Larry O’Brien

The City of Ottawa is proud to be a supporting city of Earth Hour and will be asking all residents to participate in the campaign scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 27th from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Earth Hour is a global campaign, initiated by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Australia in 2007. The campaign encourages individuals and businesses to take the symbolic action of turning off all non-essential electricity for one hour.

This is the third year that Ottawa has participated in this global initiative that has increased awareness of the need to conserve electricity. Almost 20% of Ontario’s electricity comes from coal fired generators, so every kilowatt saved has a great positive impact on the environment.

During Earth Hour, the lights will go off at City Hall, and at most other municipal buildings. In some cases emergency and outdoor lights will remain on for security reasons.

Click Here to share your plans on how you intend to participate. The City of Ottawa is please to have the continuing support of Hydro Ottawa and our media partners the Ottawa Sun / 24 Hours and CTV.

To learn more about City of Ottawa environment programs and initiatives, visit our Enviro website.

The City of Ottawa has been working for several years to separate sewers in various areas of the City, but as you all know, there is still much work to be done.

This is a problem that was identified under this Council’s watch, and it is under our watch that a solution is being found.

Residents living in the capital city of Canada deserve clean and well-maintained waterways, and we are committed to ensuring that is the case.

With great support from the federal and provincial governments, measures are now being undertaken to limit the flow of sewage and contaminated storm water into the river.

Last year, the City tabled a comprehensive program to protect and improve Ottawa River water quality.

A key component of that plan was the tabling of three options for the public to consider that would control the level of sewage and contaminated storm water into the river.

After much public consultation, a report released yesterday detailed the preferred option- the City’s Ottawa River Action Plan; a comprehensive program intended to take us further in protecting and improving Ottawa River water quality.

A key recommendation in that report is that the City target $140 million in spending over the next five years to further reduce combined sewer overflows into the Ottawa River.

We are pleased that both the federal and provincial governments have provided funding in support of these initiatives, and we look forward to their continued support.

We are committed, through these partnerships, to ensuring that the river is clean for future generations.

As your Mayor, I can tell you that I am proud to be part of a municipal government dedicated to the long-term sustainability of its City.

Our commitment to fixing the problems affecting Ottawa’s waterways is yet another example of a Council showing faith in its city’s future.

By now, many of you are participating in Ottawa’s new Green Bin program, an initiative that the City of Ottawa is undertaking to reduce the amount of garbage sent to our landfills.

The Green Bin program provides us with a cost-effective way to help our environment by diverting a significant amount of household waste to Orgaworld’s state-of-the-art facility where it can be turned into nutrient-rich compost.

This morning, I had the unique opportunity to tour the Orgaworld Facility on Hawthorne Road, and was very impressed with the progress I saw.

Orgaworld is currently testing its composting system to prepare for the first shipments of organics, and there is already high demand for the quality compost material that the processing facility can produce.

As one of the largest indoor organics composting facilities in North America, the site is home to a flexible composting system that can grow as the City of Ottawa’s needs grow.

This is just one of the ways that the City of Ottawa is combating the issue of landfill overuse.

Final emissions testing is underway at the Plasco Energy Plant which is one of the last steps in the demonstration at Trail Road. I am optimistic that the City can complete its negotiations with Plasco in the next few weeks, and it is my hope that construction will begin by this fall.

Our City is literally leading the world when it comes to waste diversion. I congratulate each resident of Ottawa that has been feeding their green bin in recent weeks- your commitment to reducing the amount of garbage your household sends to our landfills will make a huge impact on Ottawa’s future.

Mayor Larry O’Brien

I was disappointed to read a story earlier this afternoon that may have given the impression that work on solutions to the recent flooding could be two years away.  Several other reporters, who were in the same scrum earlier today, were just as surprised as I was after reading the Ottawa Citizen article.

At the time we were talking about Ottawa River spillage and were not discussing the situation in Kanata.  The story on the Ottawa Citizen’s website was unnecessarily provocative for residents affected by the recent flooding.

I want to be clear that the City’s priority is repairing our infrastructure and we are actively reviewing what happened in Kanata and Stittsville.  Council will be taking action on projects, once identified, that will reduce future risk.  Also, we are currently working on a record number of projects that will reduce the unintended sewer spills, improve our aging infrastructure and protect residents from floods.

These are long-term projects and the problems can’t be solved overnight because past administrations never made it the priority that my Council colleagues and I have.