Confederation College marked their commitment to sustainability with a tree planting on Friday.
The event was celebrating the Riparian Habitat Rehabilitation Project, which began in August 2020 to restore water quality and aquatic ecosystem health along the McIntyre River, the main Confederation College Campus location. Part of the commitment includes the planting of 100 shrubs, 60 grasses, 200 perennials, and 100 trees in the area. Along with this an Indigenous Garden with medicinal and ceremonial plants used by the Anishinaabe peoples will be established.
(STAFF PHOTO)
This endeavor was made a reality because of funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada through the Great Lakes Protection Initiative with the objective to restore the water quality and aquatic ecosystem health of Canadian Great Lakes Areas of Concern. The federal initiative awarded Confederation College $75,000 over the course of two years to fund the project. The college and the City of Thunder Bay also provided financial and in-kind support.
Professor and Coordinator at Confederation College Sandra Stiles explains a little more about how this project helps the environment.
“This is benefitting local wildlife and habitat by allowing it to re-naturalize in the space, but it’s also supporting the watershed and the water through the McIntyre River all the way through Lake Superior,” explains Stiles. “That’s part of the big focus of it is to improve the water quality, and along the way we are also increasing habitat as part of the project. It’s very important because more of the naturalized spaces you have, there is better infiltration of the water into the ground water instead of it running off and it becoming more flooding events.”
The project encompasses around 10 hectares throughout the campus around the McIntyre River.
Students in the Environmental Technician Program played a significant part in this endeavor. They were able to gain hands-on environmental restoration, rehabilitation, and sustainability experience.
“Everything we do we try to build some opportunities for students to get involved and get the learning they need to prepare them for employment after they leave the college,” says Kathleen Lynch, President of Confederation College. “All these projects just really go hand in hand with our aim to really have great applied learning opportunities for students. Here our Environmental Technician Program has really focused on doing a lot around our whole college environment. We have de-paving going on, rain water catchment areas, and different ways of trying to make sure that the waterways here become cleaner and stay clean, so it’s very close to our hearts.”
Along with this initiative, Confederation College has established no plastic bottles on campus, meaning they are no longer being sold on campus. Prior to this, vendors at the school found that bottled water was the number one seller. Now, the college has dispensers so people can bring reusable bottles in hopes of following through with their commitment to sustainability.
Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu with Environmental Technician Program students (STAFF PHOTO)
