Ever wondered about your water? TEST IT!
AWQA Day, June 5th, 2015
A hands-on approach to increasing water quality awareness in Alberta
Have you ever wondered about the quality of water in your local stream or wetland?
You can have the opportunity to learn more about your local waterways by engaging in the Alberta Water Quality Awareness (AWQA) program in 2015. On June 5th we will kick-off our program for the 2015 year!
Alberta Water Quality Awareness (AWQA) aims to increase people's awareness about the health and value of water in Alberta, through hands-on water quality testing. Participants in the program are provided with a free water quality test kit.
![21 September, 2013 02-51-02 PM](http://alms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/21-September-2013-02-51-02-PM-300x199.jpg)
This easy-to-use kit includes all of the materials needed to analyze four basic water quality parameters: temperature, pH, turbidity and dissolved oxygen. These basic measures of water quality have important implications for fish and wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation, and human health.
Albertans were last able to get their 'feet wet' in 2012, during Alberta's fifth AWQA event. The program was a huge success, with nearly 2000 people, from across the province, actively testing water in their communities. Families, individuals, schools, watershed groups, rural landowners, and community and youth groups all participated in the program.
Together these groups collected and tested water samples from over 200 different locations, covering all seven of the major watersheds in Alberta. These results were compiled to create a 'snapshot' of water quality in the province.
Results from past years can be viewed at www.awqa.ca
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Everyone is invited to participate in AWQA 2015. Interested parties can order their free water quality test kit online at www.awqa.ca.
Kits can be ordered as a single, teacher kit package, as well as a special order for those with larger groups of students. AWQA kits will be shipped around mid-May and water quality testing can be done anytime between June 1st and August 31st. A single kit can be used ten times to test any stream, lake, river, wetland, dugout, community pond, reservoir, slough or other surface waterbody in Alberta. It is crucial to the success of this program for the data to be uploaded after collection, don't miss out on this great opportunity to get involved in the outdoors and water education.
![awqa_en_2062_Jessica_180](http://alms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/awqa_en_2062_Jessica_180.jpg)
AWQA Day is a program of the Alberta Lake Management Society in partnership with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, and Alberta Tomorrow.AWQA Day is made possible through the generous support of our sponsor EPCOR.
For more information on Alberta Water Quality Awareness please visit www.awqa.ca.
Or contact:
info@alms.ca
(780) 415-9785
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Time to say goodbye...
Editor's Note: Yes, it's time to say goodbye to Leta Pezderic as she moves on in her career to take up a new role. Read all about it here—and please do get in touch with her—leta@oldmanbasin.org or @LetaPez to wish her all the best of luck). Farewell and best of luck to Leta!
To celebrate Leta's time with the OWC, thank her for her contributions and provide an opportunity to say farewell and best wishes, there is an informal, come & go celebration at The Owl Acoustic Lounge (411- 3 Avenue South) on Friday, April 24 from 4-6 PM. Please join us!
Please join us in wishing Leta all the best as she leaves OWC to pursue a career with Nature Conservancy of Canada! We will miss her easy smile and caring personality. She has been a trusted representative and friendly face for the OWC over the last 6 years, responsible for building many of the strong relationships we have with partners and volunteers. Leta started with the OWC as an Executive Assistant but quickly recognized the need for a Program Coordinator to work with partners on projects and morphed into that role easily with her strength as a relationship builder. Over the years she has developed many new projects and events, always putting her all into every task. Recently she has been championing new directions for OWC to improve volunteer engagement, youth connections, and program effectiveness. Leta's commitment to quality is unwavering and has been a big part of the OWC's reputation for engaging and inspiring events.
Leta has made many friends during her time at OWC and we are fortunate to know her and look forward to a continued relationship with her in her new role. We greatly appreciate all her hard work and dedication and wish her all the best!
A message from Leta
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye...
Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you!
Well, I can't believe it's been over 6 years since starting with the OWC—where has the time gone?! I think back to when I started when it was just Stephanie Palechek and myself—the OWC was up to their eyeballs in the State of the Watershed Report, the Rural Team was just pitching the idea of a Watershed Legacy Program, the Watershed Science Team was about to host its first Watershed Science Forum and the Urban Team was just launching the Prairie Urban Garden project! Now as the OWC celebrates its 10-year anniversary, I can hardly believe how far we've come! I am so proud to have been a part of it!
An opportunity has presented itself to me and I've decided to take it. I have accepted a position working with the Nature Conservancy of Canada as the Natural Area Manager for Southeast Alberta! However, it is with mixed emotions that I leave the OWC—there are so many things I will miss. Most of all though, it will be the people—the dedicated and talented staff, the passionate working Teams, and the strong, supportive Board of Directors—it is through this amazing community of people that the hard work gets accomplished!
