Along with going over the highlights for the past year and their plans for 2020, the Lakeland Industry and Community Association (LICA) also touched on an issue that’s on people’s minds.
“Everyone’s interested in algae blooms because it’s a blooming issue,” noted Erin Ritchie, LICA’s manager of environmental programs during their annual general meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 9. “When algae blooms occur it usually has to deal with excess nutrients in the water, which comes from local run off.”
While the different samples LICA collected over the summer from local lakes detected levels of bacteria, none of them were high enough to warrant a health advisory.
“We all know Moose Lake definitely reached that at some point during the summer. (Our data) only represents the days the lakes were sampled. The days those samples were taken, there was no advisory. That’s why we have Alberta Health Services (AHS) sample different recreation areas much more frequently to make sure that the public is nice and safe when they recreate in our water,” Ritchie detailed.
When it came to phosphorous levels, which are some of the factors that can contribute to algae blooms, Jessie Lake had the highest. LICA is trying to address those numbers through the Jessie Lake Restoration Project.
“In 2018, we did some riparian planting along Jessie Lake to restore healthy riparian area. We’ve also done our second shoreline clean up and weed pull, which preps the riparian area for planting, and maintains it,” Ritchie explained. “Unfortunately, due to the government change, we’ve had a delay in our funds and we weren’t able to do any big projects with Jessie Lake this year, but we’re eager and ready to get started once our funding does come in for summer 2020.”
A new aspect LICA is starting is the Integrated Watershed Management Plan, which will identify goals for improving and maintaining the health of the Beaver River Watershed.
“The very first step in this process is hearing from our stakeholders in our community about what are the common concerns, and we’re going to be hosting various forums throughout the Beaver River Watershed in the upcoming year,” said Ritchie.
She stressed the importance of involvement from residents.
“The health of our watershed is a shared responsibility, and feedback on the ways we can collectively improve our watershed will be directly fed into that identity we’re going to keep.”
Monitoring the local wetlands wasn’t the only project that kept LICA busy last year. They made 103 classroom presentations to students from kindergarten to Grade 12, among other activities.
Lisa Gander, education and outreach coordinator for LICA, believes one of the most impactful programs they offer is the Stream of Dreams.
“The whole school learns about the impact of storm drains and storm drain run off on our watershed and the animals that live within it,” she said. “The students listen to a story about 5,000 fish that were killed in a stream because someone introduced toxins unknowingly into the storm drain, and after that they paint a fish to remember where our storm drains lead to. Those fish are then mounted on a school fence to remind the community of our storm drains and it creates a lasting community legacy.”
Duclos School, Notre Dame Elementary, and St. Dominic Elementary School have completed the program already, with Ardmore School participating in the spring.
Another popular program LICA holds is Little Green Thumbs, where younger students grow an indoor garden in their classroom to learn about plants and how food is grown.
“At the end of the year, we have a saladbration where we come in, harvest all the crops, and then enjoy salads with the students. You’ve never seen them enjoy vegetables as much as when they’ve grown them themselves, and they eat so many vegetables,” Gander expressed.
LICA has expanded the endeavour from three schools to six this year. École des Beaux-Lacs, Ardmore School, Iron River School, St. Dominic, and Art Smith Aviation Academy will be pulling on their gloves and digging in.
X-Stream Science, the Clean Air Responsible Schools, and two Air Quality Health Index Lanterns located in Bonnyville at the C2 and in Cold Lake at the Energy Centre are among the other projects LICA completed in 2018.
