Love Your Lake Shoreline Assessment Update – Fall 2016
The Kennisis Lake Cottage Owner’s Association (KLCOA), working with the Coalition of Haliburton Property Owners’ Associations (CHA), participated in the “Love Your Lake” (LYL) Shoreline Assessment Program in May and June of this year. The project included an evaluation of the natural state of the shorelines around our Lakes which was completed in boats from the water. On the Kennisis Lakes, 1150 properties were in assessed, the largest LYL project in 2016. In all, approximately 4500 properties on 28 lakes were assessed in Haliburton as part of the overall Love Your Lake initiative this year. This is the largest project of its kind in Canada.
The outcome of the project will be an overall assessment of the natural state of our shorelines on the Kennisis Lakes. This report will be available in the fall of 2016 and it will be posted on the KLCOA website. The report will provide us with a measure of the amount of natural shoreline as well as the amount of regenerative shoreline on our lakes. The benchmark for maintain a healthy lake and good water quality is having 75% natural vegetation in the area 100 feet (30m) back from the shoreline.
In addition to the overall assessment, individual shoreline assessment reports will be provided to all Kennisis property owners. These reports will be available in the spring of 2017 in time for the cottage season. These reports are confidential and are being compiled by Watersheds Canada. The reports will be available to residents by downloading their copy from the Love Your Lake website. You will be notified by mail or email with a confidential code to access your report.
Sample reports are available for download at the link below.
Please note that this project is non-regulatory and the site-specific information for individual properties will not be shared with any government or regulatory agency. The overview report however will be available for distribution and will be shared with the Kennisis community.
Over the full four-year term of the project, over 12000 waterfront properties will be classified and provide member associations with an aggregate view of the health of shorelines around each of their lakes and across all of Haliburton County.
Many thanks to Shelby Erwin and Shannon Millar, the Trent University Environmental Science students who completed the assessments. Also, many thanks to Tom Whillans, Trent Professor and the LYL staff who provided the training to the Trent students here on Kennisis Lake before the assessments in May.
A huge thank you to the many Kennisis volunteers who, operated boats for the assessments and Trent training, hosted the student assessors in their cottages, helped to sort out data and maps and provided boats for the assessments.
Also, many thanks to the residents of our Kennisis Lakes for participating in this important project.
The following LYL Sample Shoreline Assessment Reports are available for your review:
Sample Report #1 – Kushog Lake
Sample Report #2 – Kushog Lake
The success of the Love Your Lake Shoreline Assessment in Haliburton County was reported in the Haliburton Echo. You can read the article here:
http://www.haliburtonecho.ca/secondary_id/1015?id=876