Meeting Notes
Friends of Tod Creek Watershed meet the first Wednesday of every second month.
You are welcome to join us.
Mission: To protect and enhance the integrity and biodiversity of the Tod Creek Watershed.
To view notes from previous meetings, use the “Meeting Notes” Archive links on the right panel.
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FRIENDS OF TOD CREEK WATERSHED
MEETING NOTES
2 JANUARY, 2013
Mission: To protect and enhance the integrity and biodiversity of the Tod Creek Watershed.
Present: Woody Thomson, Frances Hunter, Lori James-Derry, Lin Callow, Bernie Bowker, Pat Carfra, Sherron MacPherson, Winona Pugh, Audrey Barnes, Mary Haig-Brown
Regrets: Joanne Delage, Rick and Donna Todd
- Adoption to Agenda with addition of 5d. BC Lake Stewardship Soc. and 5e. HAT monitoring of Hunter covenenanted land.
- Adoption of 7th November Meeting Notes
- Treasurer’s Report: Current balance $3,342.59. Invoice from Saanich for plants still outstanding.
- Announcements:
- a. Dist of Saanich Public Participation questionnaire. Sherron will draft FTCW response to this. Overall we are pleased with Saanich’s accessibility.
- DFO Salmon Enhancement Program granting process. We may be interested in applying for funding to continue water quality monitoring. Lin will study the application and advise us.
- Montessori Children’s Spring Fair May 25th. Fund raiser for the school and to increase awareness of their focus on special needs children. They have a strong environmental theme. There is interest in having a display at this event and also learning more about the school.
- Peninsula Streams Society AGM. Saturday, February 16th 1-3 pm at a venue to be announced. Peninsula Streams supports us in much of our work. Memberships are due at the AGM and cost $5.00. Mary will collect memberships at our next meeting.
- Projects:
- Whitehead Park – Planting and mulch spreading continue. Deer fence enclosures on east side are well planted. Stream is flowing mostly within its new course. We are waiting for spring. West side planted and flooded. Coco mat with plastic webbing will be lifted in the spring. Need to pull sprouting blackberry, Golden Willow and Yellow Flag Iris as they show. Work parties will start again on Monday, January 7th at 9:30.
- Tod Creek Dissolved Oxygen monitoring is continuing throughout the winter. DO levels at some sites are slow to rise. Margaret Wright of DFO will be down on Wednesday, 23rd January to gather samples to be tested for biological oxygen demand. We are meeting her at the Red Barn at 10:00. Lin suggests low DO may also be due to chemical oxygen demand. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate that Tod Creek above Butchart’s dam is fish friendly and that a fish ladder needs to be built to allow passage around the dam.
- Weir visit and water sources. Mary, Ian Bruce of PSS and Fred Haynes met at the weir before Christmas to discuss the repairs and to talk about restoration of Tod Creek between the weir and Prospect Lake Road. Ian and Fred will meet on 11th January to discuss this further.
BC Lake Stewardship Society runs a very informative 2 day workshop to train lake stewards. We would be interested in helping with a workshop based at Prospect Lake if we had a partner. Winona will see if Saanich is interested.
- HAT assessment of Hunter Covenanted Land. There is a die off of Grand Fir on the low lying area of Hunter’s property. Two Royal Roads students under the direction of Richard Hebda did a study of this die off including a discussion of the lake shore soil conditions. There seems to be more water in this low lying area that there was formerly. There is also an underground growth which may be contributing to the problem for the trees. The study has interesting findings. Frances will see if we can put a copy of this report on our web site.
- Maltby Lake: Woody reports that 40 years ago a road was built through a low lying area near the lake’s outlet. This road is no longer used and beaver have blocked the old culverts. Consequently the lake level is rising slightly. Woody is watching the changes with interest.
- TLC owns 35% of the Maltby property and is consequently responsible for 35% of the property tax. Until the subdivision goes through TLC is unable to realize any income from the property which is a hardship for them. Woody may need letters of support for the subdivision to precede without the multi lake accesses which Saanich is asking for.
- Heritage Society:
- There are only 10 copies of Prospect Lake Reflections left.
- Saanich is producing a brochure of the walking tour the Society worked out. This brochure will be similar to the Gordon Head and Craigflower ones Saanich already has.
- Heritage Society participated in the School Community Day for grades 2 & 3 organized by school librarian Pat Miller and Sherron MacPherson. Several members hosted stations demonstrating early days in this community. A further event for older students based on the walking tour is being planned.
- Heritage Week is in February and an event will be planned.
- Next meeting: 6 March, 2013 at 7:30pm. Location: Pat Carfra, 181 Goward Road