A Lake Health Action Plan
In the fall of 2020 our lake association was invited to be a part of an extensive environmental project; one that would give us a chance to identify the causes of the overgrowth of weeds and blue-green algae blooms in our lakes and help develop a strategy to reduce them. Of the total budget for this project, $46000 was to be allocated to Dog, Cranberry and Colonel By Lakes. We were to contribute $6000 towards this total expenditure, by late January, 2021.
This project was coordinated by The Land Between, a provincial charitable conservation organization and supported by:
The Land Between applied for the majority of the funding for this project through a federal Climate Action and Awareness Fund (CAAF). These supporting organizations pledged significant financial/in-kind contributions of staff time and expertise, specialized equipment, access to data bases and grant money.
The involvement of Parks Canada and the CRCA, who govern changes along the Rideau Canal and its shorelines, would ensure that an action plan would be feasible and effective. The involvement of the DCLA would ensure that in-depth water quality research would be focused on our lakes, providing us with the science needed to develop an effective action plan for improving lake water quality.
Since the major grant application for this project was not successful, the money we raised for our part of this project is now being dedicated to similar efforts towards environmental improvement projects in and around our lakes.
Currently, these include:
Two programs fromWatersheds Canada:
1. Love Your Lakes which assesses the entire shoreline of a lake and provides every landowner with a confidential, personalized property report and recommended actions for improving lake health for people and wildlife habitat.
2 The Natural Edge guides landowners through the process of restoring a natural
A Queen’s University Graduate research project:
Ongoing research by Graduate students at Queen’s University.