All posts by Isaac Wurmann

Nearly 140 active federal contaminated sites in Ottawa

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Above: Laroche Park is the “backyard” for everyone in the Mechanicsville, according to community association president Lorrie Marlow (Photo by Isaac Würmann). 

If there was a competition for the most contaminated green space in Ottawa, first prize might go to Laroche Park in Mechanicsville, a neighbourhood just west of the Bayview O-Train Station.

Lorrie Marlow has lived in the neighbourhood for 17 years, and is the president of the Mechanicsville Community Association. She says she’s heard stories about the park being contaminated since she moved to the area.

Marlow says she’s also seen the effect of contaminants in the soil. “It’ll turn the ice yellow in February,” she says, referring to the skating rink that’s located in the park.

Mechanicsville Community Association president Lorrie Marlow worries the soil at Laroche Park may be contaminated by the sites at 80 Bayview Road. (Photo by Isaac Würmann)

Laroche Park is immediately adjacent to the National Capital Commission property at 80 Bayview Road, where there are five contaminated sites, according to an analysis of the federal contaminated sites inventory.

Those sites are just five of the 139 active federally-owned contaminated sites located across Ottawa.

Seventeen of those sites, including the five at 80 Bayview Road, are listed as “high priority” in the inventory. This means they are classified as being the “highest-risk,” and are first in line to be eligible for funding through the federal contaminated sites action plan.

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This interactive map displays federal contaminated sites in Ottawa. The sites on the map are colour coded, with red dots representing “high priority” sites, yellow dots representing “medium priority” sites and green dots representing “low priority sites.” Click on the dots to learn more about individual sites. Ottawa municipal ward boundaries have been superimposed on the map to put locations in context. 

A spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada says reasons why a federal site might be classified as “contaminated” include “storage-tank leaks, long-term use of industrial facilities, or accidents-such as spills.”

In most cases, they say contamination is the result of past activities that had environmental consequences that were not well understood at the time.

Today, each federal department, agency, or Crown corporation is responsible for operating in an environmentally sustainable manner and for cleaning up any contaminants on their sites, they say.

The majority of the contaminated sites in Ottawa are the responsibility of the NCC, which is responsible for 85 sites. By comparison, departments such as Public Service and Procurement and National Defence are responsible for 16 and 10 sites in the city, respectively.

A spokesperson for the NCC was not made available before the time of publication.

Although the phrase “contaminated sites” may worry some Ottawa residents, the majority of contaminants can be cleaned up, says Paul Van Geel, chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering at Carleton University.

In the case of a site such as Lebreton Flats, for example, Van Geel says they can simply use a “dig and dump” approach to isolate the contaminated material.

However, he says the type of contaminant plays an important factor when it comes to cleaning up these sites.

At sites in Ottawa, the most common contaminants are “petroleum hydrocarbons,” which include substances such as crude oil, gasoline and diesel.

Paul Van Geel’s research at Carleton University includes determining better ways to clean up contaminated sites. (Photo provided by Paul Van Geel)

The cleanup process at these sites can be relatively easy, Van Geel says.

“If those hydrocarbons were spilled a couple years ago, a lot of the more volatile and soluble carbons that are of most concern have probably left, because they can biodegrade and break down,” he says.

However, Van Geel says other contaminants such as halogenated hydrocarbons, which include substances such as chlorine, can be much more difficult to remediate.

Unlike petroleum hydrocarbons, he says halogenated hydrocarbons don’t break down as easily.

The soil at Laroche Park man be contaminated by halogenated hydrocarbons from contaminated sites on a neighbouring NCC property. (Photo by Isaac Würmann)

That’s bad news for residents of Mechanicsville, where halogenated hydrocarbons are the type of contaminant at four of the five sites next to Laroche Park.

“Our community has been really wanting a community garden,” Marlow says, adding that Laroche Park has been suggested as a location for years.

But Marlow knows better. She says she’s not letting anyone eat anything grown from the contaminated soil at Laroche Park until she knows it’s been cleaned up.

Single-landlord community attracts recent immigrants

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Above: The rental community of Accora Village lies just north of Bayshore Mall in the west end of Ottawa.

A collection of apartment towers and townhouses in the west end of Ottawa was the top pick for immigrants looking for a place to live in the city between 2011 and 2016, according to an analysis of census data from Statistics Canada.

More than 1,100 recent immigrants lived in the area tucked between Bayshore Mall and the Ottawa River, which includes the rental community of Accora Village and a handful of neighbouring buildings, far more than any other area in the city.

The majority of those immigrants are tenants of Ferguslea Properties Ltd., the developer that owns Accora Village. Long-time resident Mete Pamir says that while the neighbourhood is attractive for newcomers settling in Ottawa, having a single landlord presents some challenges.

