[All] Fw: Planning and Tornados

[Louisette Lanteigne]

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com>
To: Colleen Sargeant <CSargeant at regionofwaterloo.ca>
Sent: Thu, April 28, 2011 10:47:39 AM
Subject: 


Dear Council members

Here is a quick video showing how Urban Sprawl contributes to Tornadoes. 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/urbanstorm/

To the west,  the Waterloo Moraine acts to cool the air and as long as our urban 
core retains tree coverage and natural areas our risks of severe storms are 
reduced but if we pave over large sections of land, such as the new mega mall on 
Ira Needles, it will put us at a greater risk of more intense storms. More 
pavement, more dark asphalt rooftops, more heat being emitted upwards.  This is 
one reason why it is imperative to protect and preserve areas likeHidden Valley 
and theU of W ecological reserve. We need to plant trees and allow natural open 
spaces to cool air currents rising from the ground up to prevent the risks.  We 
need to protect groundwater volumes to protect our atmospheric temperatures. 
Quarry pits and sprawl will add more heat and bigger storms to our area unless 
we plan appropriately. 


Last year I made a video last year warning about the Tornado risk  increases 
associate with the Ira Needles mall which I shared with provincial officials. 
It's on You Tube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yWAjp11dnA

I am very much concerned with the impacts of the proposed West Side Lands in 
regards to this matter and all the properties sitting directly adjacent to the 
country side line because this is a dramatic delineation of natural to urban. 
Before the West Side Lands were approved, the tree line of ESPA 19 and the 
fields of Vista Hills served to cool the air naturally but if we heat things up 
at this particular location with roadways, housing and cover up the primary 
recharge we will have greater atmospheric changes at this point simply because 
this is the property that sits adjacent to the moist cool air coming off of the 
protected sections of the moraine. Perhaps we can plan more gradual transitions  
including measures such as intensified  tree coverage to subdivisions adjacent 
to the Country Side Line and bump up impervious surfaces it would help to reduce 
the risks. Wetlands and recharge areas serve as nature's air conditioners. Keep 
things cool. 



Thank you kindly for your time.

Louisette Lanteigne
700 Star Flower Ave.
Waterloo Ontario
N2V 2L2
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20110428/5a62a3ca/attachment.html>