CIT PROJECT SUMMARY: Healthy Water, Healthy Communities – Lake Windermere Project (2005-2009)

CIT Staff Report

The Lake Windermere area in BC's Rocky Mountains is, like so many regions with picturesque communities and rich natural amenities, the target for "amenity migration" growth and development. Although this trend has slowed in the past year due to changes in financial and real estate markets, over at least the past decade the region and the lake have experienced significant changes due to this dynamic.

One of the immediate effects of amenity migration is the development of vacation and secondary homes. A number of organizations came together in 2005 to start what has become the Healthy Water, Healthy Communities – Lake Windermere Project (LWP). Their motivation was the effect that secondary home development was having on on water quality and quantity in the Upper Columbia River, a river which provides water to 15 million downstream users. Lake Windermere had recently experienced a collapse in the burbot (Lota lota) fishery. Because burbot are a top predator, the health of their population is a good indication of the health of the ecosystem as a whole.

With the help of Wildsight, an environmental non-governmental organization (eNGO) based , and through the financial support of CIT, the LWP addresses protection and enhancement of the quality of Lake Windermere. Inter-agency cooperation, scientific water quality monitoring, and public education and engagement are the methodology used.

“It is very much a community based project,” says Wildsight Program Manager Heather Leschied. "The lack of water resource management on and around Lake Windermere has become a concern for area residents and second homeowners. People are seeing that this has long-term implications for the aquatic health of the system."

Results of the Lake-Use Survey indicate widespread public concern about the sustainability of this important water source. Respondents expressed a need for information on maintaining septic systems, as well as concerns about boat traffic congestion, aquatic plant growth, shoreline and upland development, water conservation, and water quality. "The Lake Windermere Project delivers scientifically sound information," says Leschied. "Using this information we then put together education programs and action-based stewardship efforts. They're all part of a community effort to help sustain this economically and environmentally crucial lake."

Wildsight's approach to building community capacity through the project includes supporting the "Lake Windermere Ambassadors." These are a group of committed citizens representing business, government, recreation, second homeowners, local residents (including youth), and LWP. The Ambassadors serve two roles: one, as a long-term advisory committee; two, as a short-term fundraising committee. The committee’s mandate is the protection of the lake in perpetuity. They will direct future water quality monitoring based on the findings of the LWP, and encourage the implementation of policies and guidelines of the forthcoming Lake Windermere Management Plan, and recently implemented Lake Windermere Shoreline Management Guidelines for Fish and Wildlife. "As the project enters it’s final year, Wildsight will be handing it back to the community under the direction of the Lake Windermere Ambassadors," says Lescheid.

Like all Communities in Transition projects, the Lake Windermere Project is a partnership initiative. In the Lake Windermere case, this partnership is comprised of government agencies, First Nations, local organizations, and citizens that has been, as Heather Leschied puts it, "building community value, respect, and understanding of Lake Windermere since 2005."


Footnotes:
The Board of Governors of the Real Estate Foundation awarded $16,000 to support a fourth year of water quality testing and analysis as part of the Healthy Water, Healthy Communities - Lake Windermere Project.

In 2005 Wildsight was honoured with the Gold Award for Conservation in by the Canadian Environmental Awards panel.


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Related articles

•  Current CIT Project Overviews (May 2009 CIT Information Resource)