WC130 MayJune2023 - Magazine - Page 5
EDITOR’S NOTE
PROJECTS l POLICY l INNOVATION
MAY/JUNE 2023 • VOLUME 23 NUMBER 3
EDITOR
Jen Smith
CONTENT DIRECTOR
Corinne Lynds
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
John Tenpenny, Connie Vitello
ART DIRECTOR AND SENIOR DESIGNER
Gordon Alexander
CONTENT CONTRIBUTORS
Aaron Atcheson, Kyle Bertsch, Sandra Cooke,
Saul Chernos, Ben Ethier, Chris Gerrits,
Jeremy Meegan, John Tenpenny
WATER CANADA ADVISORY BOARD
Stephen Braun, Melissa Dick, Gregary Ford,
Jon Grant, Robert Haller, Linda Li,
Michael Lywood, Eric Meliton, Ranin Nseir,
Terry Rees, Emily Stahl
ADVERTISING
Jackie Pagaduan jackie@actualmedia.ca
DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER
Charlotte Stone
DIRECTOR OF EVENTS
Sarah Wensley
PRESIDENT
Todd Latham
PUBLISHER
Nick Krukowski
ADVISOR
James Sbrolla
Water Canada is published six
times a year by Actual Media Inc.
ACTUAL MEDIA INC.
150 Eglinton Ave. E, #806, Toronto, ON,
Canada M4P 1E8
Phone: 416-444-5842
SUBSCRIPTION/CUSTOMER SERVICES:
416-444-5842 ext. 1
Water Canada subscriptions are available
for $60/year or $96/two years. ©2023 Actual Media Inc.
All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not
be reproduced by any means in whole or in part, without prior
written consent from the publisher.
PRINTED IN CANADA.
Due to worldwide supply issues, Water Canada is not
able to print on our usual environmentally friendly FSC stock.
We are working to rectify this situation as soon as possible.
Undeliverable mail return to:
150 Eglinton Ave. E, #806,
Toronto, ON, Canada M4P 1E8
Canadian Publications Mail Product
Sales Agreement: 40854046
ISSN 1715-670X
Responsibly Coexisting
MY IN-LAWS live in a century home. It’s a lovely late-Victorian gem that sits about 150 metres from the city’s claim to fame:
a waterway that connects Lake Ontario with Georgian Bay. It’s
practically idyllic.
What isn’t idyllic, however, is the seasonal basement flooding.
Like a tree’s growth rings, every major thaw, every heavy rainfall is marked in water
lines on the walls. Sometimes the whole basement is under water; sometimes it’s just
a damp patch of floor. But the threat of flooding looms large in the periphery of
every trip downstairs. Discarded furniture, cardboard boxes of donateables, and castoff sports equipment are all fodder for the water as it snakes along the floor, hungry
for its next victim.
Yes, my in-laws have sump pumps. The basement has been inspected; the walls waterproofed. Yet, without fail, the water returns. An encore to every wet weather event.
A few weeks ago after a particularly perfect storm of snow thaw and downpour,
their basement sprung a leak. Or rather, numerous leaks. Clad in waders and coveralls, my husband and father-in-law played dueling shop vacs in an attempt to find
the floor. But no matter how many times they emptied their vacuums or wrung out
soaking wet towels, the water couldn’t be stopped. The concrete floor had become
a too-permeable membrane with water from the ground below forcing its way out
through pinholes and hairline cracks. Burbling and bubbling and rising and rising.
They spent hours on their knees, painstakingly plugging every tiny hole they could
find. And each time they thought they were done, another tiny hole would issue
forth a slight burble, followed by another, and another.
It was like playing whack-a-mole with nature.
While the original home builders probably didn’t give much thought to the pitfalls
of constructing on a floodplain, we are better prepared today. Of course, even with
free access to data and groundwater mapping, more needs to be done to ensure that
development is executed with groundwater conservation in mind. The invisible is
always harder to acknowledge, even when we know it exists. When we don’t “see” the
potential for destruction, it becomes easier to push an agenda that may be antipodal to
our best intentions. The argument that people need to have somewhere to live is great;
but just as great is the need to responsibly coexist with nature. It’s a big issue to tackle–
just take a look at the U.S. struggle to define which waters deserve protection (pg 18)
and Canada’s ongoing discussions on meeting the needs of densifying residential areas
while managing flooding (pg 32) and you get a fuller sense of the complexities of
competing priorities. I’m not sure that our city planning predecessors had to hold all
of these issues in balance as they planned and executed, but there is no doubt that the
fine line we walk now as our need for residential development grows means we must
also consider the connectedness of water, both seen and unseen, and focus on thoughtful legislation, planning, and innovations that prioritize the health of the water under
our feet. Otherwise, we will be left playing a frustrating and potentially dangerous
game of whack-a-mole with our most precious resource.
Jen Smith is the editor of Water Canada. jen@actualmedia.ca
COMING UP IN THE NEXT ISSUE: JUL/AUG
ENSURING SAFE DRINKING WATER IN FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITIES LANDSCAPE
• INTERVENTIONS TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE • WATER CANADA AWARDS CHAMPIONS!
PLUS: Columns, news and insights, coverage of the industry’s biggest events, people on the move, and more.
AD BOOKING DEADLINE: JUN 9 • MATERIAL DEADLINE: JUN 16 • DISTRIBUTION DATE: JUL 10
To reach Water Canada’s influential readers in print, contact Jackie Pagaduan at 416-444-5842 ext. 0112 or jackie@actualmedia.ca.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
WATER C AN ADA • M AY/JUNE 2023
5
