Report card for Thames River

Cedar Creek certainly needs improvement in water quality.

Randy Richmond of The London Free Press, who often is the reporter on difficult court cases, this week covers the report card of the Thamers River.

One of the watersheds receiving a very low grade is the Cedar Creek, which runs through SouthwestOxford and Norwich townships before going through three golf courses just south of Woodstock before entering Southside Park. 

This is the second of two postings on this topic as Woodstock city council made its decision on Cedar Creek at a meeting held Nov 15.

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Thames River gets Cs and Ds

By Randy Richmond, The London Free Press (Sun Media)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

LONDON -- The class average remains so-so, but steady.

But some of the 28 classmates are improving, especially those getting help from friends.

The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority released its 2012 watershed report cards Thursday, the third summary in 11 years of the 28 watersheds it monitors.

Based on water-quality testing and forest conditions from 2006 to 2011, grades overall have stayed around C and D.

“Our results are showing improvement or conditions staying steady,” Karen Maaskant, the authority’s water-quality specialist, said.

“None have shown a decline over the past 10 years. And when we look at some of the population increase, sometimes staying steady is achieving something in some of these watersheds,”

The grades given to watersheds, which make up the area drained by the Thames, are actually grades given to the people who live in them.

“They tell us what is happening on the land,” Maaskant said.

The most improved watersheds are those being turned back to their natural state, often with the help of community groups planting trees or governments helping to make improvements on land and in the water.

“That is a positive. It tells us we can do something to make improvements,” Maaskant said.

“Watersheds where we have healthy stream corridors, where you still have natural meanders, good riparian (forest) cover — that’s key to improving water quality.”

The authority produced its first report cards in 2001, the second set in 2007.

The unique and extensive reports have helped prompt Ontario to create standardized grades and another 25 conservation authorities to release their reports in 2013.

WHAT THE REPORTS SAY

There’s a lot of science behind the grades, but the Upper Thames boils it down to easy-to-read grades and comments.

“It was a simply a better way of getting our scientific data out to the communities,” Maaskant says.

Besides individual watershed maps, there are regional maps of where trees were planted, clean water projects undertaken, where spills happened and monitoring was done.

WHAT’S NEW THIS TIME?

Among new wrinkles, there are maps of key areas where the region’s aquifer, and drinking water, is recharged and most vulnerable to contamination.

“We tried to include information that would be relevant to people — what’s of value and what should be protected in their watershed,” Maaskant said.

The new report cards also draw attention to the area’s many extreme weather events recently, from droughts in 2007 and 2012, to flooding in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

There’s no hard, long-term evidence of the fallout of such events, but testing this fall has shown signs of stress in microscopic aquatic life.

Also new are the positive and negative connections between the Thames River and lakes St. Clair and Erie.

The negative includes river sediment plumes, visible from air, that help create huge algae blooms in Erie that choke aquatic life and affect drinking water in cities.

The positive includes evidence that young brook trout are doing well enough in Komoka Creek, west of London, to make it downstream into central and eastern Erie.

THE BLEAK NEWS

There were almost twice as many spills into drains, creeks, streams and rivers, 670, reported from 2006 to 2011 as from 2001 to 2005, 386.

“We’re not sure if there are more eyes on the river and people are out there seeing spills and reporting them, or if there are actually more spills,” Maaskant said.

The authority now has better data on the spills and may take a closer look at them to see if there are trends that suggest ways to combat them, she says.

HOW WATERSHEDS ARE GRADED:

Surface water quality: Levels of phosphorous and E. coli bacteria and the health of benthic invertebrates, the tiny insects living in the water.

Forest conditions: Percentage of land wooded, of river corridor that’s wooded, that has forest interior (protected and thriving core of forest 100 metres from edge)

WATER QUALITY RESULTS

C – 12 watersheds.

D – 16 watersheds,

Poorest: Forks, Cedar Creek, Pottersburg, South Thames, Reynolds

Best: Middle Thames, Plover Mills, Waubuno Creek, Glengowan

Most improved: Waubuno and Middle Creek.

Also improved: Avon River, Dingman Creek, Stoney Creek.

FOREST CONDITIONS

Most watersheds remaining steady, marks ranging from C to F.

Poorest: North Mitchell, Whirl

Best: Dorchester, Trout, Komoka, River Bend

Slight decline: Stoney, Pottersburg (in urban London)

+ tree bauble

TREES ARE KEY

Forests moderate climate and water temperature, provide habitat, protect groundwater, prevent erosion.

5,481: Woodlots in the Thames watershed.

82%: Less than 10 hectares, too small for good cores.

506: Hectares in largest woodlot, in Ellice Swamp

228,000: Trees planted since 2007 on 264 parcels of private property

57,000: Trees planted since 2997 on 161 community sites, with help of 28,000 students and other volunteers

+ fish bauble

WATERSHED STRESSES

— 4% population increase 2006 to 2011, now 515,600

(Stoney Creek alone as 4,500 more people, up 39%).

— 177 dams and barriers (Medway Creek alone has 24)

— 77: Number of fish, mussel, replities species at risk

BIG WATER

4,440: Total length, in km, of all area’s watercourses.

35%: Watercourses natural.

65%: Watercourses buried or made into channels.

5%: Overall wetland coverage.

107: Number of significant wetlands.

+ Pipe-emptying-into-river bauble

SPILLS REPORTED

386: 2001 to 2005

670: 2006 to 2011, including fuel, industrial chemicals, sewage and manure

FIVE-YEAR PROGRESS

— Newly protected: 14 hectares at Meadowlily Woods near Dorchester, Kains Woods near River Bend, Five Points Woods Dreidger Trage

— Better water: Wastewater treatment plant upgrades in Dingman Creek, stormwater management improvements in Stratford

— 576 clean water projects (grants and loans to help rural landowners).

— 1,300 Gr. 12 students in new education program learning how to collect and use data

+ Tree bauble

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS

— Individual watersheds with community groups helping have some of the best grades.

— 8 have friends groups and have attracted $1 million in improvements.

— The Forks of the Thames likely next area to get support group.

— How important are they? In Stoney Creek, the population keeps growing but the watershed is maintaining its grades.

WHAT RIVER EXPERTS SAY

“I think we’re moving in the right direction. When you look at conditions in the 1970s, we’ve come a long way. Now we’ve plateaued a bit but we are moving to slow improvement.”

— Karen Maaskant, water quality specialist, Upper Thames

“It takes a long time to grow a forest. All the policies, steps taken to protect forests are working. We need to keep focusing on growing that forest cover.”

— Cathy Quinlan, terrestrial biologist, Upper Thames

“You look at a lot of other areas and they are bemoaning the fact things are always getting worse. We can see some improvement. It’s a pretty rich river system.”

— John Schwindt, aquatic biologist, Upper Thames

For more, visit www.thamesriver.on.ca