Pamir moved into the community 17 years ago after immigrating from Turkey. Since then, he’s dedicated a lot of time to his neighbourhood, and is the coordinator of the community oven in Bayshore Park, a plot of green space at the centre of Accora Village.

Mete Pamir immigrated to Accora Village 17 years ago from Turkey, and is the coordinator of the Bayshore community oven.

“This is, in many ways, the heart of the neighbourhood,” Pamir says as he stands in the park, gesturing at the children who file out of the nearby school. As the oven coordinator, he meets hundreds of Accora Village residents at “community bakes” where the public is invited to share bread, pizza, and other baked goods fresh from the oven.

Nearby Bayshore Mall, a local public and Catholic school, and a new outdoor rink built by the Ottawa Senators Foundation are all reasons Pamir suggests immigrants are drawn to Accora Village. However, he says many newcomers are professionals working in the tech sector who leave the rental community in favour of homeownership after a few years.

“People don’t live here very long,” Pamir says. As a result, he says there’s a “disconnect” between Ferguslea and its tenants.

Until a few years ago, the community of Accora Village was known as “Bayshore,” but it was rebranded in 2011. Since then, a number of buildings in the neighbourhood have undergone major renovations and Pamir says he’s noticed changes in the branding of the community.

“The bulk of the residents here are newcomers,” he says. “But the image that Accora projects in their marketing is all white, very upper class.”

Pamir says he worries this will have an upward pressure on rents, and he criticises the city for taking a “hands off” approach to resolving housing issues in the community.

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Census tracts are visualized based on the number of recent immigrants, according to the 2016 Canadian census. Clicking on the census tract will reveal the number of recent immigrants in the area in 2016 and 2011, as well as the percentage of houses in the area considered “not suitable” in 2016 and 2011. Black lines indicated Ottawa municipal ward boundaries. (Census tracts are small areas in metropolitan areas with between about 2,500 and 8,000 people, defined by Statistics Canada.) 

Census data shows that Accora Village has one of the highest rates of dwellings that are unsuitable according to the National Occupancy Standard. This sets the standard for the number of people who should be living in a residence based on the number of bedrooms.

In 2016, nearly 22 per cent of dwellings in the community were deemed unsuitable, far higher than the Ottawa-wide average of just over four per cent.

“Crowding pressure is certainly felt in [Accora Village],” admits Bay Ward city councillor Mark Taylor. However, he says that’s a reflection of the composition of families who are immigrating to Canada, rather than an issue specific to the community.

“There are a lot of new Canadian families who are bringing multiple children, and our housing stock was really never built for that,” Taylor explains.

Because so many of his constituents live in Ferguslea-owned properties, Taylor says he tries to “walk a fine line” between addressing concerns from constituents while navigating away from landlord-tenant issues.

“They view it very much as their neighbourhood and they want to keep it in good shape,” he says.

A representative from Ferguslea declined to be interviewed for this story. In an email, Tina Fisher, director of communications and marketing, said Accora Village “follows all health, safety, housing and maintenance standards including the City of Ottawa’s Occupancy Bylaw.”

Complaints about potholes on the rise

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Complaints about potholes in Ottawa this year have already exceeded the number of complaints made in 2016, according to an analysis of the city’s monthly service requests data.

The analysis shows that between January and August of 2017, over 27,000 residents called the city’s 311 line to complain about “road travelled surface,” more than 5,000 the number last year and more than double the number in 2015. According to the city, most of these calls are about potholes and other concerns about the quality of roads.

Calls to 311 about potholes between January and August 2017 were more than double the number in all of 2015.

 

Potholes are also the most common reason for 311 calls across all 24 of Ottawa’s municipal wards. However, two wards stand out for the high number of complaints. Residents of River Ward and Alta Vista Ward have called 311 about the quality of roads about 20 per cent more than any other this year.

“It doesn’t mean there are more potholes in River Ward than any other ward,” River Ward Councillor Riley Brockington said. “It just means my residents are maybe more active at calling them in.”

In fact, Brockington said he encourages his constituents to call 311 when they come across potholes during their commute. By reporting them to 311, Brockington said the potholes get logged by the city and prioritized when it comes time to fill them in.

Between January and June of 2017, the city filled over 195,000 potholes, according to Luc Gagné, director of roads and services for the City of Ottawa. That’s an increase of more than 20,000 compared to the same time last year.

Residents in River Ward and Alta Vista Ward placed about 20 per cent more complaints about potholes than any other ward.

 

Brockington blames the number of potholes on the weather. “Last year the winter was brutal,” he said. There were about 80 days last winter when the city experienced a “freeze-thaw,” when the temperature swings from above zero to below zero, according to Brockington.

Although it’s true that the repeated melting and freezing of water over the winter can contribute to potholes by widen existing cracks in the pavement, that’s not the only reason for potholes, according to Carleton Professor of Transportation Engineering Abd El Halim.

