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Steady
Brook Watershed Management Plan:
Guiding multiple uses in protected water supply areas |
Providing
safe drinking water for their residents is a major concern of all
municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Balancing this need with the increasing demand for resource development
is an issue that must be addressed immediately. Recreation, forest
harvesting, agriculture, development of pits and quarries, roads,
and construction of transmission lines are some of the possible
uses of watershed areas, and these developments all have the potential
to adversely impact water quality if guidelines are not developed.
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In
1993, 230 public water supply areas were protected under the Water
Resources Act, which regulated land and water uses. This was a step
in the right direction. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
has further committed to providing clean drinking water by implementing
a Multi-Barrier Strategic Action Plan involving source protection,
water treatment, operation and maintenance of water supply systems,
comprehensive drinking water quality monitoring and reporting, appropriate
inspection, abatement and enforcement measures, and operator education
and training.
Municipalities need to tackle the source protection aspect of this
multi-barrier plan by addressing the issue of multiple uses and
drinking water quality. The Town of Steady Brook is meeting this
challenge with the assistance of the Western Newfoundland Model
Forest (WNMF) Partnership and the Department of Environment and
Conservation’s Water Resources Division. |
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The
Town of Steady Brook formed a watershed committee to guide the development
of a watershed management plan and ensure a complementary relationship
between the supply of safe drinking water and watershed resource
users.
The WNMF helped the committee develop this plan, initially by identifying
current resource use in the Steady Brook watershed and existing
legislation in support of future management decisions. The planning
component then provided the committee with a strategy to implement
the Steady Brook Watershed Management Plan. Project coordinator
Debbie Hearn of the WNMF gathered information and helped develop
the plan on behalf of the watershed committee. |
Following
public consultation, Steady Brook Council recently approved the
Steady Brook Watershed Management Plan, which will soon be implemented
by the Steady Brook Watershed Monitoring Committee. The plan includes
a description of the watershed and its resources, such as water,
forest, and wildlife, and current and potential uses including everything
from drinking water to wildlife habitat. A risk assessment, conducted
on the potential contaminants these identified uses may create,
ranks the uses according to severity of risk. An area’s sensitivity,
based on land cover, slope and distance from the water supply intake,
is used to identify management zones. These zones are assigned permitted
or prohibited resource uses based on the severity of risk. A strategy
to implement the plan is also outlined.
A
template for watershed management
Many other communities need a plan to manage their watersheds -
the source of their residents’ drinking water. The process
of developing such a plan can be difficult for municipalities that
have limited expertise in this field and/or insufficient funds to
contract the job out.
To assist these communities with this task, the WNMF Partnership,
with the assistance of the Department of Environment and Conservation,
used the Steady Brook plan to develop a management
plan template that will enable other municipalities to draft
their own watershed management plans.
This will ensure the availability of safe drinking water for residents,
and permit traditional and new uses of municipal watershed resources
on a controlled and sustainable basis. For more information on the
management plan template, please contact Sean Dolter at 709-637-7303
or email seandolter@wnmf.com.
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