EJQ2 - Fall 2024 - Journal - Page 3
Essential Connections
ARE YOU TAKEN ABACK by the amount of construction occurring in Toronto?
Residents, commuters and visitors can’t help but notice the high volume of cranes and
excavators popping up around the city. In fact, Toronto dominated a 2024 crane index
covering 14 North American cities. The number of cranes counted in Toronto was 221
— almost four-and-a-half times more than the second-place city, Los Angeles (50
cranes). Seattle came in third (38 cranes) and Calgary came in fourth (20 cranes).
It’s an exciting amount of progress, with all the cranes and excavators helping us
achieve better infrastructure and higher property values, though it’s easy to get
grumpy about the construction tra昀케c. But how often do you think about the natural
materials that make any of this possible? Speci昀椀cally, the soil!
Our land surface is such an important life-support
system that connects us all. The biologically
diverse macro- and micro-organisms in soils
process water, nutrients and even contaminants,
providing an environmental 昀椀lter that bu昀昀ers and
transforms —enabling essential services for life
as we know it.
Yet we are not doing enough to maintain this
life-supporting, non-renewable resource.
WATCH THE
EXCESS SOILS SYMPOSIUM HIGHLIGHTS
E N V I RON M E N T J OURN A L QUA RT E RLY RE PORT • FA L L 2 02 4 • P AGE 3
