// by Karen Ott// Leave a Comment
The President’s Year in Review
Looking back on 2022, there is a common thread of personal action and commitment as we continue to foster our “One Lake, One Community, One Environment” approach to protecting beautiful Lake Louisa.
Please know that your personal action and support has helped create a ripple effect and has guided inquiries, made to both Wentworth and Wentworth North (W-N), on several key environmentally focused dossiers. These include watercraft access and boat washing, shoreline protection and restoration, impact of possible multi-unit development plans in (W-N), water testing and invasive species.
While work continues in all dossiers, we do have a few updates.
1) Caron Bay – Restoration and clean-up after the spill has been completed. No further actions have been scheduled by The Ministry of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change.
2) Dam /Spillway and the Restoration of Water Levels – No further updates on this dossier. The LLPOA will participate in discussions with the Municipality of Wentworth when scheduled in 2023.
3) Concern over possible multi-lot land development site in W-N advertising access to Lac Louisa – We are communicating with Wentworth-North and will provide updates as this dossier evolves.
4) Invasive Species – The Mystery Snail represents the most clear and urgent risks for aquatic life. At this time there are several approaches to remediation/removal under consideration by environmental authorities, and we will share recommendations with you on this in the spring. We would like to thank residents that reported sighting and remediation measures last year. Unfortunately, we can also confirm that another invasive species, the Water Chestnut, is in neighbouring waters. We’ll be communicating more on this in the spring newsletter.
As the year winds to a close and we look forward to 2023, the LLPOA Board of Directors would like to thank you for your continued support and commitment, and we look forward to sharing some exciting new plans for the coming year to increase our outreach and protection of Lake Louisa.
Tanis Trotman
President LLPOA
LLPOA Annual General Meeting 2022
Annual General Meeting
Sunday, August 21, 10 a.m. Centre Communautaire Wentworth 86 chemin Louisa
Please plan on attending the Lake Louisa Property Owners Association
Annual General Meeting Sunday August 21 st at 10 a.m.
Centre Communautaire Wentworth, 86 chemin Louisa
We’re looking forward to seeing you and sharing important information on the following topics:
Invasive Snail Species in the lake
Black Bay Liaison
Water Testing Results
Boat Washing
Shore Line protection and restoration
Summer 2022 Newsletter
Please click on Summer 2022 Newsletter to view the latest news from the LLPOA.
President’s Letter – Summer 2022
Dear Members,
I hope this message finds you well, and you are enjoying beautiful Lake Louisa.
When I last reached out this spring, the LLPOA had turned much of its attention to the oil spill in Caron’s Bay, and follow-up efforts on the decontamination and redevelopment. Towards the end of May, LLPOA Vice-President Karl Wockner and I went door-to-door to speak with residents and property owners in Caron’s Bay while work was underway. We provided a detailed package of information gathered from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change on this dossier and listened to the concerns of our community. We’re pleased to say that it’s been a few weeks since the completion of work in Caron’s Bay, and from all accounts it seems that remediation efforts were successful.
Extending our community outreach, I met informally with the new owners of the large parcel of land at the end of the Lake Louisa North Road, to welcome them to our beautiful community. At this meeting I had the opportunity to highlight the LLPOA mandate and introduce a couple of members of the LLPOA Executive Board. Together we discussed our mutual respect for the environment, and shared interest in preserving and protecting our lake and watershed. While I can’t speak for others, I have to say that this meeting put to rest lingering concerns about environmental threats from large-scale development in this area. All-in-all this was a very positive way to engage with new land or property owners. The LLPOA will once again look to begin welcoming new members of our community and share information that will help protect our lake and watershed.
Behind the scenes our Board of Directors and volunteers have been hard at work. In the upcoming newsletter we’ll share information about measures to protect our lake paradise. Articles in our newsletter and on the website will include water testing results and important measures you can take to protect Lake Louisa and its shoreline and streams from a range of invasive and toxic species, and other topics like the dangers of fossil fuel stored around lakes and in the watershed.
To those of you who have renewed your memberships and to those who intend to do so (Click here for the membership page), on behalf of the LLPOA please accept our sincere thanks. Membership dues go towards website updates, new signs at the spring and other key areas, and communication materials that raise awareness on a range of topics to help guide decisions and behaviour in an effort to keep our lakes safe and healthy.
We hope to see you all at the AGM August 21st, 10 a.m. at the Wentworth Community Centre @ 86, Louisa Road, Wentworth QC, J8H 0C7
Tanis Trotman
President LLPOA
Water testing results for 2021
Test results are available here and under the Environment tab. Location A is by Griffith Island, location B is in Black Bay, and location C is by Laurin’s Bay. The information about the health of the lake is in French.
The Commemorative Newsletter is here!
Here is the Commemorative newsletter highlighting all the changes that have taken place in the last few months.
Birds of Lake Louisa
Aquatic Plant Survey
Probably the most important objective of the program was to teach residents how to continue the surveys on their own. Obviously this could be more difficult, or impossible this summer, given the pandemic related restrictions on all of us. A forum on Aquatic Invasive Species organized by CRE Laurentides was to be held in June of this year. Hopefully it will be rescheduled. Thank you to all the volunteers who have worked on this project since its inception in 2016, and to the experts from CRE Laurentides.
The aquatic plant survey was held last summer on August 15 th , 2019 and was headed up by Marianne Ford and Leslie Comfort. The sky was blue. The breeze was gentle. Armed with sunhats, bright green shirts, nets, aquascopes and sampling equipment, our band of intrepid aquatic plant hunters set out on the lake. The crew included: Barb Campbell, Lynn Chase, Susan Hawker, Cathy Deacon, Michel Gosselin. One of the boats carried Samuelle Durocher, the liaison for the projet de lutte contre le myriophylle à épi or LCMAE (Project for the Battle against Eurasian Milfoil) from Le Conseil Régionale Environmentale (CRE) des Laurentides, based in St-Jérome.
As many of you may know, this is a program run by CRE Laurentides, to map and then monitor aquatic plants growing in the shallow areas of many Laurentian lakes. Volunteers, usually from local lake associations like ours, work with experts from CRE. The idea is for all involved to become familiar with both the native and non-native plants so that anything invasive (like Eurasian Milfoil), can be recognized early if it appears. Mme Durocher’s report on the four year project can be read here:
https://crelaurentides.org/images/images_site/dossiers/eau_lacs/PAEE/Rapport_plantes_2019.pdf
Invasive species were found in 21% of the 102 water bodies studied directly by LCMAE. Eurasian Milfoil was the most abundant. About 40 Laurentian lakes have been infected with it, as of 2019. Luckily our lake is not one of them, at least not yet. Other invasive species were found in the area, though, again, luckily, not in our lake. They are not quite as well known, but they also pose a danger to delicate lake ecosystems. You may have seen them in nurseries where some are sold for water gardens: European Water chestnut, Water Soldier, European Frogbit, and Curly-leaf Pondweed. Eradication of invasive aquatic plants is, so far, almost impossible, but chances may be better if they are spotted early. Our best hope remains prevention. This is why it is so important that any new boat to our lake passes through a municipal washing station first.
Aside from the result that Louisa has no invasive species as of last summer, the highlights of the report relating to our lake are: The impression of the group working on Aug. 15th was that the area covered by aquatic plant growth has increased, and the problem of sedimentation was noted in one of the bays. Biodiversity is a good thing. 21 different types of native plants have been found in our lake. You can see a few of them here. Thanks to Marianne Ford for the photography.
