St. Albert took its first step towards analyzing the state of the Sturgeon River this week.
City council got its first look at the terms of reference for the state of the Sturgeon River watershed report this week. The report, if authorized, will examine the climate, soil, water, aquifers, animals, wetlands and pollution of the river and area around it.
It’s an important first step towards protecting the river, said Jason Cooke, chair of the environmental advisory committee. Some people have suggested dredging the river or adding a weir as ways to improve it, but those are just ad-hoc ideas. “Before we can tackle a problem, we have to understand what the problem is.”
Alberta Environment has done a number of studies on the Sturgeon over the years, notes city environmental manager Leah Jackson, but none of them have been comprehensive. The city also knows little about the region’s invertebrate or riparian health.
The study itself will not start before May, Jackson said, and could take up to one year. The final terms of reference go to council on April 26.
Linked to the Sturgeon study is a review of the city’s grit interceptors, Jackson said.
About 150 tandem-dump-trucks worth of grit washes into the Sturgeon each year, according to the 2004 stormwater management master plan, creating sandbars at stormwater outfalls.
The city installed its first and only grit interceptor in front of St. Albert Place in 2002 to address the problem, adding a similar grit-intercepting pond by the Boudreau Bridge in 2007. It had originally planned to build 23 of these structures at outfalls over 10 years for $10 million; that plan is now on hold due to budget cuts.
Jackson has been studying the performance of the pond and interceptor over the last six months to determine the future of that plan. The city has taken other steps to keep grit out of the river since 2004, such as cleaning catch basins and sweeping gravel, which might reduce the need for new interceptors.
Initial results suggest the St. Anne interceptor is working well, she said, and is usually full of grit by the end of each year. The pond has proved difficult to clean; it might be better to use a concrete version in the future.
The grit interceptor report goes before council on April 26.
Advanced biofuels could soon help Canadians replace fossil fuels and cut their greenhouse gas emissions, says a local scientist.
David Bressler, professor of bio/food engineering at the University of Alberta, will give a free talk on the future of biofuels at the University of Alberta this Tuesday.
Today’s biofuels are based on old technology and have a number of problems, Bressler said. Biodiesel is too thick to use in the cold, for example. Others have criticized corn-based ethanol for its miniscule greenhouse gas reductions.
He and other researchers are working to turn cellulose — the stiff bits of plants — directly into diesel and gasoline. Current processes are wasteful, he argued — they turn plant sugar into fuel and leave the rest for animal feed. By baking plants at about 400 C, researchers can break them down into proteins for animals, vitamins for people and fuel for cars. These products are actually better than normal gasoline, he added, because they contain no heavy metal or sulphur contaminants.
Other scientists are working to solve the food-versus-fuel problem. Analysts blame biofuels for food price spikes because most of the fuels come from food crops. By tapping willow, switchgrass or algae able to grow on marginal lands, researchers hope to grow fuel without using food.
Biofuels cannot only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by displacing oil, Bressler said, but could soon replace non-renewable substances used to make products like plastic. “If we do it right, the biofuel will be the least valuable thing we make.”
Bressler’s talk is on March 9 at 5:15 p.m. in room 2-009 of the ETLC building.
