Oakridge Environmental Limited
647 Neal Drive, Suite 3 K9J 6X7 Peterborough, ON, Canada

Excellent article! https://theconversation.com/feral-desert-donkeys-are-diggin

Do you have questions about our planning and permitting roles? Did you know you can submit an online Property Inquiry Form with your questions? Visit our websit...e to submit an online inquiry so we can help you understand how natural hazards may affect your property! The City of Peterborough, Selwyn Township, Township of Otonabee-South Monaghan, Township of Cavan Monaghan, Municipality of Trent Hills, City of Kawartha Lakes, Township of Asphodel-Norwood, Township of Douro-Dummer Find out more, here: https://www.otonabeeconservation.com/./apply-for-a-permit/

For immediate release... Oakridge Environmental Ltd. is pleased to announce that our Christa Lemelin, Environmental Specialist and Project Manager, has today been appointed to the Government of Canada's Minister's Advisory Council on impact assessment. The Council will advise the Minister on whether the new impact assessment regime is achieving its intended objectives to be efficient, transparent, predictable, capable of identifying issues early in the process, and support de...cision-making in the public interest. We congratulate Christa on her appointment. For more information, check out this link: https://www.canada.ca//ministers-advisory-council-on-impac

With the increase in people utilizing public parks and trails, the rate of bear encounters has significantly increased. We thought this article on what to do when you encounter a bear (including not pushing your slower friend down) was rather interesting :) https://cowboystatedaily.com//national-park-service-r/amp/

He's at it again - from the desk of our Senior Geoscientist comes this gem... I read stuff, lots of stuff (mostly about geology). I am especially interested in something we call "karst". Karst features include things like caves and underground rivers. We have many of these features in southern Ontario, including some famous examples such as the Warsaw Caves. There are also great examples of karst in Elora, along the Ottawa River and Moira River. But today, my post is not... actually about karst. Today, I would like to draw your attention to an article about how we describe karst. It seems that karst is also interesting to people who study language. I read with initial great interest this journal article title: "The Polymorphic Behaviour of Adjectives in Terminography". Inside the article, I read: "Adjectives, while analyzed quite thoroughly in the works of terminologists, have not received enough attention in terminographic applications. Their inclusion, for instance in terminological databases, is low in comparison to that of nouns. However, the study of a specialized language such as karstology shows that adjectives have significant value due to their polymorphic behaviour." Now I feel bad for adjectives and started to wonder why I started to read this in the first place. Wow. What? I had no idea that karst was also important because of the strange words associated with these landforms. Apparently, by studying karst words, they have concluded that adjectives are important - I think... here's a quote from the article: "The polymorphic behaviour of adjectives from a morphological, semantic, syntactic and ontological point of view has shown that adjectives are a flexible category that can achieve terminological status in their own right..." Anyone who is looking for a challenge should try reading this one (see link below). I dare you to get past Section 1.0. https://www.erudit.org//m/2017-v62-n1-meta03122/1040473ar/ It's funny how an article about language is so hard to read. On the other hand, if you want to see what karst is all about, check out the following cool graphic.

From the desk of our Senior Geoscientist... With many of us working from home these days, our offices are not being utilized much. A study was done in 2018 by researchers who examined bacteria counts in the plumbing systems of three large buildings. They found that after a few days of stagnation, bacteria counts in the tap water increased dramatically! The key graph from the study is attached.... Not surprisingly, they found that stagnation of water in the pipes from non-use allows long incubation times to grow the bacteria. At the same time, the normal chlorine (disinfectant) concentration provided by the municipal water system drops off. All of this is made worse because most plumbing systems use small diameter pipes where the "contact area" for growth of bacteria is greater, in comparison to large pipes. As you can see from the graph, after only four days, the chlorine concentration is very low (D) and bacteria counts start to rise dramatically (E). Clearly, we need to run the water in our offices (from all taps) regularly to ensure that stagnant conditions do not occur during periods of low use. The same goes for our homes, if we are away for more than a day or two. You can check out the article at this (open access link): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-018-0101-5

