Climate project to focus on Maxwell Lake watershed -- source of water for 3,000 - Transition Salt Spring has been awarded $100,000 by Environment and Climate Change Canada through the EcoAction Community Funding Program to trial on-the-ground strategies to protect a critical local watershed from the impacts of climate change.
A key outcome of the project will be to share watershed resilience and fire prevention strategies with large public and private landowners across the region. By doing so, Transition Salt Spring hopes to build regional capacity to address climate change-fuelled risks from drought and fire in threatened Coastal Douglas-fir and arbutus/Garry oak forests.
“Residents of the Gulf Islands consistently identify drought as the top concern,” says Ruth Waldick, Transition Salt Spring director who is the project’s lead. “This project is important because it’ll allow us to understand and develop strategies that can reduce the risk of fire while protecting watersheds that sustain our water supply.”
Transition Salt Spring has partnered with several local organizations to deliver the project which will see work begin in 2022. Partners include North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) which owns critical land in the watershed and provides potable water to 5,500 residents, the Salt Spring Island Water Preservation Society, which has protected a significant portion of land within the Maxwell Lake Watershed, and the Salt Spring Island Conservancy, which administers an environmental covenant on lands within the watershed.
Salt Spring Fire Rescue will also participate in the project to contribute to a broadened understanding of the root causes of increased fire risk, its potential consequences, and ways to reduce these risks.
Successive years of drought are leading to an increasing frequency and severity of seasonal water restrictions, making the protection of forests within key watersheds key to protecting potable water supplies into the future. Healthy forests play a pivotal role in the retention of moisture as has become abundantly clear in the wake of BC’s disastrous floods which were preceded by fire.
“A fire in the watershed could render Lake Maxwell unsuitable for drinking for an extended period of time,” says NSSWD Trustee Gary Gagné. “Ash and sediment loading are major post-wildfire concerns. That’s why Transition’s project aligns with our objectives by mitigating the fire hazards around Lake Maxwell,”
Lake Maxwell is one of the water sources that the North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) relies on to supply more than half the island’s population of year-round residents.
The project will involve biologists, foresters, fire ecologists, and students of various relevant disciplines. They will work collaboratively to trial and monitor a number of strategies to help build the health of this watershed in an era of accelerating climate change impacts such as drought and fire risk.
Currently, these risks are being made worse by development pressures which lead to erosion and ‘fragmentation’ of the forest canopy, along with over-browsing by deer which leaves soil dry and trees more vulnerable to windfall and fire.
“As the climate changes, ecosystems and the communities that depend on them are facing increased risk of forest fire, water scarcity and threats to biodiversity,” says Susan Hannon, President of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy. “Learning how we can manage our forests to adapt to climate change both here and across the Gulf Islands is critical.”
The project marks a key milestone for Transition Salt Spring as the first significant climate change adaptation project to arise out of the group’s Climate Action Plan 2.0 which outlined 250 cross-sectoral recommendations for reducing emissions and better preparing for the accelerating impacts of climate change to 2030.
