ES&E Magazine celebrates 35 years of publishing

The year 2023 is indeed a milestone year. It marks Environmental Science & Engineering Magazine’s 35th birthday and 130 years of environmental journalism in Canada. It also marks the 40th anniversary of a research project I did to commemorate Water & Pollution Control Magazine’s (W&PC) 90th birthday in 1983.

W&PC’s origins began 130 years ago, when it was launched as The Canadian Engineer. W&PC had been a respected publication which had several name changes over its lifespan after it began as a general magazine serving professional engineers. But, even in its early days, the publication W&PC had a profound interest in environmental engineering. Some of the early environmental engineering giants were featured in W&PC and it would be salutary to many environmental groups to know that vigorous environmental concerns and remediation had taken place as early as the 1800s.

Many things are conceived at parties and, appropriately, it was at a publishing event that my father Tom Davey and I attended in 1987 that the idea of a new water, wastewater and environmental protection magazine was raised by a friend.

“Why don’t you launch your own magazine?” he enquired. He knew that both of us had had been editors of W&PC, and that at the time the Davey family worked closely with both the Water Environment Association of Ontario and the Ontario Water Works Association.

It seemed like a good idea and during the first Great Canadian Icebreaker reception at WEFTEC’87 in Philadelphia, we formally announced the launch of Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine. The reaction was most favourable.

The first issue rolled off the press in February 1988 and was immediately embraced by the industry. The first editorial comment by Tom Davey was titled: “Why low-bid systems are bad for the Canadian environment”, a theme that touched a nerve in both consultants and suppliers. This issue also carried an article by Federal Environment Minister Tom

McMillan, which echoed the magazine’s stance on underpriced drinking water.

The first issue also carried an article by Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley about the Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement (MISA) program. The objective was the virtual elimination of persistent toxic substances entering the environment. It called for strict monitoring and testing programs and resulted in a surge of spending in the environmental industry. Unfortunately, government emphasis on the MISA program was short-lived, when the Liberal Party lost to the New Democrats, in the 1990 election.

The fearsome “hole in the ozone layer”, caused largely by chlorofluorocarbons emissions, dominated the news in the 1980s. ES&E published several articles on methods to recapture CFCs, including some from Dusanka Filipovic, P.Eng., who played an active role in the development of an innovative technology to recapture CFCs from refrigeration and air conditioning equipment when serviced or decommissioned. The ozone layer, which once dominated media coverage, is no longer as newsworthy, since its recovery seems to be well underway.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude towards water mains and sewer lines resulted in gross neglect of cleaning, repairing and replacing this infrastructure. In 2001, this attitude changed when eight people died and some 2,000 were made seriously ill from E.coli 0157 contamination in Walkerton, Ontario’s drinking water supply.

When we launched ES&E in 1988, our goal was to make it a voice for Canada’s water, wastewater and environmental protection professionals. Since then, ES&E staff have been extensively involved with, and have won awards from, the Water Environment Federation, the American Water Works Association, Environment Canada, the Water Environment Association of Ontario, and the Canadian Business Press.

Recently, my three-year-old grandson Westley went on a tour of the Duffin Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Pickering, Ontario, with his dad Peter, who is our managing and online editor. I found it very fitting that 35 years after my father and I founded ES&E Magazine, a fourth generation Davey has now been exposed to the importance of an industry that has been part of our lives for so long.

Steve Davey is the editor and publisher of ES&E Magazine. Please email any comments you may have to steve@esemag.com