I've been so fortunate to spend my days with so many inspiring people throughout the watershed who have taught me so much about our spectacular basin and for that I am truly grateful!
Thank you and of course, let's stay in touch! (pezderic@gmail.com)
Leta
How Naapi Helped the OWC Find a Face in time for World Water Day
OWC is hiring! - PLEASE SHARE!
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Native fish – our very own aquatic ‘canaries in a coal mine’
Beyond Seeing Red
OWC February 2015 E-Newsletter
OWC's Planning Manager Connie Simmons on ... PLANS ... & ACTION!!!
![The Nature Conservancy of Canada's 10th annual Eat and Greet at the Twin Butte Community Hall was chock full of information about the area's watersheds on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Representatives from the Oldman Watershed Council, Cows and Fish and the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association spoke to the crowd. From left to right: Jenel Bode, Anne Stevick, Connie Simmons, Jen Jenkins, Tony Bruder, Wonnita Andrus, Kristi Stebanuk and Lorne Fitch. John Stoesser photo/QMI Agency.](http://storage.pinchercreekecho.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1297663126751_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=650x&stmp=1423685124237)
Important OWC Membership Renewal Notice
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Kelsey - A Young Voice for the Oldman: What about the Winter Watershed?
OWC January 2015 E-Newsletter
Linear Features in the Oldman Watershed – Risk and Necessity
(Editor's note: OWC's Planning Manager, Connie Simmons, weighs in about a little understood aspect of watershed management and health. As always, we welcome your comments and your submissions as guest bloggers!)
What do linear features – that is all roads, seismic lines, powerlines, pipelines, railroads, cut lines, and recreation trails - have to do with a healthy watershed?
Well, in a nutshell, too many of these
linear features
(LF) - where they are placed, and how are they are used - can be a
risk to watershed health. And a risk to watershed health is a risk to our water quality, quantity and continued health of ecosystems that support us all.
All that water coming out of the sky in the form of rain or snow eventually runs over the watershed lands, along ditches, through culverts, on and through clear-cuts, quad trails, roads and power-line right of ways – and flows into the Oldman River system. Depending on how and where they are developed and the way they are used, LF proliferation is shown to have adverse impacts on water hydrology - affecting ground water re-charge and surface run-off, erosion and sedimentation in streams, impacts on aquatic ecosystem health (fish and benthic invertebrates (water bugs) and extra cost to public water utilities to address water quality needs for our growing communities.
Necessity
We Albertans have been very busy with building communities, and infrastructure that supports the people who live, work and play in this region of Alberta. All of this development has depended on the building and maintaining of linear features.
For every need to develop these LF, we have constructed and used these features without too much thought on how all of this cumulatively impacts the foundation of a healthy functioning watershed. While this development was accepted as a necessity for economic, social and cultural well-being, scientific assessments and the concerns of the local communities have flagged the proliferation of LF and intensity/type of their use as a problem.
This has raised the need to do something about this growing concern for watershed health, particularly in the
headwaters
area of the Oldman River system.
Risk
The headwaters of the Oldman watershed provide approximately 90% of the water for the Oldman River – it is a critical water tower for southwestern Alberta.
Linear feature proliferation has been evaluated in the headwaters region, and 77% of the sub-watersheds in the headwaters are at moderate to high risk and pressure from this kind of development.
See the Headwaters Indicator Report.
Oldman headwaters area with all linear features (ESRD 2012 data)
The OWC completed the Headwaters Action Plan 2013-14 (HAP) in early 2014. The HAP was developed by the multi-stakeholder Partnership Advisory Network, and revised and completed after a thorough public review process.
The plan addresses the need to properly manage the increase and use of LF, and rollback and reclaim LF where there is moderate to high risk to water and watershed health.
The HAP is a good start, but it is only a plan. We need to
ACT
on it.
(For more information see the ‘What We Heard’ public review of the HAP at:
http://oldmanbasin.org/files/1613/9757/4313/Headwaters_What_we_Heard_Report_web.pdf
The
Headwaters Action Plan Summary Report
will soon on the website. If you would like a PDF of the report, please email
The OWC’s Headwaters Action Plan provided recommendations and advice to the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP), and to an important sub-initiative of the SSRP - the Linear Footprint Management Plan (LFMP).
Currently, the LFMP is integrating multiple data and information sources to analyze, plan and eventually implement actions that address LF proliferation in the Oldman headwaters and elsewhere in the SSRP region.
The OWC’s
Headwaters Action Team
is keen to understand, and where possible assist with this important work as it is a key priority of the Headwaters Action Plan – and we have made progress with this endeavor by recent completion of the
‘Linear Features Classification’ project
in the
Dutch Creek sub-watershed in the Oldman headwaters.
