Dragon boats on the Rideau

This weekend, unfortunately a grey one, it's the "Tim Horton's" Dragon Boat Festival in Ottawa, and a friend of mine has been paddling in one of the boats, at Mooney's Bay on the Rideau. Her team didn't win, but she sent me the link to a blogpost by Ron Hay, who has written about the training, illustrating his post with several photos of the dragon boat team.

From the Dragon Boat website:

Filling a boat requires 20 paddlers, a steersperson, a drummer or caller, and a few spares. Mixed teams must have a minimum of 8 female paddlers. This does not include the drummer or the steersperson. All women’s teams must have all female paddlers, but may have a male drummer and/or steersperson. A PERSON MAY BE A MEMBER OF AND RACE FOR ONLY ONE TEAM PER CATEGORY.

• The categories are WOMEN and MIXED.
• A steersperson/drummer may paddle for one team and may steer/drum for more than one team.

Water treatment at Lemieux Island

Open Doors: visitors explore the gallery

The Canadian Newsblog has also published a post about this. That journalist must have been one of the numerous visitors to the Water Purification Plant last weekend, when it opened its doors to the public. We cycled there along the riverside bike trails last Sunday, light rain notwithstanding. Geese and goslings got in our way.

Keefer

I noticed that the marble staircase of the Lemieux Island Plant building (opened in 1928) closely resembles the stairs in the Chateau Laurier; it was made of the same stone in the days when important buildings had to be elegant. Water engineers (Thomas Keefer was the first in Ottawa) were treated with great respect and their headquarters were correspondingly splendid. In the old days, formal banquets used to be held in the gallery on the top floor of the water treatment plant. It was an echoey space, so the noise of many conversations at these events must have been a problem.

A purification plant has been operating here since 1874. Steam pumps processing 10 million gallons of river water per day by means of reciprocating pumps and waterwheels, which were replaced (at the time of the 2nd World War) by centrifugal pumps and turbines.

Simplified map of the watershed (Wikipedia)

Our group was led on a tour of the premises by Paul, the manager. To start with he showed us a wonderful map of the Ottawa River's watershed area. The water that flows through Ottawa comes from a 146,000 square kilometre area of land (drainage basin), of which the Algonquin Park, for example, is only a small part. There are few industries or conurbations in this area, so we are lucky to have water that's already relatively clean, although it's slightly coloured by the tannins from the leaves and grasses it touches.

In order to clarify and cleanse the raw river water, it goes through a series of processes including the addition of sulphuric acid to remove the aluminium in it.

Scum from "raw" water

The first stage is known as "coagulation / flocculation"––a stirring of the water in 8.5m deep tanks, which we saw, scum floating on the top. This removes the sediments in the water and 90% of its pathogens. The rest are filtered out through a deep layer of anthracite and (underneath it) quartz sand, a process lasting two or three days, after which the water is clear. The anthracite filter is effective for many decades, but has to be back-flushed regularly. Finally, the clarified water is disinfected with chlorine in order to remove viruses. Caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) is added at this stage to raise the PH level and prevent corrosion of the city's pipes. Another disinfectant, ammonia, goes into the water and a little fluoride is added for the sake of our teeth.

As an inducement to drinking tap water, free water containers were distributed and we were encouraged to take part in a blind water tasting––three kinds of drinking water being offered: distilled, bottled (filtered) and tap water. I could detect the different taste of the distilled water but there was little to distinguish the other two. Point made.

At the Ottawa Rowing Club

We know a young man (Dean Pucsek) who is training for the 2016 Paralympics, hoping to compete in the rowing team for the visually impaired. To be classed as a blind rower and eligible for the team, you must have

10% of vision in best eye with best correction (from visual acuity above 2/60 up to visual acuity of 6/60 and/or a visual field of more than 5% and less than 20%)

He gets up before sunrise every summer morning and cycles rather dangerously in the semi darkness to the Ottawa Rowing Club facilities at 10 Lady Grey Drive, on the river below Sussex Drive, to practise.

The Club has been in the news. In yesterday's Ottawa Citizen it was mentioned twice:

Two sections of the Ottawa Rowing Club’s new dock designed to make the sport more accessible to athletes with disabilities are missing and presumed stolen [on May 17th].

Four rowers were rescued from the Ottawa River Friday morning after their boat capsized. Paramedics, firefighters and police were called to the river near the Ottawa Rowing Club ...

Tomorrow, Sunday, June 9th, the Club will also be supporting volunteers who come to help clean up the shore line, as advertised by the Ottawa Riverkeepers:

Celebrate Canadian Rivers Day on the shores of the Ottawa River. Ottawa Riverkeeper is proud to welcome the Ottawa Rowing Club as new Riverwatchers! These keen and fit rowers have organized an exciting cleanup of the Ottawa River shoreline in downtown Ottawa. All participants are invited back to the beautiful Ottawa Rowing Club for a BBQ.

Come dressed to get wet and dirty! For your safety and comfort, we recommend that you wear a long-sleeved shirt and pants, canvas gloves, and rainboots.

Meet at the Bytown Museum, at 10 am.

Another heron

It's been a cloudy day followed by a grey evening, which deepens the shades of green along the river. After sitting on the seat in the park by the reinstalled, floating boat launch dock, and watching the fluff from the poplar trees drift by, we walked along the bank a little way and passed very close to where a heron was patiently waiting for fish. We'd previously seen the bird land on the branch of a riverside tree, flying low across the water and gliding into the tree very gracefully. It stood very still as we came close, perhaps feeling that if it didn't move, we wouldn't notice it. There was a mother duck, further along, with five ducklings. I'm afraid one of the ducklings might become the heron's supper, one of these days. Long and thin though the heron's neck is, it can easily swallow a duckling whole.