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BASF Corporation 2007 Corporate Lands for Learning of the Year The employees, volunteers and partners at BASF Corporation’s Fighting Island received international recognition for their contributions to wildlife habitat conservation at the Wildlife Habitat Council’s 19th Annual Symposium, The Value of Green by winning WHC’s prestigious Corporate Lands for Learning of the Year award. This is the second time BASF has been honored with this award, having previously won it in 2005. A hummingbird feeds on nector at BASF Corporation's Fighting Island. The site, located offshore from LaSalle, Ontario, Canada, in the Detroit River. The 1,200-acre revitalized island offers a lush, natural outdoor laboratory for students and community members to study the natural environment. |
Habitat projects on the 1,200-acre Fighting Island site benefit wildlife and increase environmental awareness among employees, community members, students and government agencies through implementation of a cohesive, long-term wildlife management plan. The Corporate Lands for Learning (CLL) program at Fighting Island uses a revitalized island habitat as an outdoor laboratory to study the environment and the environmental impacts of humans, including efforts to enhance and improve our environment. In addition, an integral volunteer, Donald Fay, a teacher consultant for the Greater Essex County District School Board, was presented with the 2007 Community Partner of the Year. Mr. Fay, a respected teacher for more than 30 years, led a team of teachers to develop a site-based curriculum for the island that is tightly linked to provincial education requirements and standards. The curriculum, first piloted in 2004, has allowed more than 6,000 students to participate in hands-on environmental study that is linked to classroom learning. His commitment to professional development allowed the Fighting Island CLL program to grow significantly and gain long-term quality and academic integrity. OPG Lambton Employees Celebrate Clean Air Day Canada Employees at OPG's Lambton Generation Station look at a site biodiversity display as part of their Clean Air Day celebration. |
Employees at Ontario Power Generation’s Lambton Generating Station paused from their chores on June 4, Environment Canada’s Clean Air Day, to clean up their site’s wildlife habitat and to learn about the company’s local environmental commitment. As part of the celebration, OPG Lambton donated $10,000 to support WHC’s bi-national Huron to Erie Waterways for Wildlife Project. Of the plant’s 400 employees, those who could be spared from immediate operations were invited to help remove wind-blown trash from the 238 acres of wildlife habitat on site. Afterwards, they were rewarded with lunch, updates on environmental activities, and photo exhibits of the wildlife and habitat program at the site Lambton Generating Station’s Wildlife at Work program was first certified by WHC in 1997. OPG is wholly owned by the Province of Ontario, whose government has pledged to discontinue coal-fired generation of electricity by 2014. As one of the cleanest coal-fired stations amongst more than 200 in its air shed, the Lambton plant is equipped with pollution abatement technology that reduces S02 and NOx emissions (contributing gases to acid rain and smog) by up to 98%. Further, as a means to reduce net green house gas emissions, all four of OPG’s coal-fired plants, including the Lambton Generating Station, are proceeding with biomass testing. Biomass is renewable or sustainable material comprised mainly of forest or agricultural by-products, such as wood pellets, wheat shorts and dried distiller’s grains. WHC’s Huron to Erie Waterways for Wildlife Project unites companies and conservationists in southeast Michigan and southwest Ontario to care for local ecosystems as part of an economically and environmentally sustainable landscape. The project focuses on protecting Great Lakes water quality through terrestrial management, and providing varied stop-over habitat for migratory birds.
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