Historically, Dutch Creek has been mined, logged, grazed and has multiple LF to attest to this history. The majority of LF continue to be used for other purposes than their original use, and the intensity and type of this use needs to be managed to safeguard key water/watershed values.
Dutch Creek Watershed Linear Features Classification Project – December 2014
Risk to watershed health by linear feature proliferation in the Dutch Creek sub-watershed is indicative of what is going on most of the Oldman headwaters.
It is a sobering thought. The risk to water and watershed health that supports all who live and work downstream needs careful attention, and that includes education and social willingness to address the issues that go along with the proliferation and intensity of use of linear features.
Trade-offs
It is hard for Albertans to seriously consider trade-offs when it comes to protecting and/or using resource rich areas. The iconic wild west has been a place of opportunity, and we have taken advantage of resource richness for over a century.
However, as we reach limits to how much can be done on the landscape without compromising future opportunities and losing or negatively impacting important headwaters values (water quality; water quantity, species at risk for instance) we need greater wisdom and community understanding of how we work and play in this unique and special place. Is water and watershed health important?
The OWC has heard a resounding “YES” to this question. It is kind of a no-brainer.
However, the hard work isn’t done through just talking and planning, it is done by carefully assessing and then
putting into action
what we need to do to sustain our human and non-human communities within ecological limits. That is increasingly difficult with rising resource demands from increasing human populations, but we can do it if we tackle the tough questions now – not later.
What to do about Linear Features?
The OWC’s Headwaters Action Team has completed the Dutch Creek Linear Features Classification Project, and provided this information to GOA planners who are working on the Linear Footprint Management Plan.
This information will also be considered in the SSRP’s
Recreation Management Plan
– a process by which the Government of Alberta will be able to provide solid recreation options for Albertans, but also address the need for safeguarding ecological values and functions in the headwaters.
The Recreation Management Plan will address the need for designated trail systems and camping areas, and will need to have public and user buy-In and understanding to be implemented properly.
That is why the OWC’s Headwaters Action Team is now working towards bringing the science and social need (we all live downstream!) for water and watershed health to Dutch Creek this summer
.
Our first step will be to work on awareness and education programs with stakeholders and user groups around the need to reclaim some problematic linear features, and to encourage greater awareness of impacts of use on water and watershed values.
With greater understanding, we expect some measure of behavior change will be a result –
that people will voluntarily stick to designated trails and camping areas, avoid wet areas and riparian zones, use bridges over streams, and that this change in behavior will become the norm.
Some have told us we are dreamin’, that this is a big ask, but we have to start somewhere!
So what can
you
do?
If you are recreationist or other user of the headwaters area – for whatever purpose, the big ask is to understand why better linear feature management is needed, and to support and adhere to designated trail and access management outcomes of the SSRP.
It would also help if reclamation and restoration work on linear features is respected and supported by not undoing this good work through carelessness or worse, willful destruction.
Both of these attitude or behavior problems are counter-productive for sustainable water/watershed values that we need now and into the future.
We all think it is the
other
s who are responsible for these issues, but reality is – we are
all responsible
and we
all need
to take action!
Avoid the muck! Help stop erosion and loss of ecologically important wet areas!
Through the Dutch Creek Pilot Project, the Headwaters Action Team hopes to have a success story that can be used as inspiration and a guide for community and watershed stewardship groups and stakeholders to address linear feature impacts in other problematic sub-watersheds in the Oldman Headwaters, and indeed, in the Eastern Slopes region of Alberta.
We have a lot to do, but the idea is timely and needed, people and stakeholders are committed to this challenge, and partnerships are working towards achieving this worthwhile outcome.
If you feel this effort is worth supporting,
please donate to the OWC for this important work for the headwaters!
(OWC is a registered charitable organization - all donations are provided a tax receipt).
Please visit: www.oldmanbasin.org to make your donation go to work for the watershed!
Connie Simmons
Planning Manager
100, 5401 – 1
st
Avenue South
Lethbridge, AB. T1J 4V6
Work: 403-627-1736
Cell: 780-816-0654
Web:
Blog:
http://oldmanwatershed.blogspot.ca/
Twitter:
Star Creek
(Editor's Note: Canfor has shut down road and bridge building crews until they get clarification from the Government of Alberta. The Crowsnest Pass Herald article has more details:
http://passherald.ca/archives/150121/index4.htm).
The view looks south into the headwaters of Giardi Creek, and toward the flanks of the Flathead Range.
