(image from 13 Nov Dartmouth Community Herald)Ok, I am probably too cynical about this, but this smells bad to me. Earlier on, we were given the chance to help out the fresh water mussels by relocationing them whilst their Lake Banook home was tidied up. Well, according to the article in 13 November Dartmouth Community Herald (the local ad-wrapper, but it always has a few good local news items), the HRM water folk are lowering the lake 0.5 metres (and then another 0.75 metres?) to install a big new sewer pipe that links Burnside, Dartmouth Crossing, and Port Wallace with the new trunk sewer (heading to ... the harbour?). The pipe is bigger, better, gravity fed - so it is 'cheaper' and 'safer'. They will cover it up and build a walkway on top of it. Earlier this year, the young swimmers and paddlers had some nasty swimmers itch and a few weeks without swimming, courtesy of e coli - supposedly caused by the half dozen ducks that were in the Lake. HRM said, no problem with sewage leaks and, since they don't provide life guard services at that location, they don't ensure that the water is tested frequently. It seems to me that, if there is on ongoing contamination problem in an absolute jewel of a location (home of this year's Canadian Paddling Championships and next year's World Championships), and there is now a bigger pipe bringing hitherto non-existent contaminants and run-off that had been directed elsewhere, through this area, then environmental monitoring should be the standard. Vented and dizzy, I descend from atop the soapbox.
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