The summer at NSWA has been filled with field work on various projects, completion of several watershed reports, participation at several summer events and preparing for a busy winter season with our subwatershed alliances. Our watershed is a great place to explore —lakes, rivers, community events. We would love you to share your photos from your adventures in the watershed this summer– email them to us at water@nswa.ab.ca and we will post some on Twitter and Facebook!

The North Saskatchewan River

and the NSWA were featured in

an article — The North

Saskatchewan River - The Story of

the West - that recently

appeared in the Globe and Mail

Go to https://tgam.ca/2fyvxHX

WE’VE BEEN BUSY OVER THE SUMMER!!

FLOWING WATERS CONFERENCE October 17-19, 2017

Executive Royal Inn, Leduc, AB Join the NSWA and the Partners FOR the Saskatchewan River Basin at our upcoming conference - “Flowing Waters: Water Quality and Transboundary Issues in the Saskatchewan River Basin.” The agenda and the list of speakers is available on the conference website. Register now so that you do not miss out on this informative conference! The conference website is

https://www.flowingwatersconf.com/. Conference Hotel: The conference is being held at the Executive Royal Hotel, Leduc. Please call the hotel directly to register your stay, informing the registration staff that you are attending the Partners FOR the Saskatchewan River Basin conference to receive the conference rate of $104.00/night (2 Queen/room) or $109 (1 King room), plus taxes. There is complimentary airport shuttle, free parking and free high speed WiFi for all guests.

Images Alberta

NSWA is now a CHARITY

Your donation will support NSWA’s education and

research projects in the NSR watershed. Please consider supporting the NSWA with a charitable donation. Please

email us at water@nswa.ab.ca for more information

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The NSWA partnership with the VRWA is going strong with multiple projects in place. Some highlights from this past year are noted below:

• Strategic Planning: 2017 marked five years since the adoption of the 2012 Vermilion River Watershed Management Plan. In March, the VRWA board took the opportunity to revisit the Goals and Directions of the plan, assess past and current work, and determine future priorities for the Alliance’s work. A summary of this workshop is available at our (NEW!) VRWA website: http://vrwa.ca/the-watershed/

• VRWA AGM: 19 VRWA members attended the 2nd Annual General Meeting held in Bruce, AB in June 2017. Dr. Ryan Macdonald presented a concept for a new land use modelling project in the Vermilion River Watershed. This project, delivered by the ALCES Group, will look at how hydrologic indicators affect watershed resilience, and will help direct conservation and restoration strategies as they relate to flood and drought mitigation. The project commenced on August 1 with a Working Group meeting; over the next several months the model will be built, calibrated and refined in conjunction with participation from the Working Group.

• VRWREP: We are in the middle of an extremely busy Year 2 of the Vermilion River Watershed Restoration & enhancement Project (VRWREP), with 29 restoration and enhancement projects on the go amongst 21 landowners throughout the watershed (18 of whom were new to the program in 2017). Project activities include managed

livestock exclusion through fencing, stream bank restoration through re-vegetation/tree planting, and the implementation of a grass buffer between cropland and riparian areas. With an extension of our WRRP grant, we will be able to run another full-scale VRWREP season next year. The 2018 project application intake period will open in late winter/early spring. We have already reached our deliverables of wetlands enhanced (40 ha) and riparian areas enhanced (10 km) for

both the WRRP and EcoAction grants, and are working with Ducks Unlimited Canada to fulfill our 24 hectare wetland restoration deliverables under NWCF. We are excited to exceed these deliverables in 2017!

VRWREP activity summary, not including NWCF-related projects:

Wetland Enhancement Riparian Enhancement

Hectares (Ha)

enhanced # Projects

Kilometers (Km)

enhanced*

# Pro-

jects

2016 (completed) 29 3 7 6

2017 (estimated) 83 18 15 11

Running Total (estimated) 112 ha 21 projects 22 km

17 pro-

jects

*includes 3 projects (2.75 km enhanced) along the Vermilion River mainstem

2016, and 5 projects (11 km enhanced) along the mainstem for 2017

2017 Projects

Off- site

Watering and

Fencing projects

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Partnerships: We’ve appreciated the opportunity to work directly with some of our partners including Alternative Land Use Services - County of Vermilion River (ALUS-CVR) as well as the Agroforestry Woodlot Extension Society (AWES) on landowner restoration projects. These partnerships not only allow us to pool resources, but also serve to meet the various ecological goals that our watershed’s landowners have for their operation(s).