Here are a couple of links to the latest controversy in the Oldman Watershed — the logging operation currently being conducted this winter in the Star Creek watershed. The actual logging area is small (see below) but it takes place in an important and endangered fish habitat area.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/controversial-logging-project-near-crowsnest-goes-ahead
http://lethbridgeherald.com/news/local-news/2015/01/14/logging-project-raises-concerns/
AERSD has assured the public that all the requirements applying to timber harvesting are and will be respected and all the safeguards to protect fish and wildlife under the Species at Risk Act will be observed.
A breach in the Star Creek haul road's meager berm allows muddy water to flow down into Giardi Creek, about 20 meters distant.
However, the Lethbridge Herald article refers to reports that some transgressions have already occurred. Can anybody with first-hand knowledge of what is actually going on?
Furthermore, for the next full week, January 19 - January 23, 2015, the forecast is calling for above freezing temperatures in the Crowsnest. Timber harvesting regulations call for activities to be suspended if the ground is soft and vulnerable to damage from forestry equipment. Does anybody know if there are plans to halt logging operations this coming week?
Elspeth Nickle
Lethbridge
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What is a Watershed? ...or: Cutting up the Landcape
OWC conducted a survey that asked the public some general knowledge questions about our shared watershed. What we found is that this knowledge isn’t general at all. 9 people out of 10 could neither define the term watershed nor understand its relationship to their environments.
Thank you - and happy holidays!
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Top 5 Ways to Reduce Waste During the Holidays
OWC November 2014 E-Newsletter
Here's what I can't believe!
(Editors note: Thank you to Kelly Hall for this guest blog...
We welcome submissions to our blog from throughout the watershed - get in touch - what's your perspective?)
I can hardly believe that the end of 2014 is fast approaching!
Kelly Hall posing with a "gem" of the foothills - Alberta's endangered Limber Pine (
Pinus flexilis
) as designated under Alberta's Wildlife Act
Two Thousand and Fourteen has been an amazing year for The Timber Ridge Conservation Site. A year of many firsts and certainly a great deal of hope for the future. It all started on January 1 with a beautiful winter wedding, pictures on the cabin steps with the snow covered ridge as the background. The deepest, longest, coldest winter in many years had us more than ready for spring vegetation!
Our free flowing thermal springs have continued to amaze us. For the first time in our history we have seen flow increase in the fall, specifically after the eighteen inches of heavy wet snow on September 8 and then again November 2. The trout in the pond are pink, tasty, and happy in the beautiful, cold, clear water! Our many visitors can attest to that, especially the ones that had to use a net to bring in their catch.
Some of the natural changes are becoming more apparent. The old growth aspens are coming down and new meadows are alive with diversity. We've seen more Parry Oat Grass , more grouse and the newly protected wetland has responded well! The wildlife sightings on the property continue to grow, including a first for us this year - Elk not far from the cabin deck.
Timber Ridge has acquired many new friends this past year - we've now collected hair on Bear Rub Trees, began the process of collecting any and all bugs, Botanists have identified even more species, students have planted Limber Pine seedlings and we continue to collect some amazing pictures thanks to the pin hole and trail cameras. A pair of chipmunks have now called the cabin deck home and the competition at the bird feeders is increasing and really quite entertaining.
Glen Hall, standing on a blast mat (recycled tires) which surround his motion-sensored, solar powered, off-stream watering system - a Beneficial Management Practice helped put in place by the OWC's Watershed Legacy Program
Timber Ridge is living proof that it does take a collaborative effort to manage our watershed. Our best day yet was Celebrating Collaboration on September 18, 2014. We have to say thank you to all of our partners for years of knowledge, assistance, financial support and for joining us on the tour! A special thank you goes to Leta Pezderic (OWC) and Brad Taylor (ACA) for all their help planning for the day. We were so pleased to be part of the OWC's film project and believe the message within is so very important.
Timber Ridge is a treasure that we will continue to learn about and want to share with others. The cabin continues to be a wonderful venue for inspiring conversation, renewing friendships and gathering allies as we strive to leave our legacy. We've now checked off an item on our "bucket list" - bringing our partners together at that special place. September 18 would have been my Mom's birthday - she was our first partner!
Kelly Hall,
Landowner, Timber Ridge Conservation Site
Provincial Fisheries Regulations Revision- Stakeholder Consultation
Indicator species: Westslope Cutthroat Trout - species at risk |
- Sections specific to commercial fishing (Sections 20, 21, 53 and Schedule 1 for General Fisheries (Alberta) Regulation and Schedule 1 Items 2(a), (b) and (c) of the Fisheries (Ministerial) Regulation.
- Quotas, tolerances, zoning and gear restrictions for domestically and commercially fished waters.
- Routine changes to the Alberta Guide to Sportfishing Regulations which includes water specific catch limits, size restrictions, use of bait and season for sport fish species.