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Lake Huron News Updates - For free!
Labour Day Weekend, September 2017
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Thank you for your interest in work to protect and improve beach conditions and water quality along Lake Huron's southeast shore, from Sarnia to Tobermory.
If you have already signed up online at healthylakehuron.ca for free and regular news updates, thank you! If you have not signed up yet, we invite you to do so now.
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Healthy Lake Huron creates new mobile-friendly website; adds YouTube channel; creates regular news updates by email digital newsletter; reports to you on social media via Twitter
The Healthy Lake Huron: Clean Water, Clean Beaches Partnership is now providing regular news updates digitally. The Partnership has also added a new YouTube channel and on Labour Day weekend, 2017, we have launched an upgraded new, mobile-friendly website. Try it out on your smart phone or tablet if you use one!
We are also posting regularly on our Twitter feed. It's all part of our effort to report to you about Lake Huron protection efforts by combining personal outreach - through presentations and displays - with the use of powerful and cost-effective new digital and social media tools.
The website at healthylakehuron.com and healthylakehuron.ca is going live as this is written.
The Partnership has also been adding new and updated content.
Find out ways you can help to keep this Great Lake great.
Thanks for all you to do to protect and improve water quality and beach conditions along the southeast shore of Lake Huron.
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Visit Healthy Lake Huron news page
Visit the news page on the new, mobile-friendly Healthy Lake Huron website:
Find out about news such as the Ipperwash Beach and Dunes Phragmites Spading Day:
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Visit the events page, a new feature on Healthy Lake Huron's new, upgraded mobile-friendly website:
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Huron County continues to support landowner work to protect water
Landowners, residents, community groups in Huron County complete projects to protect creeks and rivers, and Lake Huron, with grant support
 The County of Huron announced it will provide $400,000 in funding support this year (2017) for projects in Huron County that project local water quality. County landowners, residents and community groups have completed more than 2,236 projects since 2004 thanks to county support through this initiative.
To learn more visit: Healthy Lake Huron
The Huron County Clean Water Project provides up to 50 per cent grant support for projects in categories that include: erosion control; tree planting; cover crops; manure storage decommissioning; wetlands; watercourse fencing; well decommissioning; wellhead protection; composting toilets; forest management plans; and woodlot enhancement. Funding from the county program can be combined with other cost–share programs and landowner contributions.
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Provide input into Coastal Action Plan
 The Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation is working with shoreline communities to develop a new Coastal Action Plan for the southeast shore of Lake Huron.
To maintain water quality, adapt to climate change and extreme weather events, to support healthy wildlife populations, to restore water and soil, there is work needed to protect and enhance the beach and lake. Pollution, development and alteration, extreme weather and a changing climate, and invasive species are among the issues which could threaten the diverse species of Lake Huron.
The Coastal Centre is working to create a document which provides a cohesive vision to help guide strategic efforts in stewardship and coastal conservation for the shoreline between Sarnia and Tobermory. The plan will identify issues, goals, natural features, species, and management strategies.
To complete the questionnaire or to find our more visit: Coastal Action Plan
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Microplastics threaten Great Lakes
Microplastics threaten Great Lakes but people who love their lakes are motivated, taking positive actions: Jennifer Pate
Geographer, filmmaker, and Great Lakes sampling project co-leader Jennifer Pate provides warning about harmful microplastics but offers examples of people stepping forward to clean up Great Lakes
Harmful plastic pollution can be denser in the Great Lakes than in oceans.
"Plastic debris of many sizes, including microplastics, have been found in surface waters as well as sediments of all of the Great Lakes, comprising quantities at least as elevated as in high concentration areas (gyres) of the oceans," according to a presentation by Hans Dürr, of the University of Waterloo, as cited in the Microplastics in the Great Lakes Workshop Final Report of September, 14 2016 by the International Joint Commission of Canada and United States.
There is a pressing need to reduce plastic use and prevent tiny, harmful plastic fibres from reaching our lakes and oceans.
Bayfield's Jennifer Pate is a geographer, filmmaker and co-leader of microplastics sampling projects in the Caribbean and the Great Lakes. As a guest speaker, she brings a message to Love Your Greats in a different kind of love story. She shares the love that people have for their Great Lakes and how that connection to their lake is fueling their efforts to make positive changes. "When you invite them (to help), when you tap into that love (of the Great Lakes), amazing things start to happen," Pate said as keynote speaker at an annual Conservation Awards event, hosted by Ausable Bayfield Conservation and held at Ironwood Golf Club east of Exeter..
The presenter offers two sides to the story of plastic pollution and the Great Lakes. One side is a scary one with data about the threat to our health and our water from plastics, microplastics, microfibres, and nanoplastics. The other, more positive side of the talk shows examples of community and individual efforts to address the problem. There have been positive recent developments in policy to address plastic contamination, the presenter said, including a scheduled plan to ban some microbeads in Canada, to take effect in 2018. Local people have been engaged also in water sampling, shoreline cleanup, and making changes as consumers such as stopping use of disposable plastic water bottles.
To learn more visit the Healthy Lake Huron website: Microplastics
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Algal blooms can have negative effects on the look and smell of the lake; economic impacts including harm to recreation and tourism and increased treatment costs; and negative impacts on human health. When eutrophication takes place, some harmful algae can create toxins that are dangers to human health.
In this video, a scientist from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change discusses blue-green algae.
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