Above: Brittany Jackson (Field Technician) and

Mara Erickson (Extension and Stewardship Coordinator) at a project site this summer

Field work—Vegetation Assessment at a restoration site by Chris Elder

(ALUS-CVR) and Mara Erickson (NSWA)

Fence line project –Summer 2017

Map of Project Sites in the Vermilion River Subwatershed 2017

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HEADWATERS ALLIANCE

Headwaters Alliance Partners—2017

The NSWA provides administrative, technical and grant application support to the Headwaters Alliance. For the past year, the Headwaters Alliance partners have been working together on their first major project: a health assessment of the tributaries of the Modeste subwatershed. Riparian health is a keystone of watershed health because of the numerous ecological goods and services provided, for example nutrient filtering, flood and drought mitigation and biodiversity habitat. Having access to data on riparian health will help the team understand where there are areas of priority concern that can be restored through their respective municipal environmental programs (e.g. ALUS, and LandCare). The data will also help us to understand how best to conserve these areas through zoning, bylaws and through partnerships with other conservation groups (e.g. land trusts, Cows & Fish, AWES). To ensure that this tool will be practical for our municipal partners, consultation sessions were held with the Technical Advisory Committees of the Headwaters Alliance and Sturgeon River Alliance to help design the approach. This project is a first of its kind, in terms of magnitude. The tools used in the past to assess riparian health are prohibitive when scaled-up to the watershed level.. The NSWA is currently working with Fiera Biological Consulting to develop and apply a new GIS methodology to rapidly map and assess riparian health. Over 2,000 km of riparian area have been assessed in this pilot project in the Modeste Subwatershed. Additionally, this new tool includes a 2-part assessment protocol that evaluates the intactness of the riparian area, as well as pressures on riparian health from adjacent upland areas.The combination of these two scores will provide practical advice for prioritizing conservation

and restoration efforts.

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The pilot project is expected to be complete mid-October, and funding has been secured to complete the Sturgeon and Strawberry sub-watersheds next. What will we do with this data? In April, the Headwaters Alliance met to discuss the use of this tool to support municipal decision making. In this next phase, the group hopes to set health objectives for riparian areas and to explore the various conservation tools available to assist with meeting these objectives.

The Headwaters Alliance has a new member on the Technical Advisory Committee. We would like to extend a warm welcome to Risha Rushton, Public Works manager of O’Chiese First Nation. The O’Chiese First Nation has recently begun work on a Source Water Protection Plan with the First Nation Technical Service Advisory Group of Alberta (TSAG). The work that they are doing in this plan aligns with many of the goals of the IWMP and the Headwaters Alliance.

Modeste Subwatershed Maps (west of Edmonton) showing the Riparian Assessment Results -Fiera Biological Consulting

Creek in Buck Lake Grazing Reserve– Images Alberta

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BLACKMUD/WHITEMUD CREEKS SURFACE WATER MANAGEMENT STUDY

The NSWA has been facilitating and chairing a municipal group studying surface water management issues in the Blackmud and Whitemud Creek watersheds. The municipalities involved are Leduc County and the County of Strathcona, the Cities of Edmonton and Leduc, and the Town of Beaumont. Alberta Environment and Parks has also participated as an advisor. The group received a $350,000 Alberta Community Partnerships Grant from the Government of Alberta for this study. Associated Engineering was selected to do the study and has worked closely with the group throughout the project.

The study is now complete and the final report accepted by the municipal participants. The key recommendation is flow from all new development be controlled to a maximum release rate of 3.0 litres/second/hectare. This was based on consideration of peak flows, flow volume, flooding, and erosion rates. The study also identified the need for additional regional stormwater flow capacity, either by deepening existing flow channels or by installing trunk sewers, and avoiding development in areas subject to flooding. Associated Engineering will present the study findings and recommendations to the Councils or senior management of the five municipalities. The intention is to get support for a “fenceline” Water Act approval that would require all future stormwater management facilities in the watershed to be designed for the 3.0 litres/second/hectare release rate.

THE WATER MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK - INDUSTRIAL HEARTLAND AND CAPITAL REGION The Water Management Framework for the Industrial Heartland and Capital Region directs use of a cumulative effects approach to managing water quality and quantity in the Devon to Pakan reach of the North Saskatchewan River. This reach contains the majority of the watershed’s urban population and industry, including three potable water treatment plants, three wastewater treatment plants, numerous storm and combined sewer outfalls, and several industrial intakes and treated effluent discharges. To provide ongoing advice on implementing this Framework, Alberta Environment and Parks formed an Advisory Committee of key stakeholders. NSWA is a member along with industrial and municipal representatives. The committee’s scope includes implementation of cumulative effects management by defining maximum allowable discharge loads, monitoring and evaluating achievement of framework objectives, communicating actions, improving knowledge, and considering emerging issues. A current initiative is to improve the characterization of municipal and industrial wastewater effluents. Over the past year each industry discharging to the River in the Capital Region has sampled its effluent quarterly and analyzed it for a broad spectrum of potential contaminants. Along with flow data and effluent analyses, the relative contribution of each discharge to the amounts found in the river downstream can be determined. Comparison to maximum allowable loads of specific contaminants will then determine if and when additional control will be needed and where they can be most effectively and efficiently applied. It is expected that this work will inform the development of the Surface Water Quality Management Framework component of the forthcoming draft of the North Saskatchewan Region Plan.

