Hawkesbury section chair Brent Ball with Donaldson MacLeod.
The Chemical Institute of Canada’s Hawkesbury CIC Local Section hosted a dinner and speaker this past January in Hawkesbury, Ont. on “Managing Highway Infrastructure in the Face of Climate Change.” Guest speaker Donaldson MacLeod, a civil engineer with more than 40 years experience in the design, construction and management of highway infrastructure, emphasized the need to base the design of highways on what conditions will be like 50 years in the future. Climate change is predicted to cause higher temperatures, more rainfall and more extreme weather. The effects will especially impact Canadian highways in the North, where many are built on permafrost. Although the technology exists to deal with climate change, more research is needed, MacLeod said.