David Gough’s interest in environmental issues started when he was young. Growing up near the St. Clair River, he would spend his summer days swimming, fishing and hanging out near the water.
As a rookie journalist his curiosity of environmental issues was awakened when he found out that on warm sunny days he could get away from his desk at the newspaper office and spend some time in the great outdoors admiring things like waterways, plants and wildlife, while getting paid for it.
The environment is one of the 1,124 beats that David covers for the Wallaceburg Courier Press. In his seven years of covering the environment, he has seen a lamprey get sterilized, a tornado, a snapping turtle as big as a small car, heard doves cry and has volunteered to have his blood drawn to see what type of toxic soup lurks in the body of someone who has swam in the St. Clair River every year of his life.
David attended Michigan State University’s Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institute in 2007. After teaming up with reporters from across the Great Lakes and discussing the challenges of covering some of the most complex and important issues facing the region, the seeds of an environmental blog was sown.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle this blog is a forum to highlight Southwestern Ontario environmental issues. Hopefully every once in a while the blog is able to give readers a small smile while reading about topics that are usually as serious as a heart attack.