Celebrating Enviroweek at Living Lightly

Posted on by head-ranger

Today, the Water Rangers participated in a city event called Living Lightly, an event based around the concept of environmental sustainability and reducing environmental impact.

We had a booth set up displaying one of our test kits and we had a challenge going on where people had to guess the conductivity of tap water (sourced from the Ottawa River) and groundwater sourced from a local well. Ottawa city tap water was about 150μS, while the groundwater was about 850μs and surprisingly, about a third of the participants guessed within 100μS of the actual values! People were very receptive to the challenge and we got the chance to meet a lot of interesting people and talk about what we do.

Brett getting involved in our conductivity challenge.

What does Water Rangers have to do with living lightly?

Water Rangers would like to encourage citizens to understand their impact on the environment and become aware of how their actions affect the health of our waterways. Here’s a few tips!

  • Leave your shorelines natural. Leaving soils undisturbed prevents erosion and controls the speed of surface runoff. This space can be put to use many ways, like planting a garden or leaving it as a habitat to support wildlife.
  • Dispose of chemicals properly. Toxic chemicals such as paint, oil and certain cleaning products dumped down the drain end up in our waterways. They must be disposed of properly at a Hazardous Waste Collection Site.
  • Pick up after yourself. Remember to take any garbage home with you and leave beaches and shorelines cleaner than you found them.
  • Use reusable containers and water bottles. Large amounts of disposable plastic end up in our waterways, creating hazards for aquatic organisms. This issue can be largely prevented by a conscious effort to reduce plastic waste. Check out Nu Grocery, a no-waste grocery store opening soon in Ottawa.

Water Rangers would like to thank Envirocentre for organizing such an amazing tribute to #enviroweek.

Want to know what is ‘normal’ for your waterway?

Are you interested in learning about our citizen science water test kits? Our next training session for the testkits is Monday, June 19th at Westboro Beach. Come join if you’d like an introduction to the testkits and to see how each test is performed!