Mark Mattson
@waterkeepermark.bsky.social
President Swim Drink Fish. Former Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Lives in Great Lakes St Lawrence River watershed. Biinaagami
87,000 people just told Ottawa to stop dumping fill in Toronto Harbour. Now comes the real test: the Canada Ontario Great Lakes Agreement. 55 years and still unfinished business. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Ten Agreements Over 50 Years. The Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River Watershed is Still Waiting for Canada and Ontario to Finish the Job
Did Billy Bishop Decision Change the Momentum?
open.substack.com
Engineers once called Toronto Harbour beyond saving. Now, fed gov kills idea for filling in Lake for Billy Bishop & City opens 10 acres of Biidaasige Park. The harbour didn’t get saved by engineers, it was saved by people who kept showing up for it. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
The Toronto Harbour Shines
Biidaasige Park and Billy Bishop
open.substack.com
The Toronto Harbour Shines. Biidaasige Park and Billy Bishop open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
The Toronto Harbour Shines
Biidaasige Park and Billy Bishop
open.substack.com
Good show on swimmable water and cities in Canada this morning on The Current. Use @swimguide to find beaches and clean water before you swim. www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...
cbc.ca
Today, federal comment ends for proposal to fill in Harbour & Lake to extend Billy Bishop runway. Message from public consultation is that Toronto Harbour, the water park, has emerged as powerful new voice for restoration and protection of Lake Ontario. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
The Toronto Harbour Dream
If you get a chance this summer, go down to the Toronto waterfront.
open.substack.com
The Toronto Harbour Dream. What if the heart of Toronto’s waterfront wasn’t meant to be like this? open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
The Toronto Harbour Dream
If you get a chance this summer, go down to the Toronto waterfront.
open.substack.com
Rosy Fingered Dawn boat ride with my friend Murray. Murray helped me become the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper back in 2001. Always great to get together - talk water, trees, family. Eat pizza.
We're Hiring: The Next Chief Executive Officer and President of Swim Drink Fish Why this is the most exciting environmental leadership opportunity in Canada right now open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
We're Hiring: The Next Chief Executive Officer and President of Swim Drink Fish
Why this is the most exciting environmental leadership opportunity in Canada right now
open.substack.com
Just watching the world sail by today. Lots to write about and calls to follow up on but it will have to wait until the rain tomorrow.
Just an fyi — if the Lake Ontario Blue Jays get Bo Bichette back from Mets — I will be invested in the next 70 games like, for real. Truth is, coming home for home, is what’s it’s all about. #odyssey
As we finalize comments on the proposal to expand runway in Toronto to allow for jets and more traffic (due July 24th) … good to remember that this project will make things worse for water quality by trapping contaminated water longer in harbour. Primer here. youtu.be/PTMoJafcwlQ
Toronto Harbour Report 2016
YouTube video by LOWaterkeeper
youtu.be
Toronto Harbour isn't finished being restored. We can't give up on it now. On the Great Lakes, Billy Bishop & why we shouldn't accept a degraded baseline as the status quo open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Toronto Harbour Isn't Finished Being Restored. Don't Give Up Now.
How a decades old commitment to the Great Lakes is being quietly bypassed and why the debate over Billy Bishop Airport is about much more than a runway.
open.substack.com
7 things Toronto needs before we talk about expanding into the harbour: real-time CSO monitoring, debris cleanup, swimmable access in the West End, not a Special Economic Zone that waives the rules.
That murky plume in Toronto Harbour isn’t an accident, it’s 9 sewer outfalls plus the Don River. It already struggles to flush. A new report shows a Billy Bishop runway expansion would cut harbour flow in half. Time for a public summit on this waterfront. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
What Is Guarding the Water Around Billy Bishop Airport Toronto and in Ontario?
