About the Healthy Lake Huron – Clean Water, Clean Beaches Partnership
Visit the official website for the Healthy Lake Huron – Clean Water, Clean Beaches Partnership at this link:
To read about the Healthy Lake Huron Partnership (the Lake Huron Southeast Shores Initiative) visit this page:
We are all working together: all levels of government, local public health, local conservation, landowners, and community groups.
Since 2011 a team of dedicated environmental professionals has worked together with the public to coordinate actions to protect and improve overall water quality along the southeast shores of Lake Huron.
The Healthy Lake Huron – Clean Water, Clean Beaches partnership is a concerted effort to address shoreline water quality concerns such as nuisance algae and bacterial issues and to promote safe and clean beaches from Sarnia to Tobermory.
Water quality concerns along the Lake Huron shoreline have been ongoing for many years. This situation is caused by a combination of nutrient and bacterial pollution from sources such as poorly functioning private septic systems, municipal wastewater, runoff from urban and rural properties, and natural sources such as waterfowl. Canada and Ontario, in partnership with local municipal governments, local public health, conservation authorities, and other local organizations, are working to develop and implement recommendations for actions to deal with these concerns.
Through Healthy Lake Huron, all partners are focusing on actions that are aimed at lowering the amount of phosphorus and reducing incidences of high levels of bacteria (such as E. coli) entering the water.
In order to get this work started six key watersheds have been identified as priorities for immediate action (see list below).
Over the past several years a great deal of effort has gone into the implementation of watershed management plans developed for each of the five priority sites, including targeted actions such as tree planting or other erosion control projects. Long-term monitoring in each of these watersheds has also been underway since the project was initiated and the results from this monitoring are beginning to show a reduction in pollutants coming from these watersheds. Some of the work being done in each of these watersheds, that is making a positive change, can be seen by clicking on the links below.
These six priority areas are beacon areas, where we are learning with long-term monitoring and implementation and evaluation of best practices and projects. The lessons learned in these six sentinel watersheds can be applied to the benefit of other areas of Lake Huron’s southeast shoreline and across the Lake Huron – Georgian Bay Watershed.
The six priority areas are:
- Pine River
- Garvey-Glenn (Garvey Creek and Glenn Drain)
- Bayfield North (Including Gully Creek)
- Main Bayfield
- Lambton Shores (Tributaries in Lambton County)
- Six Streams Water Quality Initiative
Work continues under the Healthy Lake Huron partnership both in the priority watersheds, and throughout the region running between Sarnia and Tobermory.
For the latest news about Healthy Lake Huron please visit the news page of the official Healthy Lake Huron website.