{"id":1133,"date":"2009-11-13T10:09:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T14:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingatlantic.ca\/?p=1133"},"modified":"2013-01-21T04:56:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T08:56:48","slug":"turning-sewage-into-gold-marsh-creek-renewal-and-watershed-banking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/13\/turning-sewage-into-gold-marsh-creek-renewal-and-watershed-banking\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning sewage into gold: Marsh creek renewal and watershed banking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3089\/2655471233_e5e3b57abd_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"451\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>SAINT JOHN<\/strong> &#8211; The east side of Saint John is ruled by three things: the refinery, retail and rain. Every time a big storm rolls in, businesses and basements get soaked. And the problem is only getting worse.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because this sprawling side of the city is built on top of its largest urban watershed \u2014 Marsh Creek. It\u2019s a 4100-hectare patch of wetlands, but it\u2019s a far cry from looking like a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7y0smDvgSQo\">Ducks Unlimited commercial<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because Saint John flushes 16 million litres of raw sewage into its harbour every day, with Marsh Creek a major dumping ground. \u201cWhatever disease you want \u2014 it\u2019s there,\u201d says Colin Forsythe, a community wetlands coordinator with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acapsj.com\/Home.html\">Atlantic Coastal Action Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s where his organization steps in.\u00a0 The Saint John chapter is proposing to rejuvenate the area, with dreams beyond a new Costco and its discounted vats of mixed nuts.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acapsj.com\/Marsh_Creek.html\">Marsh Creek Renewal Initiative<\/a> aims to restore key areas of wetlands to ease flooding, with walking and biking trails interlaced throughout. They envision these trails connecting the east side with uptown so people can travel through the city without relying on cars. Add kayaking and canoeing to the mix in order to get the citizens of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/canada\/new-brunswick\/story\/2007\/10\/03\/nb-sj-report-card.html\">one of Canada&#8217;s fattest cities<\/a> off their couches and you&#8217;re officially creating a neighbourhood exercise program.<\/p>\n<p>Not that this is going to be easy. &#8220;We&#8217;ve changed the landscape so much we don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s natural anymore,&#8221; says Forsythe. But after years of study, they&#8217;ve broken down the monster into 27 projects.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s ambitious\u2014ACAP bills it as the largest sustainable development project ever proposed for Atlantic Canada\u2014and it&#8217;s expensive.<\/p>\n<p>Saint John being an industry town, you can pretty much smell the money in the air. So why shouldn&#8217;t The Man pay to freshen up the stench? ACAP says it can be done through environmental compensation projects\u2014legislation that requires corporations to replace any areas they alter through developments with an equal amount of ecosystem elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>ACAP is taking it one step further, with what Forsythe calls &#8220;watershed banking.&#8221; They identify the various projects needed to revitalize Marsh Creek and big industry foots the bill now, in advance of their future construction. With no shortage of industrial activity in the area, ACAP Executive Director Tim Vickers thinks this could shorten the amount of time to restore the area to under a decade.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s never been done in the Maritimes before, and it also lets taxpayers off the hook.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by Shawn Micallef<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAINT JOHN &#8211; The east side of Saint John is ruled by three things: the refinery, retail and rain. Every time a big storm rolls in, businesses and basements get soaked. And the problem is only getting worse. That\u2019s because this sprawling side of the city is built on top of its largest urban watershed<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/13\/turning-sewage-into-gold-marsh-creek-renewal-and-watershed-banking\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Turning sewage into gold: Marsh creek renewal and watershed banking&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8044,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5860,5866],"tags":[882,698,490,883,338,881,886,885,340,887,888,353,774,884,385,889],"class_list":["post-1133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-green-space","tag-acap-executive-director","tag-atlantic-canada","tag-canada","tag-colin-forsythe","tag-community-development","tag-community-wetlands-coordinator","tag-costco","tag-ducks-unlimited","tag-environment","tag-marsh-creek","tag-retail","tag-saint-john","tag-shawn-micallef","tag-tim-vickers","tag-urban-green","tag-watershed-banking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Turning sewage into gold: Marsh creek renewal and watershed banking - Spacing Atlantic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/13\/turning-sewage-into-gold-marsh-creek-renewal-and-watershed-banking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turning sewage into gold: Marsh creek renewal and watershed banking - Spacing Atlantic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SAINT JOHN &#8211; The east side of Saint John is ruled by three things: the refinery, retail and rain. 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