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Michael is on a quest to get his environmental footprint as low as humanly possible. So he built his own off-grid Tiny House. But downsizing and minimizing weren’t enough. He had to take more drastic measures, altering his lifestyle in some extreme ways, all in the name of saving the planet. But when it comes to his goal, he still feels in over his head. He doesn’t know if all the downsizing, minimizing, reducing, reusing, recycling, and sacrificing make a difference. It’s time to bring in the experts.
Join Michael as he sits down with scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, and environmental experts to figure out how to effectively reduce his footprint in all aspects of life. From food and fast fashion to cars and caskets, he gets into what the worst culprits really are and how we can all make more informed choices when it comes to the impact we have on the planet.
If you have feedback or would like to be a guest on In Over My Head, please email: info@inovermyhead.com
(00:00):
Well, I'm in over my head, no one told me trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. I’m in over my head, what do I really need? Tryin’ to save the planet, oh, will someone please save me? Tryin’ to save the planet, oh, will someone please save me?
(00:27):
Welcome to In Over My Head, I'm Michael Bartz. While exploring the Old Man Watershed, I want to learn about how our city treats our water and how they're planning to adapt to a changing climate. My first conversation started with a water treatment plant tour.
(00:43):
You'll notice over the entrance it says plant number three.
(00:46):
So this was built
(00:47):
In 1981 and the first treatment plant would've back in the early 19 hundreds and was part of an extension of a power plant. It was down here. And then treatment plant number two was built in the fifties and sixties, and it's been retrofitted into our solids handling system, and I'll show you that later.
(01:31):
I'm Doug Kaupp. I'm the general manager, water and Wastewater for the city of Lethbridge. So in Lethbridge, our water supply is the Old Man River, which is like many rivers can be pretty flashy with the high flows and low flows and runoff from the adjacent land. And so with that comes the challenges of treating the water for domestic use. Our maximum day demand in the last, say five years was about 135 million litres in a day. Our average water production is about half of that, so a little more than 60 megaliters. It's all driven by the demand, by the usage. And so if it's a hot day or a hot week and it hasn't rained in a while, and lots of lawns are being watered, that helps set those peaks. Small changes in the weather can impact people's behaviour. If it's a windy day, they won't necessarily have their sprinklers going, so it's more than just the temperature. But if you have a rain shower every weekend, then the demand for water in the summer is less than.
(02:54):
And so I assume the city has a range that they work within because you don't know how much water people are going to use necessarily. So do you have an estimate kind of range that you have based on the season?
(03:06):
We just respond day to day. And the way we make that work is we have about a day's worth of storage between the treatment plant and the customers. So Lethbridge is a little unique in that most cities would have a hill with a water tank on the top of it and let gravity supply the customer, but we're topographically challenged and it's awfully flat here. So we have concrete tanks that are below grade that are under the ground in the community. They look like little rectangular hills, and we pump from the treated water from the treatment plant into the storage reservoirs, and then it gets pumped again into the network for the customers. And so there's a buffer of that volume between the plant and the customers. So we know if the demand's unexpectedly high, we have the ability to meet that demand. So the operator of the treatment plant has a computer screen with trends on it that shows where the water's going. And there's alarms that'll go off if levels get too low. And sometimes there's unexpected spikes in the demand that might result from the fire department fighting a fire or a big water pipe breaking and flooding a street or whatever, and they can actually detect that from the treatment plant.
(04:41):
Yeah, I assume residential use is probably pretty consistent, like you said, some water in the lawns and things.
(04:47):
Yeah, that is pretty seasonal. And so I think the biggest difference between average and peak day is really residential, well, irrigation in general, like watering parks and boulevards and all of that. And many of the industrial, big industrial customers would be pretty consistent and their production would be 24 7, and so they'd be pretty constantly pulling on the water.
(05:21):
So the water comes from the old man river and then it goes to the treatment plant. Yeah. Maybe just briefly describe kind of the process the water takes from the river to your tap.
