RESTORE COOTES

"If we're ever going to get the world back on a natural footing, back in tune with natural rhythyms, if we're going to nurture the Earth and protect it and have fun with it and learn from it — which is what mothers do with their children — then we've got to put technology (an aggressive masculine system) in its proper place, which is that of a tool to be used sparingly, joyfully, gently and only in the fullest cooperation with nature. Nature must govern technology, not the other way around." Tom Robbins

Restore Cootes is honoured to be the inaugural workshop in this new outdoor educational series. Join us Sunday, August 11 at 2pm at the Urquhart Butterfly Garden in beautiful Dundas Ontario. Randy Kay of Restore Cootes, and McMaster Biology Professor Jim Quinn will discuss the history and the future of this area, including Desjardins' Canal, Spencer Creek, Cootes Drive and McMaster's parking lot M. The series is free and open to all!

The Hamilton Spectator reports that our neighbouring city of Burlington received the 2013 Municipal Leadership Award for its role in "providing a safe passage across King Road for the endangered Jefferson salamander during its annual migration to lay eggs. The road closure took place between March 18 and April 18." Hopefully one day the Burlington papers will be reporting how Hamilton received an award for providing safe passage for turtles across Cootes Drive. For now we just let them get run over.

Spencer Creek is looking to get studied with an eye on adapting to climate change.  Junction of Ancaster and Spencer Creek, north of McMaster's West Campus "...the hope is to work with the public, developers and government to identify strategies to control flooding from major rainfalls, which could include reducing paved surfaces and creating natural holding areas to temporarily store stormwater." This is great news if it means expanding the riparian zone along creeks to allow for the earth's natural hydrologic function to kick in when required during extreme weather events.  McMaster's parking lot "M" just screams out for inclusion in the near future as we aim for resilience in our natural environments.  Read the article here:  http://www.hamiltonnews.com/news/spencer-creek-study-aims-for-resilience-on-climate-change/

A McMaster student gives his all to raise awareness and appreciation of Cootes Paradise by volunteering with the Cootes Paradise Club. Listen to what Alvand has to say after devoting years to the club.

If we are going to have parking lots in the vicinity of water, why not engineer a lot that protects that water from the toxic leaking of cars? The Hamilton Harbour has become a tourist destination and as McMaster University's Geography and Earth Sciences Professor J. M. Waddington has pointed out, they have done a nice job with their parking. The non-scientific description is they basically make parking pods that are physically separated by vegetated buffers. These ones include river rocks on the bottom with marsh plants and other species adapted to the conditions. Water run-off is collected in these buffers, rather than discharging directly into the waterway or into the combined sewer catch-basins. Compare to the design of most massive parking lots at malls (and McMaster University) and you will see the beauty of the design. The alternative looks like this . From 20m in the air: Harbour parking at Guise Street McMaster Parking Lot M

It's all floods in the news today. All that rain with no place to go. Too much pavement means rain can't soak back into the earth but must be channelled over asphalt, through catch-basins and into pipes, which then places too much pressure on the water/sewage treatment facility, which then means raw sewage gets discharged into our waterways, in creeks, bay, lakes. Depaving seems like something to be seriously considering, especially in areas that once were floodplains (Lot M) or marshes (Cootes Drive) etc. don't you think? Let the earth do what it is supposed to be doing?