Don River Day points out pollution,
abuse of river

It was a chilly, overcast April morning last Saturday the 18th at Serena Gundy Park for the Ninth Annual Don River Day. Nevertheless, there was a good crowd on hand – it takes more than a cold wind to discourage these canoeists. I have seen them taking off in an icy driving rain. What was quite noticeable this year was the number of gray heads to be seen. One grandfather standing sadly on the bank told me that he had lost out this year because two of his grand-children had taken his place.

There is something about canoes that stirs the imagination of many Canadians. When the Europeans first came to this continent they found out that the North American Indians had developed a craft superbly designed for navigating the lakes and rivers of this vast continent. Without the canoe this land could not have been explored, nor could our first industry, the fur trade, have been started. It is part of our history.

I talked to one man who told me that his son had a 26 foot canoe that was built for him by an Indian friend of his and that he used to travel the Fraser River in B.C. Now the Don is a pretty small stream compared to the Fraser, but the metropolis of Toronto began at the mouth and on the banks of the river. Too often we ignore and neglect the Don.

Lately we have been given an unpleasant reminder that the river is alive and active. The Keating Channel at the mouth is silting up at the rate of about 60,000 cubic yards of sediment a year. That’s quite an achievement for such a small stream, but then the Don River drops more than 800 feet from the headwaters to the lake, so the water flows swiftly and causes a lot of erosion. Besides we have speeded up the flow by removing most of the forest that used to cover the watershed – a survey of some years ago estimated that there was less than 7% of it under trees. The effect of this and the wholesale paving over of so much of the area around the river has meant that during spring thaws and after rainfalls the runoff goes tearing downstream at a destructive rate. You could say that the Don is paying us back for our neglect and we have to pay the cost of dredging out the channel.

But there is more to it than that. That sediment is polluted. Reports issued by the Ministry of the Environment show elevated levels of mercury on filtered water produced by the Toronto Island Filtration Plant in August 1980. The highest reading of .29 from the effluent of the Reed Pulp and Paper Mill in Dryden from August 1979 to August 1980. This plant was responsible for severe downstream mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon River system. It is quite possible that this pollution comes from the truck fill being used to construct a containment area on the Leslie Street Spit for the Keating Channel dredge material. In a letter to the Toronto Harbour Commission, which is carrying out the dredging and the land filling operation, Environment Canada expressed concern at sampling results from the truck fill used on the outer headland. “Mercury, lead, iron, chrome, and nickel are all greater than Ministry of Environment open water dredging disposal guidelines.”

This serious development has been publicized by the Canadian Environmental Law Association and by SCOW (Stop Contaminating Our Waterfront). SCOW includes representatives from the Toronto Field Naturalists, The Toronto Island Resident’s Association, Friends of the Spit, Pollution Probe and Forward Nine. They are fighting to have the dredging stopped until an environmental assessment has taken place. Anyone who wishes to support their endeavour or seeks further information should contact Toby Vigod or Sarah Miller at 366-9717.

If the sediment in the Keating Channel is heavily contaminated with PBC’s mercury, zinc, lead, oil and grease, as we are now told, where is it coming from? Some time ago an official of the Metro Toronto Regional Conservation Association told me that pollution of the Don River was no longer allowed. Maybe he should have said that it is no longer legal. Considering what we have heard in recent months about secret and illegal dumping of toxic wastes in dump sites by various companies and agencies, is it not likely that similar activity is going on around the Don River? I was discussing this matter with one of the organizers of Don River Day and he told me of seeing a waste pipe feeding into the river near the Ontario Science Centre that was emitting a chemical that appeared to be ethanol.

I wonder if any of our readers have come upon any instances of contamination of the Don? It is up to the ordinary concerned citizen to take an interest in this matter. Experience has shown again and again that public bodies have been reluctant to blow the whistle on polluters, particularly large companies. Furthermore, they habitually suppress information that should be freely available to the public.

As the Don River Voyageurs tell us every year, this is our river. Let’s work harder at protecting it.