(05:31):
In Lethbridge, we have a weir that goes across the river to direct the water into the plant, so it sets an elevation in the river so that if the river's running extremely low, in theory, the entire river could go into the treatment plant. And that was built in the mid-fifties. So the water actually enters the plant just by gravity because of that weir in the river. And so it's in underground pipes, goes into the treatment plant, and then through the first stage is just a screen. We call it a travelling screen because it's on a big conveyor stuff that branches and leaves.
(06:17):
So these are the travelling water screens, and you can see if you have a peak in there with that stainless steel screen is there, that's the eight-millimeter spacing. There's a number of those panels that go down under the floor about four meters, and then on a gear it comes back up. So there's a whole, like a big belt, and only the bottom part is doing the screening. And then as it rotates, it gets washed off.
(06:50):
And then after the screening are set of pumps that lift the water into the treatment plant for further treating, we could refer to them as the low lift pumps. And after the discharge of those pumps is where the coagulation chemicals are added. It's primarily aluminum chemistry that makes it possible for us to remove the particles in the water, the silt, the even dissolved particles, microscopic stuff.
(07:23):
And then beyond that, the real noisy bit is the flash mixer. So that's where that aluminum chemistry gets added. And as the water's whipping down that pipe to make sure that the chemicals get mixed, there's a paddle that's spinning inside that pipe and that's making all the noise.
(07:48):
After we add the chemistry, the water goes into a big tank that we call a clarifier. And in that clarifier there's an active section where we're mixing the silt from the river and the chemicals, and it creates a flock, which is like a particle that you can actually see and is heavy enough to settle out. And then in the quiet part of the tank, those particles and contaminants get a chance to just settle. And that forms in the bottom of the tank, a chemical sludge that we process and dispose of separately the water that's had all those particles settled out. Then go on to the filters, smaller particles and stuff that didn't settle can be removed physically. And the filters and the filters are composed of sand and anthracite coal in layers. So that larger particles are this light coal material and there's sand and the whole thing's only about a meter deep, and the water goes through there and it removes all those other particles. The filters can run for about four days before they need washed, and when they get washed, we add air to agitate it. Then water from the bottom back washes the filter clean.
(09:19):
And then when the operator's washing the filters, I mentioned that they use air in this space. Here is the compressor that provides the air, and it's really noisy machine, so we put it in a soundproof space. Cool. So that it doesn't add to the ambient noise in the workplace. So this is where you go when you have your phone rings because it's really quiet. Could have done the interview here. Yeah, we could have done the whole thing saved us some time.
(09:59):
After the water's been filtered, it goes for disinfection. At the filter stage, we add chlorine, and that is intended to deal with the easy things to kill like viruses. So if there's polio or hepatitis A in there, the chlorine knocks that out. But after the filters, we disinfect with ultraviolet light. There's these, well, we call 'em reactors, but they're just a section of pipe that has ultraviolet lamps that goes across, and the water just whips past there at high speed, and in the fraction of a second the water is going through there. The ultraviolet light actually takes care of more complex disease causing organisms like Giardia and Cryptosporidium and their DNA gets damaged by the UV light, and then that prevents it from causing disease.
(11:07):
And so you can see where those black caps are. That's the UV reactor, and there's like eight lamps that go across the flow of water that doses it with the uv.
(11:21):
After the disinfection, we top it up with some fluoride and it's ready to go
(11:28):
From the city side, like the water treatment side. What happens if there are more floods or more droughts like maybe more frequent or more extreme weather?
(11:38):
There's a lot of different variables that would come with the extreme weather. For instance, more intense rains and thunderstorms could create conditions where there's higher than usual runoff into the river so that it's more challenging to treat the water just more material in it. More frequent flooding would be also a challenge because of not only what it does to the river quality, but to protect the infrastructure at the water plant itself. Our water plant is in the river valley, it's not far from the river, and we have to protect the plant from high water. And so there's a berm that surrounds the plant. And in the flood of summer of 1995, the river level got within half a meter of the top of that berm. And so we have a project to raise the level of that berm another couple feet, so that in the off chance that the next flood's bigger, we're still okay.
