Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 15, Number 6 • Spring 2007
Grassroots Profile
This Eastern Ontario River Has Friends: Connecting a
Community to Its Watershed without a Crisis
By Gray Merriam, Susan Moore, and Steve Pitt
The Friends of the Salmon River (FSR) is a volunteer group
formed in 2004 to care for the Salmon watershed by gathering,
producing, and dispensing knowledge in educational projects for
users of the watershed. There was no major crisis. We hoped
that by informing users, their attachment to the land would be
strengthened, their stewardship would be more effective, and
crises would be avoided. A major project was the publication of
a book, The Salmon River Watershed: Jewel of Eastern Ontario.
This book combines existing information with new knowledge
from a basic assessment of the watershed accomplished by the
local Stewardship Councils with support from FSR. The work was
funded from the Canada-Ontario Agreement that supported
cleanup of the Bay of Quinte Area of Concern.
There are Salmon Rivers in several U.S. states and at least three
Canadian provinces. This particular Salmon River flows south for
about 150 kilometers off the Precambrian (Canadian) Shield,
down across the Ordovician limestone plain, and into Lake
Ontario at the Bay of Quinte.
The Salmon River assessment produced a report, The Salmon
River Habitat Strategy, in 2005. The 18-month project followed
guidelines published by Environment Canada (How Much
Habitat is Enough, 2004). Comprehensive measurements
included: quantity and quality of several types of habitats, and
natural vegetation, these variables were compared to values
recommended by Environment Canada for the entire watershed
and separately for the northern portion on the Canadian Shield
and the southern portion on the limestone plain. In addition,
with help from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, fish
were inventoried along the river and in some of the 53 named
lakes in the watershed.Water chemistry was analyzed along the
river by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) and in
the lakes by FSR by way of the Lake Partners Program of MOE.
Three public meetings were hosted by FSR and the local
Stewardship Councils to report results to the residents and the
users of the watershed. There was still no crisis to announce;
instead our challenge was getting everyone fired up to look after
a watershed that was basically healthy.
Using all this information, sites that could be effectively
targeted for restoration projects were selected. These were
mainly riparian vegetation restorations in the southern limestone
area of the watershed. On-the-ground, follow-up projects
included no-obligation, no-cost land stewardship plans for private
landowners, discounted supplies of seedling trees and
shrubs, how-to workshops, and help in planting. Over 20 owners
have received professional stewardship plans for parcels ranging
up to a few hundred hectares (x2.5 for acres).Many thousands of
trees and wildlife shrubs have been distributed.
Other spin-offs have included: information signs for lake users;
cooperative projects with volunteer lake associations to improve
fish habitat and provide habitat to compensate for construction
losses; and a pilot project to improve cooperative lake
stewardship by volunteer associations and the watershed
Conservation Authority.
A station for benthic faunal survey of unimpacted headwaters
has been established to provide baseline data into the future,
and a network of precipitation gauges with online data input
has been developed.
FSR has mounted several watershed education projects
including classroom visits by trained educators to two grade
levels in all elementary schools in the watershed, a Public Lecture
Series, an annual public bus tour of the watershed, and articles
in several print media.We have provided information sessions to
all conservation agencies working in the watershed. Currently,
we are giving information presentations to seven Municipal
Councils in the watershed and to service clubs in towns outside
the watershed that are sources of visitors.
The best news is that the Salmon River watershed still provides
favourable habitat for otter, mink, and pileated woodpeckers
over most of its length; for moose and black bear in many
places; for a full diversity of amphibians; for human users, too.
The Salmon River watershed will continue to make healthy
contributions to the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario.
For more information, please contact
The Friends of the Salmon River
at merriam@xplornet.com.
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