By: prenderk.near
Kelley
Comfortably sitting on a blue dotted Muskoka chair with beautiful falling autumn leaves, MarmaJ was reading a news article at an outdoor patio. The article discussed how the local Hamilton Ontario water in rivers, streams, and lakes was being polluted by microplastics, medications, clothing fibers from washing machines, and other contaminants from the local steel factory. However, the article stated that the water was not being tested all the time in different areas. MarmaJ felt very upset over this. MarmaJ had just begun rowing at her university rowing team and had smelled the effects of the pollution in the water over the last few weeks. The smell would not wash out of her clothing if the clothing had lake water on them, no matter how many times she tried to wash them.
MarmaJ had an epiphany. She began to search for water conservation programs in Hamilton and found a volunteer program called Young Water Leaders at the Bay Area Restoration Council. The program helped teach youth on how to conduct water testing to identify areas in the city that potentially were being contaminated. MarmaJ told her friend, NEAR, about the program. Both of them applied together.
Chrissy, the organizer of the program, accepted MarmaJ and NEAR to the program and began to take them on weekly water testing visits.
The first visit was to Cootes Paradise at the hydroelectricity building. Chrissy gave each of them water testing instruments and explained the procedure.
“First, take the beaker and fill it. Then, place the instrument into the beaker. Let it sit there and we can figure out oxygen levels, salinity and other indicators.”
MarmaJ and NEAR happily agreed. They bent their beakers into the water and saw a few turtles swimming by in the shallow water. They then followed Chrissy’s guidance and wrote down the figures for each indicator.
For two months, every week, MarmaJ and NEAR would go to Cootes Paradise, Spencer Creek, Chedoke River, and Bayfront Park to test the water. They noticed that the indicators were showing that contaminants were increasing in the water with each week passing which worried them. MarmaJ and NEAR decided to share their data with laundromats in the area and explain to them the benefits of having microfiber filters in their washing machines. During two weeks, MarmaJ and NEAR crowdfunded $300 000 and gave $200 000 of the funding to all of the laundromats in Hamilton to install Planet Care microfiber filters in all of the washing machines in the city. MarmaJ and NEAR also created transit advertisements about giving away free microfiber filters to any household that would take one. The $100 000 helped fund these ads as well as the free filters.
MarmaJ and NEAR wrote a letter to all of the environmental groups, Government of Ontario, City Council, and local steel factory about the water contaminants issue with their data and asked for solutions to this growing problem. Facing pressure from the City Council and the environmental groups with the water testing data, the local steel factory agreed to phase out its operations that were contaminating the lake and instead train its workers to work in sustainable industries. The local steel factory also agreed to redesign their factory into a sustainable restoration project similar to Evergreen Brickworks and provide community housing for all along with urban farming, a community land trust, and zero waste programs.
A year later, MarmaJ and NEAR decided to return to their water testing. Their efforts worked. The contaminants were in fact much less from the prior year. MarmaJ and NEAR were ecstatic and decided to have a community picnic, inviting everyone they knew. The community celebrated with music and joy, realizing that collective action can truly make a difference.