(12:51):
Drought is probably the most disturbing scenario. Having a shortage of water is a challenge because we only have one source. Some communities may have options where they have groundwater and surface water, others might have a second river that is a reasonable distance away. But for us, we really only have one source of water. And if so, in a scenario where the river literally dries up or there's no water, then things get pretty hairy pretty fast because we don't have an alternative supply of water. The only things we can really control is the demand for water. So all of our planning has to do with managing the demand. So what that looks like is water restrictions, different stages of response. First you don't wash the buses and don't water parks, and eventually it gets to the stage where sports fields are impacted and you have the lawn police checking to make sure people are only watering when they're supposed to or allowed to. And there may be impact on industry and commercial customers as well. So of, I often tell people, I'll take five floods for every drought because a more challenging scenario, and they're often prolonged, right? A flood might impact your operation for two or three weeks, but a drought could be two or three years, and that's a scarier thought.
(14:43):
Next I would learn about the City of Bridge's climate adaptation strategy.
(14:48):
My name is Raene Barber and I'm a sustainability engineer with the city of Lethbridge. Typically, I work on climate action. So one of my focuses over the past year has been working on our climate adaptation strategy and action plan. Typically, we have been focused more on the city of Lethbridge as an organization to date. But recently with this climate adaptation plan, it's looking more broadly at the overall community of Lethbridge. So the climate adaptation strategy and action plan, what it aims to do is provide some guidance to the city of Lethbridge on how to better prepare for and respond to climate events, including extreme weather events. So in the past five years, I'd say we've seen quite a few of them in my recent memory, I can't remember a summer that we didn't have those extreme high temperatures for prolonged periods of time. So that would be over 30 degrees. And then with that comes the wildfires and the wildfire smoke as well as drought and ecoregion shift. So those are kind of the primary risks that we're looking at as part of the plan. And we're looking at what the city of Lethbridge can do to prepare for these risks, but also what we can guide residents to do to help their households.
(16:05):
And so it's my understanding that previously the city has taken some actions already. What sort of actions have they taken already?
(16:13):
Yeah, one of my favourite examples is the park naturalization. So what our parks department has been doing is in certain areas of the city, they've been taking out some of the turf grass and then putting in more of the native plant species. So that's a great adaptation action just because it does help with our drought tolerancy. It reduces our irrigation water demand, but also helps with the biodiversity of our city by just enhancing and maintaining our natural environment. So that's one of my favourites. But then we also have a great emergency preparedness department, and fire and EMS are doing great work on more of the emergency planning and disaster preparedness as well.
(16:54):
And what would that look like?
(16:55):
They are helping the community understand what risks there are in the city and then what we can do to prepare the 72-hour emergency kit.
(17:05):
What further actions is the city planning on taking when we're looking at these climate risks?
(17:10):
There were a bunch of workshops that were held when we were doing the preparation of this document and the ideas that are presented in the plan were brainstormed by a bunch of different people, including the public as well as specific organizations. Some examples that come from the national adaptation strategy that was released recently as well. It kind of focuses on a whole bunch of different systems. So that would be nature and biodiversity, the economy and workers health and well-being infrastructure itself. And there was a fifth system that I can't remember off the, oh, it's disaster preparedness. Sorry. So our plan is kind of in alignment with the national strategy as well. So some examples of actions that I've seen in other municipal plans that might be presented in ours as well is a development of more climate centers. So we do have comfort centers as part of our emergency preparedness, for example, like the Park and Ride facility or the Helen Schuler Nature Center.
(18:13):
And these are locations the public can go in the event of an emergency within their designated hours. But something that I've seen in other municipal plans is expanding this to be a bit more broad. So they have been called climate centers and some other plans. And the idea behind this is to try to make them very accessible to the people who are most affected by climate change. So whether that be the elderly or the unhoused population or children, and just making sure that they have access to a warming center when it's cold out, a cooling center when it's warm out, as well as clean air centers when there's wildfire smoke. So that would be an example of an action that would be appropriate for a city like Lethbridge.
