Environmental Awareness

We have the 2008 benthos monitoring results from the District. The results for this year are encouraging, and about the best we've ever seen. That may be due to the southern location of this year's collection site or the unusual spring weather we had, or a general improvement of water quality. Download the attached PDF to view the report.

We will be counting the bugs this coming Friday. We need more eyes! (Magnifying glasses and tweezers will be provided). You don't have to be able to identify them (the District provides us with an expert to do that) but we will have id charts (and the aforementioned expert) so it is an opportunity to learn more about this part of our ecosystem while helping us track the health of the lakes.

The festivities generally wrap up by noon.

If you can help, please call Bruce at 787-0542.

The LWRA executive has contracted with the University of Waterloo to conduct water quality testing in our lakes. This is part of a program conducted by university students for several lake associations. The students will test six locations in each of our four lakes, on two different dates in July. We will share the results with all paid-up members you once received later in the summer. The cost to the LWRA is approximately $640, and we believe is a very worthwhile investment as part of our stewardship activities.

On August 7, a small but dedicated group of young and old gathered, with eye droppers and tweezers to count small macroinvertebrates taken from Lake Waseosa water samples, in a program run by the District of Muskoka. Thank you again to Jessica Cohen and Marc Ruan for hosting! The variety (biodiversity) of these benthos, and the relationship between pollution 'tolerant' and pollution 'intolerant' bugs gives us one measure of how the lake water is evolving over time.

This summer, the LWRA hired the University of Waterloo to test the water quality. This complements the testing done by the District of Muskoka (on Waseosa and Jessop only), volunteer testing as part of the Lake Partners' Program (on Waseosa and Palette), and volunteer benthos testing on Waseosa. 

This year's sampling sites, near Bear Island at the south end of Waseosa, were last tested in 2009. A total of 348 small aquatic invertebrates were sampled, representing 14 different species. Most of the readings were similar to the 2009 tests, and also reasonably close to an average of 35 Muskoka Lakes. One reading did drop noticeably: the percentage of 'bugs' made up of pollution-sensitive species (such as dragonflies, damsilflies and caddisflies) fell from 53 to 22%. This can happen in response to stress caused by human activities.

Our first attempt at a spring roadside clean-up generated both enthusiasm and results.

On August 7, a small but dedicated group of young and old gathered, with eye droppers and tweezers to count small macroinvertebrates taken from Lake Waseosa water samples, in a program run by the District of Muskoka. Thank you again to Jessica Cohen and Marc Ruan for hosting! The variety (biodiversity) of these benthos, and the relationship between pollution 'tolerant' and pollution 'intolerant' bugs gives us one measure of how the lake water is evolving over time.