Waterfront property owners help with Bay of Quinte cleanup

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Waterfront property owners help with Bay of Quinte cleanup

 

 

August 29,2008

Stephen Petrick / trentonian.ca

 

 

The man in charge of cleaning up the Bay of Quinte says the majority of shoreline property owners in the area seem willing to participate in environmental protection efforts — a positive sign the water body will one day be delisted as a pollution hot spot.

 

Staff with the Bay of Quinte Remedial Action Plan (RAP) recently completed a survey of shoreline property owners from Carrying Place, west of Trenton, to Point Anne, east of Belleville.

 

Although the results have not yet been processed, RAP implementation manager Jeff Borisko said he is looking forward to crunching the numbers, as almost all owners responded warmly to surveyors who knocked on their doors.

 

“Almost all actually wanted to stay in touch with the program — they wanted to stay in touch with the Bay of Quinte Remedial Action Plan and they wanted a followup,” Borisko said. “I was really surprised at that.”

 

Over two weeks in July, a team of about 12 people — made up of RAP staff, volunteers or workers with other environmental agencies — knocked on doors of property owners along the bay’s north shore.

 

They were asked to complete a roughly 15-minute survey, which would allow staff to find out how much of their shoreline was unnatural — in other words altered by, say, a retaining wall or a dock.

 

The survey also allowed staff to find out how willing people with unnatural shorelines would be to make adjustments to their properties for the sake of improving the environment.

 

Action plan staff have a goal of making the Bay of Quinte shoreline 70 per cent natural in the distant future.

 

A natural shoreline, they say, is more environmentally friendly because it would involve more trees and shrubs that can absorb run off that could potentially leak into the bay.

 

That could lead to more fish and wildlife habitat in the area — something the International Joint Commission will look for when determining whether the Bay of Quinte can be de-listed.

 

The IJC is a watch-dog organizations that monitors conditions in the Great Lakes. It labelled the bay as an area of concern in 1986, triggering the creation of the RAP in 1993.

 

Borisko said he was curious to see how property owners would respond to surveyors. But, as a canvasser himself, he learned that many along the shoreline have a deep affection for the bay from living on the water for several years. Those people want to see the bay cleaned up, he said.

 

“We weren’t negatively received. No one chased us off their property with a gun and no one set their dogs on us,” he joked.

 

Surveyors hit 150 residential properties and about 20 commercial properties, over the two weeks.

 

Out of them, all but a few willingly took part in the survey, Borisko said.

 

The properties were selected randomly. Two more random surveys are expected to take place in the coming months. Staff hope to canvass residents on the south shore of the bay and residents in the Napanee area. Borisko said one of those surveys could begin early next year.

 

The results of the surveys will help RAP staff plan a program to ensure the shoreline can become more natural.

 

Borisko said the fact that many seem eager to participate improves the chances of a government grant program being set up for those who would like to naturalize their shorelines.

 

He said he’s confident the RAP could secure money for such a program, but “we can probably get more having done this survey.

 

“What we’re hoping to find through it is what people want to do, what they’re willing to do, what they’re not willing to do and then to direct funding accordingly.”