(18:58):
And within the workshop that you mentioned, there was a survey that you surveyed residents on a few different things, right?
(19:07):
Absolutely. Yeah. So throughout the project process, we held two public engagement surveys, the first one being on more of the vision and the guiding principles of the climate adaptation strategy and action plan. And the second public survey was more specifically around what the city could do to help residents prepare for these climate events.
(19:29):
So with that second survey, you were asking people how they felt about climate change if they were preparing, what were some of your findings from that survey?
(19:38):
We found that over half of the people who responded to the survey indicated that they have done some sort of preparing in their household. We didn't go into much detail of what that meant, but we are very happy with that number and hope to see it increase with the launch of the climate adaptation Strategy and action plan. Other things that we found were that people are very on board with increasing and maintaining our urban tree canopy because it does have so many co-benefits like acting as a place of refuge in extreme heat, but also the beauty factor and the biodiversity that comes with that as well.
(20:17):
So rain with the public engagement survey, what were some of the thoughts that people were sharing when they did that survey?
(20:24):
One of the major commonalities between responses that I found was positive was that people were thinking that we should be doing more on the mitigation side as well. While this plan, the climate adaptation Strategy and action plan is solely focused on adaptation, there is overlap between adaptation and mitigation. But I thought it was great to see that people are still focused on addressing climate change from the root and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions rather than just learning how to respond to the inevitable.
(20:59):
So you are doing this work, you are working on this plan. Why is this work important to you?
(21:06):
For so many reasons, but I think first and foremost, I think it's just so important for the city as an organization to be really mindful of the future generations and doing what we can to ensure that what we're putting in place now while actually stand the test of time. I think that it's so important for the city to be a leader as well. So I think personally as a resident, I guess if I put my resident hat on, I would want to see that my money is going towards the future. And I think that the climate is absolutely paramount to what we do.
(21:44):
Do you feel like we're making progress towards adapting and in the changing climate?
(21:49):
I think we are taking steps in the right direction. I do personally think that we could be doing a whole lot more, and I hope to see that in my time at the city. But yeah, I think it's great to see the different departments at the city start to think about the environment as well as the social and economic impacts, the triple bottom line of everything we do.
(22:08):
And if I remember correctly, the part of the plan was also working some of that into policies and other parts of the city. It's not just that one piece, right?
(22:17):
Yeah, that's the ultimate goal. We as a department, we are focused on the environment, however, it is something that every department at the city can be helping with. So that would be the goal.
(22:31):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. If it can't just be me one department, it can be every department. If they have climate in mind, then I think that's a much more effective thing, for sure.
(22:39):
Absolutely. And it's so cool to see people like the water team build these adaptation measures like the berm at the water treatment plant. And the parks department is doing amazing work in this space as well. So it's really cool to see. And yeah, I have a lot of hope.
(22:56):
Speaking of hope, I want to end this season on a positive note after learning about the Old Man watershed. You might be wondering what you can do to have an impact on it or your own local watershed. I chose two pieces of advice I'd want to share with you from some of my conversations over this season. The first is from Shannon Frank, followed by Cliff Wallace. What would that look like for people if they want to protect our area in Southern Alberta? What could they do?
(23:21):
Well, I mean, for the immediate future, the most important thing I think we can do is talk to each other and communication, education is how we have cultural change. So your podcast is big difference maker. It's important. It does make a difference. And we've seen that in survey after survey, that people care what their friends and family think. So your best sphere of influence is your friends and family. That's where we have to start by talking about it and making it known that we care. I care. This is what I'm doing. This is what I worry, worry about. And having those conversations, how you change the world is with your friends and family, and it starts from there.
(24:09):
And I guess one thing I appreciate when I'm listening about water specifically, it impacts all of us in different areas. I feel like when it's affecting ranchers, when it's affecting farmers, when it's affecting people in urban areas, that potentially could bring people together in a good way, I think to unite against a common challenge.
