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Finding uses for North's sunken logs (3/02)

By Michael Lynch For almost 50 years Murray Jardine, a stationary engineer, has been warning anyone who will listen that logs and bark in northwestern Ontario lakes are harming water quality.

By Michael Lynch

For almost 50 years Murray Jardine, a stationary engineer, has been warning anyone who will listen that logs and bark in northwestern Ontario lakes are harming water quality. He says the number of logs in the water from Long Lac to the Ontario-Manitoba border is "incomprehensible."

Jardine says there was a "startling" amount of wood lost to northwest lakes during the log drives of the first half of the 20th century.

"The amount of bark on lake bottoms is a nightmare," Jardine told the Ontario minister of natural resources and the federal minister of fisheries and oceans in a March 8, 2000 letter.

The letter warned the ministers that the decaying bark and logs causes anaerobic digestion that produces methane and carbon dioxide. When methane is combined with chlorine from discharged municipal drinking water it forms chloroform. This chloroform may form tumours in animals and humans, Jardine wrote.

"Not everyone is listening," says Jardine, 64, who has applied to Fisheries and Oceans for permission to remove bark from a lake near his home in Dryden.

Before proceeding with his bigger plans to distill and bottle water for sale and long-term storage, Jardine is required to conduct a pilot project to show Fisheries and Oceans that he can burn the retrieved bark hot enough to destroy the toxic tannic acid it contains (submerged bark contains 20 per cent tannic acid). He also needs to show he can remove the bark without disturbing the lake bottom. The bark will be used as fuel to fire a boiler that will produce distilled water free of impurities.

"I don't have all the answers and I need (Fisheries and Oceans) help," Jardine says. He has assembled all the components he needs for a portable water purification plant.

He hopes to run the pilot project in the spring. Jardine owns a 28-foot steel boat that will be equipped with a "drag-line-style bucket to retrieve the bark from the lake bottom."

Although distilled water has a flat taste "people will get used to the taste," Jardine says. "Humans don't get minerals they need from water, they get it from their food."

Jardine harvested logs from two lakes near Dryden under a restricted licence from the Ministry of Natural Resources in 2000. He calls it “water logging.” Known as dead heads, the logs are partly submerged.

"I had to sign an affidavit stating that I wouldn't dive and take logs off the bottom of the two lakes," Jardine says.

Under the restricted MNR license, Jardine is also allowed to take logs from the lakes' shores.

Utilizing a sawmill he owns, Jardine produced 15,000 board feet of lumber from the partly submerged logs. He sold some of this "antique lumber" to a couple in North Carolina who were restoring a heritage home.

Jardine sees a market for the retrieved bark beyond fuel for his water purification plant. Pulp and paper companies are installing boilers to cut down on their use of expensive natural gas. Provincial Papers in Thunder Bay is installing three boilers this spring and will need to purchase bark to fuel them.

Although Jardine offers a number of business services, including underwater recovery, contract power plant operation services, drinking water purification systems, outdoor heating boilers, antique lumber and machinery and wood lot selective harvesting, his life-long interest has been to distill and bottle water for sale and emergency use.

"Everything is contingent on certification from Fisheries and Oceans," Jardine says. "And once I get through this government red tape, I have investors waiting."

Jardine wants to offer distilled water to children and the elderly at no cost. He plans to seek a charitable donation certificate to write off the cost of these donations.