Rheanne

I met Eric at the Pizza Pizza right outside of Broadview subway station. It was sunny and warm with temperatures up to 12 degrees. We walked across the bridge above the Don Valley Parkway until we reached somewhat of a path leading to the road below.

Once we walked down the muddy hill and crossed the busy highway, we had arrived at our destination. After preparing our equipment and siting our maps, our search for leaking sewers began. After a long walk with no sign of a pipe, we found no assistance in our imprecise map. This, however, was not going to discourage us, so we continued our tromp down the muddy banks of the polluted river.

About fifteen minutes later, and after intruding upon one of the many makeshift shelters that are scattered throughout the shores of the Don, we finally spotted our first sewer.

This one, we would later find, would be the most horrific. It was leaking a metallic-orange liquid directly in to the water below.

Later on in our search we came across many more almost hidden pipes leaking a variety of substances ranging from what appeared to be clear water to substances composed of a filmy, murky run-off.

The toughest part about my tour in to this mistreated area was seeing the wild life that not only lived in, but relied upon this disgrace of a habitat. We saw many ducks swimming and playing around in the water. I only thought to myself how easily this all could have been prevented. We covered the path of the Don starting at the Danforth and going to Queen. I hope that as a result of this trip I can not only help the effort to improve the Don, but achieve a greater understanding of what this seemingly unimportant river means to our earth.

– Rheanne

I met with Rheanne, our Highschool co-op student, at the Broadway subway stop, we then proceeded down the steep banks to the Don river. Our plan was to map the pipes along the Don where we might find CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows).

The first half of the journey on the west side of the Don was a little rough, as there is no set path, lots of garbage around though from the railways and people just throwing their stuff on the ground (pop cans, bottles, old bikes, shopping carts etc.) We noticed that there are people who live on the banks of the Don in makeshift huts and tents, I wonder if the river would be so polluted and covered in junk if there were million dollar homes on it, probably not.

It was a little while before we found our first pipe, it was on the opposite side of the river and Rheanne noted that there was “orange staining on the bank” similar, I told her, to the orange staining I found at King’s Mill Park.

We continued on along the Don marking off G.P.S. locations and taking photos of all the pipes we came across. Some of the pipes were clearly visible and others were quite hard to find. I almost ended up in the Don at one point; the weather was nice but I wasn’t ready for a dip. There seemed
to be a lot of drainage ditches dug for high water and small pockets where the water would pool.

We found one area on the shoreline that again had the orange staining and the water was actually bubbling up from the ground. We finally made the city made path on the river that moves over from the east side of the Don to the west via a bridge and made the rest of our journey easier.

In the end we located 19 pipes that drain into the Don river between Bloor St and Queen St, this does not include the pipes on the bridges that drain the street water directly into the river. It seemed to me because of all the pipes and drainage ditches that the city uses the Don as a big flush system to send all of its unwanted water into Lake Ontario.

We did not see any fish but we did see a small tree that was chewed down by some animal and a lot of ducks.

– Eric