Support town ‘chiller’
Dear Editor:
I’m writing this letter on March 22, World Water Day, the UN’s annual celebration of the critical importance of fresh water to life. Water is life, as Indigenous people have been saying for millennia – nothing in the world can live without it.
It’s pouring rain, cold and bleak in Erin today and, after a long and bone-chilling winter,who isn’t aching for the warmer, sunnier days of spring and summer?
However, knowing that average world temperatures for the past 11 years have been the 11 hottest in recorded history – an extraordinary streak – it’s a good bet we’re in for some stifling heat waves in the months to come.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is forecasting an Ontario summer “with temperatures projected to be well above average, and hot conditions anticipated to rival the record-breaking heat of 2023 and 2025.”
One species we know that likes it chilly – less than 19ºC, even on the hottest days of summer – are the brook trout living in the West Credit River that flows through Erin, where it joins the main branch of the Credit at the forks near Belfountain, then down through Mississauga and into Lake Ontario. The West Credit is one of the few remaining rivers in the province cool enough to allow brook trout to thrive.
To help protect this native species in its cold-water ecosystem, especially as summer heat intensifies, the Town of Erin has committed to installing a “chiller” to keep the outflow from its new sewage treatment plant to less than 19ºC. So far, however, no installation date has been confirmed.
Cool water means life, and survival, for the brook trout. We urge everyone to support Erin’s commitment to install the chiller – and well before the first heat wave of 2026 arrives.
Liz Armstrong,
Erin