From the desk of our Senior Geoscientist... I enjoy cycling although I am not obsessive about it. I keep track of my times for certain routes and am always trying to do better. My times have not been very good so far this year. Perhaps its the lack of activity resulting from our Covid-19 lock-down or the fact that I am getting older. Since I don't want to admit that either of those causes may be the culprit, maybe there is a geological reason? Obviously, if the route wa...s longer, it would take more time to finish. How could that be? I am following exactly the same route as before. Hmmm. Well, it is possible that the earth is actually getting bigger. A study published in 2015 found that the earth may be expanding. If correct, every location on the earth's surface must be getting further and further away from all other points (just like being on the surface of an expanding balloon). Surely, that is why my times are off. The study utilized satellite geodetic data over a 20-year period representing more than 600 space-geodetic stations across the globe, operating under the "International Terrestrial Reference Frame". They also looked at sea level data and noted that the amount of rise that can be attributed to melting ice + thermal expansion does not account for the observed amount. In other words, something else must be adding to the rise. From their calculations, the planet must be expanding to make up the difference. They were careful to avoid data from areas where the earth's crust is moving due to local effects such as glacial rebound. What they found is that the solid part of the earth (where I ride my bike) is expanding by about 0.24 mm/year. While that is admittedly a very small change, I can certainly add it to my list of excuses. The idea of planetary expansion is quite a controversial topic among geoscientists, but it is not a new idea. Dr. K. M. Creer published an article in the journal Nature back in 1965 suggesting that the earth was once only 55% of its current size (back in the Precambrian). In those days, there was a great debate among those who ascribed in planetary expansion and those who followed "continental drift" to explain the movement of continents. Plate tectonics (continental drift) won that argument a long time ago - however, maybe not entirely. You can check out the article here (open source): https://www.sciencedirect.com//artic/pii/S1674984715000518 If you are interested, there is an essay on the topic that you can download for free, providing historical insight: https://static-curis.ku.dk//f/156075991/hgss_6_45_2015.pdf The 1965 article is here (but is pay-walled): CREER, K. An Expanding Earth?. Nature 205, 539544 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/205539a0

From the desk of our Senior Geoscientist.... Like everyone else, we are bombarded with Covid-19 related news daily. It seems that everything we hear these days is about "the virus". When all of this started, I didn't know much about viruses and I wondered how common viruses are in the environment. Well, it turns out that viruses are a lot more common than I thought - way more common. Viruses are easily the most abundant life form on Earth, if you accept the proposition tha...Continue reading

We often come across our own funny moments when working in the field. Here is a write up about some other interesting moments experienced by scientists working in the field: https://www.washingtonpost.com//scientists-share-their-fu/

We have recently upgraded the PPE on these guys to be more fashionable. Freddy would approve.

At Oakridge Environmental, we don't mess around! We are taking all the proper precautions (don't worry, the other two will have masks soon too!).

This is pretty neat! We all love these sounds at this time of year

From the desk of our Senior Geoscientist... Before the Virus, we used to hear a lot (in the news) about pipelines. It seems that people were either "For 'em" or "Agin 'em". I have four of them running along in front of my home in the City. I can't imagine how difficult life would be without them. (The "Agin 'em" crowd should think about that). Today's pipelines are typically buried pipes that carry stuff from one place to another, out of sight. So, what were the first pip...Continue reading

We are always interested in new science and research. This particular gentleman conducted a rather interesting science experiment related to COVID-19: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-52094804

From the desk of our Senior Geoscientist... For those of you working (or waiting) at home, here is a little geology lesson that applies to many of us who live on the north side of Lake Ontario. As spring continues to advance, all that snow and ice is leaving (finally) and water levels are slowly declining in many areas, as the meltwater drains away. While this happens in a fairly predictable manner every year around here, there was a time when the situation was very differe...Continue reading

It's so interesting to see what's happening around the world, while things are in rest mode. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-52103967