Potholes form over time after water trickles into cracks in the pavement and then freezes, according to Abd El Halim. (Photo licensed under CC BY 3.0.)

El Halim said he thinks cities such as Ottawa have the wrong approach to paving roads in the first place, leading to serious problems down the line. The steel rollers that Ottawa uses to pave roads leave hairline fractures in the pavement, similar to the cracks that appear in pastry dough after being rolled out, according to El Halim.

Once these initial cracks are created, El Halim said it’s easy for water to trickle in, freeze, expand and, after repeated cycles of thawing and freezing, create the potholes that Ottawa residents complain so often about.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “We landed a small machine on Mars a few million kilometres away from Earth, and until now we can’t solve a problem that’s two metres away from our houses.”

However, El Halim also said he has a solution. He calls it AMIR, and it’s an alternative to the asphalt rollers used in most cities. Instead of using a steel roller, El Halim said AMIR uses a rubber belt that prevents cracks during the paving process.

Abd El Halim says he has been working AMIR, an alternative to steel asphalt rollers, for over three decades. (Photo provided by Abd El Halim.)

“I’m a taxpayer before I’m a researcher. … I don’t want to pay taxes that go down the drain,” El Halim said. “But I’m also a researcher, so I can find the solution, which I am doing now.”

Although El Halim said he’s encouraged the city to change their paving process, so far AMIR has been limited to test runs. “People sometimes are afraid of the new,” he said.

However, for councillors such as Brockington, the focus remains on resolving the concerns of constituents.  He said he’s been lobbying the city to direct more funding to repair potholes in the next budget cycle.

Lower-income Ontarians more likely to be hospitalized for self-harm

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People living in Ontario’s poorest neighbourhoods are about twice as likely to be hospitalized for cutting, burning and other forms of intentional self-harm than their wealthiest counterparts, according to an analysis of data released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The analysis found that as neighbourhoods get poorer they also experience higher rates of people being hospitalized for self-injury. While 97 per 100,000 people were hospitalized for harming themselves in Ontario’s poorest neighbourhoods in 2015-2016, that rate fell to 50 per 100,000 people in the province’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.

These findings don’t surprise Dennis Raphael, the director of York University’s program in health policy and equity. “Depression, hopelessness and self-blame” are reasons people living in poverty may self-harm, he said in an email.

Dennis Raphael of York University says there is a connection between poverty and mental health. (Photo licensed by CC BY-SA 3.0

Living in poverty can have “health-threatening effects,” including on mental health, according to a report published by Raphael. He explained that people experiencing homelessness have a “much higher rate” of mental health concerns than the general population.

One of the reasons people living in poverty may have poor mental health is the stress that comes with being unemployed, according to Raphael. “Lack of employment is associated with physical and mental health problems that include depression, anxiety and increased suicide rates,” he said.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information’s data separates neighbourhoods in Ontario into five categories, from lowest to highest income. Although there was a large difference in the rate of self-injury hospitalizations between the poorest and wealthiest neighbourhoods, there was not as big of a difference between middle- and higher-income areas.

Although the wealthiest neighbourhoods had a rate of 50 per 100,000 people being hospitalized for intentionally harming themselves, that rate only increased to 57 per 100,000 people for middle-income neighbourhoods. However, when considering the second-poorest areas the rate increases significantly to 72 per 100,000 people.

The high rates of mental illness among lower income communities doesn’t go unnoticed by counselling services in Ontario. According to Family Services Ottawa, an agency that provides accessible counselling services to people in distress, 70 per cent of its clients live below the poverty line.

“There is a lot higher volume of folks who are looking for services that have lower fees,” said Tasha Levenick, the intake worker for Family Services Ottawa. She said she receives about 60 to 80 calls per day from people who are looking to access counselling services.

However, Levenick also said there are not enough subsidized counselling services to accommodate the demand. “As a result of the high volume and the limited staff, supply and demand says there ends up being an inflated wait list for the services,” she said.

While people wait to access counselling, Family Services Ottawa provides some free, drop-in services that people in distress can access immediately. From there, Levenick said she directs people to community resource centres that offer low-fee therapy sessions. “There are some limitations,” she admits.

“There is a lot higher volume of folks who are looking for services that have lower fees.”
— Tasha Levenick, Family Services Ottawa

Despite the services made available by organizations such as Family Services Ottawa, Raphael said not enough is being done to address the mental health concerns faced by lower-income communities. “Things are getting worse,” he said in an email, pointing to growing income inequalities and increasing numbers of people in precarious work.

To address this issue, Raphael said more focus should be placed on improving people’s living and working conditions. “Citizens experience better physical and mental health when they have a secure basis for living a productive life,” he said.

Until that happens, Raphael said lower-income communities in our province will continue to be faced with higher rates of hospitalizations attributed to mental illness.