2017 Project Final Report
| Group | Shubenacadie Watershed Environmental Protection Society (SWEPS) |
PROJECT TITLE:
| 2017 SWEPS Streams Restoration and Water Quality Monitoring Project |
| Site List (All): | |
| Watercourse(s): | 1) Bennery Brook; 2) Laurie Park Brook |
| Watershed(s): | 1) Airport & Bennery Lake; 2) Kelly Rd. & Perkins Ponds |
| PART A: Project Brief Description: 300 words max describing this year’s project. Include habitat issues this project is addressing, restoration techniques used. |
| The 2017 SWEPS Adopt A Stream project included an additional digger log structure in Bennery Brook, the removal of debris and creation of pools in the Laurie Park brook and continuing to promote the stream remediation work in the community. The restoration work was to be substantially done by SWEPS volunteers with assistance from a Youth Conservation Corps. summer student. In the spring a house fire destroyed the home of Mr. Robert Perkins, chair of SWEPS Habitat subcommittee and the volunteer who would be leading the stream restoration efforts. As a result SWEPS did not complete the stream restoration portion of their project. SWEPS did have the YCC student work with Adopt A Stream personnel on further stream evaluations and he included Adopt A Stream in his community education programs. SWEPS also hosted Iain Rankin, Minister of Environment at an annual structural repair and cleanup of the 2014 Black Brook stream restoration project. The student, Levi Marshall, filed a report to SWEPS concerning his work this summer which included his involvement with Adopt A Stream. That portion of his report is included under the “Other Good Stuff” section of this report. |
PART B: Project Delivery (Overall project, not by watercourse)
PEOPLE POWER
| VOLUNTEERS | |
| Describe how volunteers contribute to your Adopt-A-Stream project and to your organization in general. | Volunteers organized and assisted in the Black Brook cleanup with the Minister of Environment. They also accompanied Adopt A Stream personnel and Levi Marshall when visiting and evaluating brooks in the watershed. |
| Number of People volunteering on all aspects of the project: | 4 |
| Total Volunteer Hours | 26 |
| Approximate breakdown of roles | |
| Management / Supervision: | 8 |
| Labour: | |
| Other: | 18 |
| PAID PERSONNEL | |
| Number of project workers: | 1 |
| Total Tally Weeks of work: | 69 hours |
| Start Date: | 17 May’17 |
| End Date: | 23 Aug’17 |
| Other Paid staff contributing to the project: | |
OTHER GOOD STUFF
| Please convey any other additional activities undertaken to support the project (education, promotion, population assessments etc.) even if not directly funded by NSLC Adopt A Stream. |
| Community Work Dates: July 6th, July 31st, August 11th, August 18th – Hike With Bob. – Community clean-up with the minister. – Site visits Kelsi from Adopt a Stream. – Site visits with Adopt-A-Stream, and Tom. Throughout the summer, I was also able to work directly in the community; I went on a hike with Bob Guscott, who brought me a walk through one of the SWEPS Trail Group’s newest trail in Fall River, called the Blue Coach Trail. He taught me about the work they do, and what types of obstacles that come into play when creating trails (i.e. laws and regulations, trees, wildlife, and large rocks). Bob also taught me about the variations of trees and plants that we have here in Nova Scotia and how to identify them. Community Clean Up: Black Brook Towards the end of July, SWEPS was asked to share some of their work we’ve been doing, to the Minister of the Environment, Iain Rankin. We organized a community clean-up event at Black Brook, which was promoted before and after by one of our local journalist, Pat Healey with The Laker News. A total of fifteen people attended the event, including the Clean Foundation team, Amy Weston and the Adopt-A-Stream team, the local M.L.A. Bill Horne (a member of SWEPS), Iain Rankin and his team, as well as three other SWEPS member. Our group assessed the brook and took out trash from the area and large rocks that disrupted the flow of the brook. This event lasted about two hours. Site visits with Adopt-A-Stream SWEPS worked closely with Adopt-A-Stream this summer to assess what work was to be done in the watershed.The first visit was with Adopt-A-Stream’s summer student, Kelsi Godin and myself; we went to some of SWEP’S previous water quality testing sites to see what work could be done for the following summer. We spent the day looking at Tillmann Brook, Holland Brook, Lake Fletcher, and Lake Kinsac. Findings: We had interesting finds in Tillmann Brook; there was a yellow cement pole sticking out of the outflow into the culvert starting the brook. There was also a fairly large tree on the verge of falling into the path of the outflow. Kelsi mentioned that there could also be work to the culvert itself, as the depth of the water coming through was fairly shallow and wide spread. Down further in the brook, passed the waterfall, there is a little stream, which seems to divide from the main channel. It appears as if someone had done some work to try and divert the water back into the main channel, by placing large logs on the banks in front of the stream. They have also placed a number of large rocks at the bottom of the little stream, which has resulted in a fairly large pool at the end – it was also noted that there was a small fish swimming in the pool. However, the logs are in pretty rough shape and could use some repair. On Perrin Drive, towards the end of the dirt road, there was also another culvert in very rough shape part of an unknown brook, where the bottom of it had been completely deteriorated, and there were a number of large rocks, which disrupted the flow of the water. In Holland brook, there were two spots of interest we visited, one being off of Holland Road, where there was a large cement culvert that had bars, which were bent up and rusted. A large amount of debris had been caught in the bars of this culvert, and the stream itself was pretty rocky. At another site, located on Holly Court, we noted that the site had large boulders placed on both the upstream and downstream sides of the brook, which created a large pool on the upstream side of the cement culvert. The pool has quickly filled up with algae, and is very stagnant. We also visited Rawdon River, which was located on a private road, and tried to access Lake Kinsac, however, most of it is blocked off and not easily accessible. Another meeting was conducted, and sites of interest were visited with Amy, Kelsi, Tom, and myself to determine what sites would be of interest to the SWEPS group, and what possible work could be done for the summer students next summer. We visited new brooks coming off of Kelly Lake, and some parts of Holland Brook. |
