Current Problems
The Taylor Massey Project
Taylor Massey Creek is a significantly degraded watercourse suffering
from numerous and long-standing urban abuses. While the next section
describes the current, positive framework for remediation, existing
major problems can be summarized as follows:
- Historically clean headwaters flowing from north of the 401
were diverted to Highland Creek during the construction of the
highway. As a result, the 16 hectares of the 401 that form the
current headwaters of Taylor Massey Creek deliver huge volumes
of litter, cigarette buts, dripped automobile fluids, bits of
rubber from tires, and flashes of winter salt to a reduced base
flow;
- Much of the greenspace potential of the Creek was lost, especially
north of Eglinton, with the location of area developments too
close to the Creek. In fact, between Ellesmere and Lawrence, the
Creek runs through private property, with no chance of public
trail along the banks, and with almost half its length, from Manhattan
to Lawrence, piped underground. To compensate for this "Lost
Reach", the TMP is championing the use of the Warden Hydro
Corridor as part of the Taylor Massey Trail, as described two
sections further into this website.
- Many of the developments near the Creek have no stormwater
ponds. As a result, run-off is not treated for quality, and the
volume of run-off entering the Creek creates high peak flows that
cause erosion and ruin downstream spawning areas;
- Several lengths of the creek were "hardened", in
an era of poorly-understood watershed management, into concrete
channels to help the water rush "away" rather than be
retained as both valuable wetland habitats and as an areas to
retain storm-flows; and,
- Over-all water quality in Taylor Massey is extremely poor.
In 1992, Forty Steps to a New Don , published by the Toronto and
Region Conservation Authority, stated: "it is estimated that
up to 80 percent of the pollution in the Lower Don River comes
from Taylor/Massey Creek under certain flow conditions."
More recently, a January 2004 report from Lake Ontario Keeper
on sewage pollution in Ontario's Waterways indicted that the
most contaminated discharge from any pipe leading to
Lake Ontario, "was found in Toronto's Warden Woods, where
e-coli levels were 2,000 times higher than the provincial water
quality objectives."
Against this litany of injuries and insults, the hope for watershed
improvement has gathered much momentum of late, as described in
the next section.
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