Toronto's Inner Harbour where the Don River and combined sewer outfalls meet the bay.
open.substack.com
New city report: expanding Billy Bishop’s runway could cut water flow through Toronto’s Inner Harbour by 50%, trapping sewage and pollutants twice as long & undo billions spent cleaning up the harbour. “It’s reckless,” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Expanding Billy Bishop runway could degrade Toronto harbour water quality, city report says | CBC News
A new city report says the province's plan to expand the runway at Billy Bishop airport to accommodate jets could reduce water flow in Toronto's Inner Harbour, limiting its ability to flush sewage and...
cbc.ca
Funny way of saying swimmable drinkable fishable harbours are valuable assets to cities & business. But yes, “we know knowledge workers value urban amenities and access to nature. If our waterfront becomes less attractive, Toronto becomes less attractive to knowledge workers.”
Summers are a great time to celebrate birthdays. Happy birthday to my sister Kris who is always there for her family when it counts and when no one notices.
Over 5000 views for this substack rebuttal. Why? B/c the @globeandmail left out discussing the lake & waterfront in Billy Bishop editorial. I didn’t. Still a governing agreement that prohibits filling Lake. Public comment closing July 24. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
What the Globe Left Out: Billy Bishop, the Harbour and Toronto's Waterfront Future
How to Win an Argument Without Having It
open.substack.com
The Globe’s Billy Bishop editorial reduced Toronto’s harbour to “some impact on boats.” No one has published how much lake gets filled in, so I did the math & came up with 60,000 truckloads for a project currently illegal under its own governing agreement open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
What the Globe Left Out: Billy Bishop, the Harbour and Toronto's Waterfront Future
How to Win an Argument Without Having It
open.substack.com
Second Greatest Blessing: A Note on Canada Day open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Second Greatest Blessing: A Note on Canada Day
5 Things Worth Celebrating
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A 2003 EA said Billy Bishop’s habitat was already degraded so new damage didn’t count. Now a runway extension into Lake Ontario & new nuclear reactors proposed on its shores. A degraded baseline is not permission. 9 million people drink this water. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Nine Million People Drink This Water
A Lake Worth Talking About
open.substack.com
After 25 years as President of Swim Drink Fish I am moving to the board. New essay on what running a charity actually demands and why the oath is the whole thing. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
What Makes Running a Charity Special: A View from the Water’s Edge
There is a type of work that not many want to do.
open.substack.com
Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day. Our Biinaagami work exists because of the Shared Circle of Knowledge Keepers. Grateful for these partnerships. #biinaagami
“The entire habitat is degraded, therefore none of the impacts are considered significant.”That’s the actual line from a 2003 government report on Toronto’s harbour. It’s the hidden argument behind every push to fill in more of Lake Ontario. #biilybishop open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Toronto’s Waterfront Is Not a Runway — It’s an Inheritance Worth Building
What fifty years of harbour cleanup proved — and why July 24 is our next chance to prove it again.
open.substack.com
With today’s rain comes inevitable: sewage bypasses at treatment plants & 92 lesser-known combined sewer overflow along Toronto’s rivers & waterfront discharging untreated sewage directly into Lake. The city will notify you. They just won’t tell you what it means. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Ontario spent $9.93M on push to Protect Ontario ads hyping nuclear energy. Without independent, fact-based investigation into the real consequences, this isn't public education—it's just government propaganda. www.thetrillium.ca/news/politic...
‘Protect Ontario’ ads cost one ministry nearly $10M last year: records
Ontario taxpayers were on the hook for millions last year to watch the provincial government promote its own initiatives
thetrillium.ca
“. . .five questions matter: Does it address the legacy of past pollution? Does it reduce sewage entering the lake? Does it restore habitat? Does it expand genuine public access to the shoreline? And does it treat the lake as something held in trust, a relation, not a resource? #BillyBishop #July24
Mark Mattson@waterkeepermark.bsky.social · 2mo agoToronto is growing out of its past as an industrial port & realizing it is the freshwater capital of the world and wants a harbour that reflects that fact. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
Toronto is growing out of its past as an industrial port & realizing it is the freshwater capital of the world and wants a harbour that reflects that fact. open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
The Waterfront Question
The Toronto Billy Bishop Airport Debate Has Grown Up
open.substack.com
So begins the Joe Burke Wolfe Island litfest. Dave Bidini reads from forthcoming novel: Goalies.
