Schneider Creek, November 10

This week’s class started by taking the GRT bus straight to the Charles Street terminal, where we then walked to Victoria Park. We began to talk about how stormwater management was an important environmental issue and expensive challenge to the city.   Many years of subdivision development upstream along the upper reaches of Schneider Creek has led to tons of silt carrying various chemical contaminants being transported into Victoria Park Lake.  This has greatly affected water quality in the Lake which is now being dredged in order to solve the problem.  The impact of just how dirty the water could be was really evident as we walked by a gargantuan mass of a mixture of chemicals, oil, and decomposing organic matter that floated on top of the lake.

We then followed the stream upwards, observing the concrete channels that the city had built to stop overflowing rainwater during storm events from causing damage to surrounding buildings. Eventually we stopped behind a Sobey’s market and began to walk back, but through a different route. This time we stopped to examine several key featurs of interest, like a statue of Queen Victoria, a bridge that had been scheduled to be modified for safety reasons, and an island that had a gazebo used for community events.

The key factors that made this walk so significant were that we could easily see the effects of pollution on water quality. As we walked up a stream, there were many parts where the water levels were low enough that ducks could easily walk across. Silt deposits caused numerous little islands and in some areas, there were discarded oil cans and shopping carts in the water. This week’s walk gave many of us a look into the increasingly urgent situation of protecting the natural waters that we have in the area.

By:  Jeremy Chan and Dylan Campbell