GRAND RIVER WATERSHED HOTSPOTS

Friend and environmental colleague Dr. Henry Regier recently asked me for information on a map that he had showing "hotspots" along the length of the Grand River from Dundalk in the north to Dunnville at the mouth of the Grand River where it empties into Lake Erie.

Henry further indicated to me that he was impressed with the work of the volunteers involved as well as their ethical commitment to obtaining relevant facts upon which we based our activism. He referred to this as "evidence-based activism".

Henry also suggested that I include the map here on the Advocate along with my account of how and by whom it was created. Well I and the wife spent twenty minutes this morning playing with the computer and Blogspot.com and came up with the conclusion that despite my having the map on my computer via e-mail Attachment; it wouldn't transfer directly here. Our conclusion was that we had to literally take a picture of the map and put it in my file that way and then Blogspot could post it here. Sooooo maybe I'll do that on the weekend.

The map showing environmental "hotspots" includes Uniroyal Chemical (Elmira), Eastview Landfill (Guelph), Sunar & Ralgreen Cres. (Waterloo), Safety-Kleen (Breslau), Ciba-Geigy & Canadian General Tower (Cambridge), Brantford , Oshweken, Cayuga and International Mineral & Chemicals (Dunnville).

The map was created around 1994 and in the interim certainly more "hotspots" have become apparent including many other landfills, Varnicolor Chemical (1990), GSW (Fergus), Northstar Aerospace & G.E. (Cambridge), textile factories and other industry in Cambridge, and Brantford not to mention coal tar discoveries in Kitchener and Waterloo and again probably in Cambridge, Guelph and Brantford. At the moment a factory in Guelph with a history of contamination is also escaping my memory.

The main authors of the map were Brenda Thompson and Bonnie Walters from Cambridge with assistance from myself and Pat Potter of Dunnville. The Grand River BioRegion Association (GRBA) used this map in their various activities. The GRBA consisted of about ten environmental groups up and down the Grand River including Groundwater Alert, Pesticide Action Group, Eh-Team, Riverwatch and briefly APT etc..