- This event has passed.
Larissa Holman | Understanding How Road Salt and Other Contaminants Are Impacting the Health of the Ottawa River. | Jul 23, 2025 13:30 | CACOR Live
Speaker: Larissa Holman
Topic: Understanding How Road Salt and Other Contaminants Are Impacting the Health of the Ottawa River.
Time: Jul 23, 2025 13:30 Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Summary:
Ottawa Riverkeeper has applied a number of strategies to better understand the health of the Ottawa River and its tributaries. This includes working with over 125 community scientists located throughout the watershed who collect water samples and observations as well as our team completing analysis of publicly accessible data available from provincial and federal sources. As a result, Ottawa Riverkeeper has found some alarming results. This includes chronically toxic levels of chloride concentrations due to road salt application within urban streams to high levels of mercury in remote areas of the watershed which has led to more of a focus on how to best address the threat of contaminants of emerging concern. This talk will provide an overview of some of these findings, and the actions Ottawa Riverkeeper has done as a result. It will also highlight the value of working with community scientists and supporting community-based monitoring.
Profile:
Larissa enjoys the challenge of understanding complex river systems such as the Ottawa River and learning about the watershed collaboratively with other freshwater organizations, Algonquin Communities, authorities, researchers and citizen scientists. She feels strongly that helping to build a stronger insight of rivers and watersheds is a keyway to engage with people and encourage action that protects water and waterways. Larissa holds a BSc.H in Environmental Science from Concordia University and a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management from Dalhousie University.