spawning area for the Atlantic Salmon and Pickerel, and would definitely benefit other species in the area. A survey carried out among Hamilton residents by McMaster student, Julia Croome, indicates that 70% of the people who responded to the survey would be willing to take Main St. W. instead of Cootes Drive to travel back and forth between Dundas and Hamilton.

If the idea seems radical at all, it's only because our fast-paced North American culture is so heavily reliant on automobiles to go from one place to another, no matter how short the distance is. A lot of families have a car for every family member who is of legal driving age. The more cars that people buy, the more roads they need to be built to accommodate these cars. Building more roads doesn't necessarily cut down on traffic jams. It only serves to increase pollution and threaten the delicate biological and ecological system that we are a part of. If anything seems drastic and radical, it is the idea of getting rid of the very few green spaces that we have left (like the Red Hill Valley) only to replace them with more highways. In Randy Kay's own words, "Flora and fauna haven't made demands on humans; It's their turn now. Imagine the quiet, soul-restoring calm of Cootes Paradise reaching right into the heart of Dundas. That's something to fight for."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Slow Sign and Turtle Time

THEY SAY: Information Report: April 3, 2017 SUBJECT/REPORT NO: Rare Turtle Recovery, Wildlife Corridor Issues and Roads of Issue at Cootes Paradise (PW16024a) - (City Wide) Traffic Issues on Cootes Drive Traffic Operations & Engineering has been working with the Ward 13 Councillor on traffic signage along Cootes Drive. Four (4) traffic signs (with flashing lights) operating during turtle migration season will be installed in the spring of 2017. The migration period for turtles is generally around the months of June, early July and September but can vary due to weather conditions. The traffic signs are useful in alerting motorists of potential turtle crossings on that roadway. RESTORE COOTES SAYS: Is it working? Is there any evidence that it is helping turtles or even slowing vehicles? We're betting it has little to no impact - the light is always flashing, if turtles are present or not, the road is built for speed and it makes it dangerous to slow down. We hope

a vision for nature in Cootes

View the Eco-Park Document here Make Cootes national park, group urges TheSpec.com - Local - Make Cootes national park, group urges Create eco-park in urbanized area Eric McGuinness , The Hamilton Spectator (Jan 28, 2009) The idea of a Cootes Paradise National Park is being revived by local conservationists. But they say it is jeopardized by plans for a self-storage warehouse beside the Desjardins Canal at the east entrance to Dundas. They point to a new vision of an urban eco-park -- maybe a national park -- incorporating the Cootes marsh, drafted by Urban Strategies Inc., the firm responsible for McMaster University's campus master plan among other Hamilton projects. Joe Berridge, a partner who has helped reshape waterfronts in Toronto, New York and London, produced the concept document at the invitation of Ben Vanderbrug, retired general manager of the Hamilton Conservati

Urquhart Butterfly Garden speaker series

A lovely butterfly garden is the perfect setting for this annual speaker series. August 4, 2018, Guest speaker: Doreen Nicoll You cannot have Monarch Butterflies without milkweed.  Doreen Nicoll has recently become a heroine for monarch butterflies, by insisting on her rights to grow milkweed in her naturalized garden in Burlington. Doreen  Nicoll has long understood that garden with nature and not against her is the best thing for our planet. She also knows that native plants are great at attracting butterflies and bees of all species. Doreen will be the first presenter in the Summer Series at the Urquhart Butterfly Garden and her topic will be Monarchs and Their Milkweed and naturalized gardening. She has wealth of information and is fun as well! The session will begin at 11 am Saturday on August 4 and last approximately one hour.  Please bring a chair. If it rains the session will be cancelled. For more information about the Urquhart Butterfly Garden please visit ur