This project demonstrates the power of the Pigeon Lake Water Management Plan to strengthen community collaboration and deliver action across jurisdictions. In 2006 and subsequent years, Pigeon Lake experienced blue green algae blooms, fish kills and public health advisories—leaving local residents and politicians, looking for answers. It was quickly acknowledged that collaboration, across all 12 municipalities, was essential to executing effective watershed management. The development of the Plan progressed ...
Glen Smith remembers the night Eco-Growth Environmental first tested its biomass dehydrator. Employees loaded up around two hundred pounds of food waste and left for home in the wee hours of the morning.
“We weren’t sure if this was going to burn the building down or anything like that,” the company’s vice-president and director recalls.
Fortunately for the building, it was a success. The processor ...
For more than a decade, sustainability has been a focus at the Edmonton Convention Centre (ECC).
The 150,000 square foot convention centre hosts over 500 events and serves 250,000 meals in an average year. The complex nestled in Edmonton’s river valley is a city-owned not-for-profit — a model that helps drive its environmental goals, according to the centre’s sustainability manager.
“It allows us ...
The Viking Bluebird Trail numbers more than 1200 nest boxes and stretches along 275 miles of road in Beaver County.
Pres Winter started the massive bluebird trail in 1977 with just 200 nest boxes given to him by the then-director of John Janzen Nature Centre. At 79 years old, he still tends and bands baby birds with no intention of missing the next season in 2021.
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Around 2004, Stephanie Bennett helped jumpstart the Cochrane High School Sustainable Development Committee alongside another teacher.
The first iteration of the student-run club raised close to $50,000 and installed the first set of solar panels on the school’s roof.
“Everything just kind of took off from there and we just haven’t looked back,” says Bennett. “It’s just one group after another after another ...
In 2017, St. Albert became the first municipality in Canada to own a fleet of long-range electric buses.
Mayor Cathy Heron, who served as a councillor from 2009 until being elected mayor in 2017, says the move fits in with residents’ concerns for the environment.
“They would have pushed us if we hadn’t gone down this road,” she says.
The city ...
Steve McIsaac says when experiential learning group Inside Education started doing youth environmental leadership summits for students in 2011, they were answering a need that was already there.
“We believe and we have learned from students that they’re fundamentally disinterested in waiting until some magical day, in quote marks, ‘when I grow up,’ to make a difference,” he says.
The typical summit sees ...
