Windpower – a cautionary tale
As the scientific evidence of climate change becomes ever more frightening, the collapse of Skypower Wind Energy Fund LP offers a cautionary tale of the barriers faced by renewable energy. Two years ago, this partnership raised $77 million to build a 201 MW wind energy plant in Riviere-du-Lo…
Continue reading the post titled Windpower – a cautionary taleCarbon Offsets as Presents
Looking for low carbon presents? Want to assuage your guilt about flying this holiday season, while helping others? We did! We were delighted to find that it is quick and easy, though not cheap, to buy carbon offset credits for clients and colleagues, and even for ourselves. The average Cana…
Continue reading the post titled Carbon Offsets as PresentsBrownfields Progress?
This week, Ontario’s Brownfields Stakeholder Group was delighted to hear that progress is being made on some old problems. For example: 1. Escheats: When a company is dissolved, its remaining assets go automatically to the Crown. As a result, the province ends up (without its knowledg…
Continue reading the post titled Brownfields Progress?Waste Diversion Woes
Municipalities are often squeezed between the imperative of waste diversion, and the immense practical and legal obstacles that can plague it. Last week, waste diversion pioneer, the City of Guelph, was fined $40,000, plus a 25% Victim Fine Surcharge. Charges against the waste manager, perso…
Continue reading the post titled Waste Diversion WoesFinal Report: IPCC 4
The Science Now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has formally released its Fourth Assessment Report, the pressure is on governments everywhere to actually do something. This report synthesizes the three component reports released earlier in the year, in which world governme…
Continue reading the post titled Final Report: IPCC 4Toxic Soil in Vanier?
Homeowners in part of Vanier, Ontario (now part of the City of Ottawa), want the City to investigate and help remediate the contamination of their properties: lead, arsenic, mercury. The homes were built in the 1940’s, on the site of an old landfill. Is the City legally liable? Or is t…
Continue reading the post titled Toxic Soil in Vanier?Giving the MOE False Information?
An environmental consultant and his firm have been heavily penalized for the serious offence of giving false information to the Ministry of the Environment. The consultant, Ron Carter, was hired to sample the notorious Bakelite site for PCBs. While some of his samples did detect PCBs, he tol…
Continue reading the post titled Giving the MOE False Information?Tenant's Contamination
Does the covenant to leave the property “in a clean and neat condition” at the end of a long term lease require the tenant to clean up all its contamination? Or only the contamination that has occurred since the last renewal of the lease? And does the tenant have to pay rent unti…
Continue reading the post titled Tenant's ContaminationLead, Children and Crime
This summer’s flurry of concern about lead in Ontario drinking water gets extra power from a growing body of research linking preschool blood lead and subsequent crime rates. Rick Nevin, for example, has tracked blood lead levels and violent crime over several decades in the USA, Brita…
Continue reading the post titled Lead, Children and CrimeNew Minister of the Environment
The new Ontario Minister of Environment is John Gerretsen, MPP Kingston and The Islands. This is an encouraging appointment for anyone interested in brownfields development, as Mr. Gerretsen has been Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for the last several years. During this time, the …
Continue reading the post titled New Minister of the Environment