(24:30):
Exactly. And that's why I like watershed councils and why I've stayed with the watershed council for 13 years is because that's what they do. They bring people together from all sectors, and they focus on building collaborative solutions that work. And so the watershed councils are on the front lines of this, and they're restoring places, and they're having difficult conversations that people may not want to have, and they're trying maybe to avoid even. That's our job. And so there's many different things people can do from helping plant willows, helping plant trees, picking up garbage, removing invasive weeds, conserving water. There's so many. But at the bigger scale, I think the message is get involved. Do something, learn. Call your local watershed council or environmental nonprofit and just do something that you're passionate about, that you enjoy. There's so many different things that you can pick something that works for you.
(25:39):
A lot of my guests that I've talked to, oftentimes I'll ask them, what can people do? And so many times they say, well, you can vote or get involved politically. And yeah, it's kind of wonder about that. In your experience, how effective is getting involved politically, whether it's voting or advocacy work in making a positive change?
(26:00):
It's the only thing that ever makes a difference. It's everyday people writing letters. I used to work for the government. I used to respond to letters to the minister, and I know that they kind of counted those who's saying what letters up. And if all they're hearing is oil, oil, oil, coal, coal, coal, we need this for jobs, jobs, jobs, then it doesn't balance out the urgency of what the angst people are feeling about where we should be going. So I think it's important, a simple letter every now and again, talking to your MP or MLA about these things. I used to go to the Christmas dues at the previous MLAs. I have yet to meet my new MLA, but you establish a relationship. I said, I won't vote for you, but I like what you're doing. You're keeping me informed. You're listening to me. And these are what I consider my priorities. And they were always accommodating and would always get back to me and make sure that the minister responded to me. And when I talked to people in the various government processes, I know they're hearing those messages and it's making a difference to how the staff are dealing with issues. Even though it seems slow and it's frustratingly slow, it is making a difference.
(27:16):
I think that, like you mentioned, that awareness piece is really important too, because if people aren't aware of maybe an issue or a problem, they don't have a letter to write. They think everything's fine. So it's good to hear that it possibly can even have a slow change.
(27:31):
I don't want people to burn out either. And I think that's important. It's important to get out in nature, to enjoy family, enjoy nature. I have a saying for my life, which is to get out, get outside, make some money. You don't have to make a lot of money, but you need to make some money, have fun and make a difference. And if you kind of do it in that order, I think you'll stay sane, look after yourself and enjoy life. And hopefully that change that we're all looking for will continue to happen.
(28:04):
Lovely. I like that. Yeah, it's a good in that order too. That's great. Then you won't get burned out. Nice. Was there any kind of other advice you would have for people who want to make a positive change within our watershed, Southern Alberta, changing climate, all that kind of stuff?
(28:17):
Get involved. Find something that interests you and do it. Whether it's on the social side, environmental side, we need people who are good with people. Change doesn't happen without people. As a young biologist, it was all about the science, and I knew all the answers, but could I get things done? No, you can't get things done without people being on side and agreeing with what you're trying to do. Whether you're interested in frogs or you're interested in environmental issues, whether it's waste in the city or water quality. There's any number of things that everybody should be concerned about, but you can't do everything. So find something that really piques your interest and follow it. And like I say, stay sane. Don't burn out. We need you forever. This is a lifelong thing. This is not a one shot effort that we're all involved is looking after the environment is a lifelong proposition. Otherwise, we will have no life
(29:19):
In Over My Head's The Old Man Watershed season was produced by Michael Bartz in partnership with Environment Lethbridge, the following people who were integral to the production of this season and deserve a special mention, Kathleen Shepherd, Shannon Frank, Cheryl Bradley, Tyler Stewart, Jeff Smith, Ami Peck, Braum Barber, Kelly Okiawa and Badlands Band. Thanks to everyone for all their contributions.
(29:40):
I'm trying to save the planet, oh will someone please save me?
(29:50):
This season was made possible with financial assistance from Land Stewardship Centre's Watershed Stewardship Grant, funded by Alberta Environment and Protected Areas. Opinions expressed in this season are those of In Over My Head.