It hasn’t been a summer for hanging clothes out to dry. According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Halifax Stanfield International Airport saw 20 days with at least some amount of rainfall in June. That’s second only to famously icy January (26 days of rain and snow) for precipitation in the past 12 months, and […]
Environment
Posted inNews + Opinion
Hartlen Point residents push for renewed, independent impact assessment of DND site
How much heed will federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault pay to concerns about the potential impacts of a 93,000-square-metre military testing site in Hartlen Point? That’s the question a group of Haligonians and 20,000 petitioners are waiting to have answered before July 8, 2023. The conservation group behind Protect Hartlen Point—a collective of Eastern Passage […]
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Rain brings wildfire relief in Halifax, but threat not fully over
On any other week, a seven-day downpour weather forecast in June might have prompted a spree of four-letter lamentations across Halifax. Not this time. Not for a while, either, one imagines. As firefighters surpassed a week of battling a 950-hectare wildfire that has prompted the evacuation of more than 16,400 Haligonians, every droplet on Saturday […]
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“Far from out of the woods” with Tantallon fire threat, officials say
Provincial forestry technician David Steeves was asked a question about resources during his Thursday morning update from the Tantallon fire response control centre: How confident is Nova Scotia in the tools it has at hand to battle an out-of-control wildfire burning across Upper Tantallon for the fifth straight day? The answer “balances on a razor’s […]
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Province bans all travel and activity within forests while wildfires continue
Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston did not mince words in his Tuesday afternoon update on the province’s efforts to quell a pair of wildfires in Upper Tantallon and Shelburne County. “Travel and activity in our woods is banned,” Houston said, speaking from Shelburne, where an out-of-control 11,510-hectare blaze has prompted the evacuation of more than […]
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DEVELOPING: A timeline of the Upper Tantallon wildfire
It was early Sunday evening in Hammonds Plains, and Karrie-Ann Buchanan and her partner were beginning to worry about wildfire smoke. Plumes of it had been drifting northeast from Upper Tantallon since late that afternoon. It hung over the Woodhaven RV Park they co-own and operate—64 acres of forest and campsites down the road from […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tuesday winds in Tantallon bring “dangerous” fire risk, officials warn
Brad George was in the midst of his weekly Sunday clean-up when his Highland Park home began to fill with smoke. He could see it, smell it in the air. He looked out the front window. Ash fell on his lawn. Flames licked above the trees across the street. “I could just see this big […]
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Economic driver or eco-threat? The conundrum of Halifax’s cruise ships
It’s the Tuesday after the first two cruise ships of 2023 have arrived at Halifax’s Pier 20—and for a brief spell, the waterfront is quiet. Waves lap. A seagull drifts in the breeze above the Emigrant statue, a french fry’s toss from where nearly 3,700 cruise ship travellers aboard the Norwegian Dawn and Zaandam filtered […]
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Here’s what an environmental report says about the DND’s Hartlen Point plans
For months, Canada’s Department of National Defence has promised Haligonians it would share the results of four third-party environmental studies of a controversial Canadian naval testing facility soon to be built at the edge of Eastern Passage. Last week, for the first time, the DND made those full-length reports public on its Trident newspaper website. […]
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Excavation, tree removal underway at planned Hartlen Point military test site amid opposition
The first omen that Hartlen Point’s newest arrival—a controversial Canadian naval testing facility that’s soon to be built on three acres of Halifax’s shoreline popular with birders, hikers and surfers—might not begin as smoothly as Canada’s Department of National Defence leaders had hoped came this past Sunday, March 5, the same day that construction crews […]
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The importance of urban timber salvage
Urban forests are an important part of our cities; they help to cool our homes by providing shade and they add to the beauty of our local environment. Nobody likes the thought of trees having to come down, but unfortunately there are many scenarios where it’s necessary for the safety of the surrounding area. “Some […]
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DND comes under fire in public feedback session on proposed Hartlen Point warship testing site
If Tuesday night’s public forum on the Department of National Defense’s plans for the future of Hartlen Point established anything, it’s how wide the gulf remains between those determined to build a land-based warship testing site near Eastern Passage and those who want it moved anywhere else. For more than two and a half hours […]
