Meet Taina Nystén

Taina Nystén is a Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) in Helsinki. She is a specialist in groundwater contamination issues. I had the pleasure of meeting Taina at the Canadian Ambassador's Residence earlier this year, and just a few weeks ago we agreed to speak further about cooperation in her line of research between Canada and Finland.

S-K Seura: I noticed that you do research on ground water contamination. I read the most recent issue of Finnfacts, where in one article they stated that Finland and Canada ranked first and second in the world for water quality. How would you comment on that?

Taina Nystén: This ranking system is the so-called Water Poverty Index, which is as far as I know the first water index system created. Finland received a score of 78.0 and Canada scored only 0.3 points less than Finland. However, we should keep in mind that "the first countries in the world for water quality" still have a lot of things to do in order to improve water quality—the highest score would have been 100 points. In 2000 a well-known pollution case in Walkerton, Ontario revealed how important proactive protection and management of aquifers is for our groundwater and drinking water resources. The quality of water cannot be ignored and people should not die in any country because of the low hygiene of drinking water. However, this kind of pollution case could have also happened in other "developed" countries. (Ed's note: In 1999 the Town of Walkerton's water supply was contaminated with E-coli bacteria after heavy rains flushed it into the water supply. More than 2000 people became ill and seven people died as a result of the tragedy. An investigation into the incident revealed negligence on the part of the managers, who are expected to enter a guilty verdict for charges of public nuisance, uttering and forgery and breach of public duty in November 2004.)

S-K Seura: You mentioned that Canadian researchers are quite interested in Finnish studies on road salt. Are Canadians and Finns cooperating on any level as far a research goes? In other words, are SYKE and Environment Canada trading information with each other? Understandably Canada and Finland have a lot in common as far as the environment goes, so there must be a lot happening between the two countries that a lot of normal every day people wouldn't really be aware of?

Taina Nystén: In Finland in recent years, the annual amount of sodium chloride for de-icing on roads is between 80,000 to 100,000 tons and in Canada and the U.S.A. the amount is between 5 to 10 million tons. Collaboration with Canadians, but for some reason not with Americans, is pretty active in this field of study. A few years ago Environment Canada published its "Priority Substances List Assessment Report for Road Salt". The conclusion was that chloride salts have serious adverse impacts on the aquatic environment and are "toxic" as defined by the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. So far I have mostly cooperated with Canadian research scientists and we have talked about the fate and transport of de-icers in groundwater. However, I have also been invited to speak at the PNS Snow Conference in Kelowna, British Columbia, as well as in the Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario and I have talked about Finns' experiences in road salt issues and the effect of de-icers on groundwater quality.

S-K Seura: Is there a common path for Canada and Finland as far the future of the environment goes?

Taina Nystén: We have very similar environmental problems and conditions in both countries. Cooperation in this field between Canadian and Finnish experts is very useful for both parties. According to Dr Mikael Hilden, the research director of SYKE, our institute is very interested in finding new ways to improve co-operation with Canadian researchers.

S-K Seura: Have any fellow Canadian researchers come to Finland?

Taina Nystén: Our groundwater team has a research and development project on groundwater remediation using permeable reactive barrier (PRB) technology. Canadian EnviroMetal Technologies Inc. (ETI) has a patent for granular iron technology and for this particular topic we have been in contact with their specialists. Last spring Stephanie O'Hannesin was our guest and invited speaker at the informal seminar organized for our Finnish partners in the PRB project.

I have also had close connections to the University of Waterloo (UW), which is probably the most recognized institute in contaminated groundwater research. Over the last 10 years Professors David Rudolph and Ramon Aravena have been my guests several times, and while staying in Finland they have also given lectures in the department of geology at the University of Turku. About a year ago I was also very fortunate to have MASc Shayne Giles from UW working on our groundwater team for three months.

S-K Seura: You primarily deal with water issues, but do you know of any other studies that Finns are interested in in Canada and vice versa?

Taina Nystén: Among groundwater issues in SYKE we have strong interest in co-operation with Canadian counterparts. We have collaboration in numerous areas including: environmental policy; climate scenario development; water-shed management like water quality monitoring, boreal shield lake survey and river basin modeling; hydrological watershed models; remote sensing and space technology; toxic substances; and oil surveillance technology.

S-K Seura: How can we as individual people do our part to take care of our water environment? (i.e. reducing pollution, using less water?)

Taina Nystén: I think you already gave two answers by yourself. A very good common guideline is, "Think before you act" and this is also valid when we think about environmental issues. We should bear in mind the hydrological circle and wastes "out of sight" will not be "out of mind" forever.

By Carmen Boudreau-Kiviaho