Pine River Watershed
Manure production across Canada
Submitted by Ross Klopp on February 23, 2010 - 1:00amHere's a short but fascinating federal survey of manure use across Canada, with a chart showing which watersheds use how much manure (in tonnes per hectare).
Southern Ontario has six of the country's Top Ten manure-producing regions, including the top three, so we own the podium on that. The Penetangore, Saugeen and Maitland watersheds are all up there. The survey is from Stats Can, based on 2006 Census of Agriculture data, and published in December of 2008. Access is free, so it might be of interest to the whole Bruce Beach Cottagers' Association.
A geographical profile of livestock manure production in Canada, 2006
Tom Spears… continue reading »
Lake Huron e-news February 2010
Submitted by Geoff.Peach on February 3, 2010 - 5:28pm
Stepping Back
In our last issue, we introduced the term
"biodiversity", the diversity of living things in our
environment. In this issue we'll discuss biodiversity from a broad
lake-wide perspective, and how plant life in particular contributes to
the health of our lake environment.
When we observe environmental problems showing up at the beach,
like excessive algae washing ashore, or posted beaches due to high
bacteria, often these problems originate beyond the local beach area.
Some of these issues are compounded by the state of our watersheds.
The Lake Huron watershed covers roughly 134,000 square kilometres.
Since European settlement of the Lake Huron region, the watershed has
undergone significant changes, particularly south of the Bruce
Peninsula,
and along southern Georgian Bay. Forest cover, for instance, has been
reduced from an estimated pre-settlement extent of 90% to around
18%, and as low as 6% in some of Huron's river systems.
Tree Planting
Submitted by Ross Klopp on May 1, 2009 - 5:05pmSome of the Bruce Beach cottagers had indicated an interest in helping to do some tree planting along the Pine River as part of the PineRiver Watershed Improvement projects. I believe they were hoping to help in the summer while on vacation.
This is very short notice but I wanted to tell you that planting is in progress this week. Last fall, we had arranged with Saugeen Valley Conservation and 12 different land owners along the Pine River watershed to plant 68,000 trees. Understandably we can not plant this many trees by hand. Saugeen Valley Conservation people prefer to machine plant the trees if possible, then have professionals hand plant where necessary. However, they do appreciated help from groups such as 4H Club, Lions Club, cottagers, etc. As I said this is very short notice, because trees are ready and planting needs to be done early spring. We have arranged with Saugeen Valley Conservation people to have 4H and Lions groups to help this Saturday, May 2nd. If any cottagers wish to join in, they would be very welcome.… continue reading »
An experimental project could become costly for Huron-Kinloss Township residents
Submitted by Ross Klopp on March 18, 2009 - 11:20amA report from drainage superintendent Grant Collins to township council states that four nitrate filters, installed in the Pine River Watershed last fall, have been identified as water treatment systems and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) wants a Certificate of Approval attached to them. The cost would be $5,000 for each site. continue reading >>>
Bad report for Saugeen watersheds
Submitted by Ross Klopp on November 19, 2008 - 11:14pmWritten by James Morgan
Local watersheds are not in the best health. According to the Watershed Report Card from Saugeen Conservation, the surface water quality in Kincardine's Penetangore River gets a "C" grade, and forest cover levels only get a "D." The one bright spot is ground water quality, it gets an "A." The so-called "Lake Fringe" watershed along Lake Huron stretches from Kincardine to Southampton. Surface water there still gets a "C," the tree cover grade is slightly better, at "B."
Saugeen Conservation and Trees Ontario are offering a subsidy of 65 cents per tree to landowners who want to reforest their properties. Kincardine Councillor Ron Hewitt says more help is needed. He says farmers can't be expected to pay the full price and the province needs to cover more of the costs.
Hewitt says the Penetangore and Pine River watersheds are probably the two worst in Saugeen Conservation's territory. He says it's a frustrating situation to deal with but if the public isn't made aware, nothing can be done about it.
Saugeen Conservation Water Quality Specialist Martha Nicol says the lack of tree cover and wetlands in the watersheds are to blame for their poor condition.
Pine River Algae
Submitted by Ross Klopp on August 13, 2008 - 1:11pmShoreline Algae
Submitted by Ross Klopp on August 10, 2008 - 10:16am
Brian MacEachern has been composing
numerous letters to the council, etc. concerning
the algae in the lake, one of which follows. Anyone who wants to be included in
Brian's list of names on this correspondence should
contact him directly.… continue reading »
BBCA AGM Highlights
Submitted by Barry.McPherson on August 5, 2008 - 9:41am
For those members who were unable to attend the Annual General Meeting on
Saturday August 2, the following matters may be of interest.PCBA meeting
Submitted by Barry.McPherson on July 27, 2008 - 11:08am
The following comments by Geoff Peach at the Pt Clark AGM on
Saturday are worth sharing with BBCA members.… continue reading »
From my perspective, Huron-Kinloss is one of the more active municipalities along Lake Huron with respect to environmental issues. That being said, the point is that the Province and Feds are essentially invisible on lake issues. There are people attending meetings, but financial commitment to address local issues is absent. Some money is coming in from the federal EcoAction program, but it is onerous to manage, and a drop in the bucket in terms of what is needed. The Feds are spending more on the remediation of Lake Simcoe, than all of the Great Lakes combined. Why? Mainly politics and influential people in the Lake Simcoe area being squeaky wheels.
Pine River runoff along nearshore
Submitted by beachcomber on June 18, 2008 - 12:19pm
Attached is a letter John Welwood forwarded to the Huron-Kinloss Township, among others. The letter explains it all very well and perhaps deserves our individual follow-up with the appropriate offices. … continue reading »
