Taylor-Massey Creek In the News

One of the worst offending (and ugliest) outfalls on Taylor-Massey Creek

Tell me something I don't know. A headline in the Globe and Mail today says "Toronto toilets dumping sewage into creek". Really! As if we didn't already know. Here's how it goes. People like you and I realize there's a problem. We try to get the city to notice. "Yawn, we don't care." OK, so we talk to councillors until one of them gets angry enough to spur city staff to do something. OK, staff agrees to start a study. Lo and behold, look it's a BIG problem. They start writing all sorts of reports and action plans saying basically, "See, look at all the good things we are doing". Of course the media ignore these local issues until you start throwing around some big numbers such as "polluted to 20,000 times the legal limit". Now that's a headline!

Of course we've known about the problems with Taylor-Massey Creek for years. Homes and businesses have been flushing their toilets directly into the creek and its taken at least 40 years to get action. Since TMC flows through the former boroughs of Scarborough and East York, it's likely lax enforcement of building regulations than culpable negligence.

During a recent study, the city identified 252 outfalls flowing into the creek. This turned out to be a surprise for the city because many of them weren't even in their own records.

The upside of all this is that in the end we will end up with a cleaner river and lake. Which is the good news .

What the Bikers are Doing in the Don

I'm not the only one who likes to take pictures in the Don Valley. The biking community likes to post pictures of themselves. Follow this link for a good photo gallery of one of their stunt sessions. The place is locally known as DJ's or Dirt Jumps. As I said before this is in a degraded area of the valley near the sewage treatment plant. I suspect that if we tried to evict them they would just move somewhere else in the valley.

Sept 2006 city reports

Some interesting city reports from Works and Parks this month:

Options for Implementing a Mandatory Downspout Disconnection Program
This report discusses various options for implementing a downspout disconnection program. This might seem like a pretty mundane topic, but collectively, rainwater that falls on Toronto roofs accounts for about 10-15% of all runoff. If we can divert the water to our lawns instead our sewers this would have a big impact on the river. Riversides has a great website on this and other low impact development options.

Potential Uses of Vacant Lands near the Intersection of Dundas Street and Carroll Street in Support of the Wet Weather Flow Master Plan Implementation
There is a vacant lot on the south side of Dundas just east of the river that has remained unused for 15 years. This report investigates possible uses for wet weather flow options. Basically it says that the land has little value for wet weather flow projects. The lot has remained undeveloped since the land is partially on the flood plain. Any new building would have to meet strict floodproofing guidelines set out by the TRCA. The city should write another report about the feasibility of turning this into a public park. The closest greenspace is Riverdale Park so the local area would certainly benefit as would the valley. Even a 'grass and swings' park would be better than what we have now.

Don and Waterfront Interceptor Trunk Capacity and CSO Control Project
While this report talks mainly about increasing the sewer capacity in the east end of the city it also proposes to piggyback it with some end-of-pipe stormwater containment proposals, specifically a 5 metre wide tunnel that would run underneath the DVP from Bloor to Lakeshore. When completed it would significantly reduce the storm water runoff that now flows directly into the river.

Tree Maintenance – Planting Programs
This report talks about the state of Toronto's urban forest and the effects of amalgamation on tree maintenance. It hasn't been good. According to the report, current maintenance is only about 33% of pre-amalgamation levels. The report recommends an increase in budget for pruning and watering of newly planted trees, something the Task Force has been pushing the city for years to do.

Storm Outfall Monitoring Program (including Taylor Massey Creek 2006 Update)
An update on the outfall testing on Taylor-Massey Creek started last year. They have nearly finished the mapping and have identified 252 outfalls into the creek. 141 have a dry weather flow (meaning that it is something other than storm water). They have designated 28 of these as priorities based on contamination levels and have so far fixed five of them. While this is a good start, the report doesn't discuss any future action plans, and doesn't talk about the 113 non-priority outfalls. The Task Force will likely recommend that Toronto Water produce an action plan.

Fall 2006 BBTD Newsletter

Bring Back the Don's Fall newsletter is now available online. In addition to fall events, other highlights include:
- Musing about Chester Springs Marsh
- Green development standards
- Environmental issues for the upcoming city election.

Fall Events

Some local groups are starting to post their fall events. Friends of the Don East has posted a series of tree plantings as well as a rather ambitious hike - to walk the entire length of Taylor-Massey Creek. They also have plans for a fundraising dinner in October.

Friends of Riverdale Farm have also posted some events, including a four day event called the Fall Harvest Festival. Should be fun.

If you're interested in a walking tour, Lost Rivers Walks has planned a hike of some sort for every weekend in September and October, many of them are in the Don Watershed.

As more events are posted, I'll let you know about them.

Beavering away on Wikipedia

I must admit that I have sadly neglected the blog over the summer. This is partly due to a summer course I was taking but also to the fact that I am spending a lot of time as a Wikipedia editor. It's sort of a healthy addiction, I sometimes refer to it as Crackpedia :).

Anyways, I hope my efforts have not been in vain. I have recently completed two articles, both more or less related to the Don. The first is on Todmorden Mills, a heritage museum and wildflower preserve on the east side of the valley off of Pottery Road. The second article is on True Davidson, a former mayor of East York who was instrumental in getting Todmorden Mills restored. I found two books written by local historian Eleanor Darke on these subjects which proved to be very interesting reading. If you're interested in East York history I recommend them. You can find them listed in the references section in the Wikipedia articles.

I am currently working on expanding the article on the Don Valley Brick Works, another fascinating topic.