Photo: Images Alberta

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• CPP Environmental is conducting an aquatic ecosystem health assessment through the open water season of 2017 with monthly water quality sampling, benthic invertebrate and algal sampling, and fish habitat work

• Fiera Biological Consultants will be completing riparian health assessments on all major waterbodies within the Sturgeon

River watershed, beginning in late July

• ParioPlan is reviewing existing municipal policies with recom-mendations for improving environmental policies and IDP

planning

• ALCES and MACHydro are undertaking a cumulative effects modeling project linking landscape change to hydrologic function

• Technical Bulletins on Sturgeon River Hydrology and the Effects of Climate Change, and Lake Level Trends in Alberta have been published (see NSWA website—www.nswa.ab.ca)

The SRWA group continues to meet regularly and keeps informed about various projects underway in the Stur-geon River basin. This fall a number of technical studies will be completed and results will be analysed for incorporation into the development of the Sturgeon River Watershed Plan (2018).

Members of the SRWA committee and NSWA staff members had fun on a NSR RiverWatch float - on one of the coldest days in September!

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STATE OF THE WATERSHED REPORTS The NSWA has been very active in supporting lake management initiatives this spring and summer. The Isle Lake and Lac Ste Anne State of the Watershed Report was completed and released in spring 2017 and the results were presented in May and July at the Isle Lake and Lac Ste Anne Annual General Meetings, respectively. The NSWA has also initiated work with the Antler Lake Stewardship Committee and the Hubbles Lake Stewardship Society to draft State of the Watershed Reports for those lakes, for completion in 2018. NSWA is also actively working with Parkland County Administration to identify opportunities for lake shoreline and watershed improvement activities.

WABAMUN LAKE The Wabamun Watershed Management Council is working with the NSWA, Alberta Environment and Parks and Parkland County to initiate a watershed management planning process for Wabamun Lake. A Terms of Reference for the Steering Committee has been prepared and the various stakeholders are currently working with the local municipalities to ensure a cohesive, integrated approach to watershed management and to support the implementation of key elements in Parkland County’s Wabamun Lake Subwatershed Land Use Plan (WLSLUP).

BAPTISTE AND ISLAND LAKES This summer, the NSWA assisted the Baptiste and Island Lake Stewardship Society (BAILS) in planning and implementing two public engagement sessions as part of a watershed management planning process. The third engagement session will be held and a watershed management plan for Baptiste and Island Lakes will be drafted by the NSWA in 2018. Several technical working groups have been formed to investigate various lake and watershed issues as part of the planning process and preliminary sampling will be conducted in the fall on the two lakes to investigate sources of human sewage contamination in the lakes, using a novel biomarker in use in Dr. Patrick Hanington’s laboratory at the University of Alberta.

MAYATAN LAKE The NSWA completed the Mayatan Lake Watershed Management Plan in 2016 and is currently working with the Mayatan Lake Management Association to establish an Implementation Committee to steer the implementation of priority actions in the Plan.

NORTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER- WATER QUALITY INITIATIVE WITH EPCOR AND AEP The North Saskatchewan River Water Quality Initiative is a collaborative, multi-stakeholder monitoring program devel-oped in 2017 to improve the understanding of water quality and aquatic ecosystem health throughout the NSR basin. The program has been enabled by $1 million in annual funding secured by EPCOR Water Canada. This comprehensive sampling program will address and achieve multiple goals, including: the improved assessment of river and tributary water quality; the improved understanding of aquatic ecosystem health; source water protection and health risk reduction in treated drinking water supplies; enhanced cumulative effects management; and identification of sub-watershed management priorities. The NSWA is pleased to be one of the partners with EPCOR, City of Edmonton, Alberta Environment and Parks.

LAKES AND OTHER NSWA PROJECTS

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Do you know someone who loves history? Science? Watersheds? The River? Living in the Shed makes a great gift! Copies the book are available for only $25.00 at the NSWA office, online at the NSWA web-site and from these retailers: Audrey’s Books, Edmonton

The Wildbird General Store, Edmonton

Wildbirds Unlimited, Edmonton

Elk Point Library, Elk Point

Fort Edmonton, Edmonton

Metis Crossing

Fort George /Buckingham House Provincial Historic Site

Ukrainian Village

Elk Island National Park

Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton

Telus World of Science, Edmonton

Devonian Gardens, Devon

Coles -Southgate and St. Albert

Billie Milholland, David Trew, Elisa Brose (NSWA staff) at EPCOR’s RiverFest -

September 16, 2017

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

There are some exciting contest opportunities for you to enter!

Caring for our Watersheds

Great Waters Challenge

Please email the NSWA for more information at water@nswa.ab.ca

Breda Muldoon (NSWA) at Duffield School field trip to Mayatan and Hasse Lakes

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587.525.6820

water@nswa.ab.ca

We acknowledge the strong support of Alberta Environment and Parks, Environment and Climate Change Canada, EPCOR and 38 other Municipal Partners for funding in 2016-17

The NSWA appreciates the active participation of the following municipalities and organizations:

About 90 people attended the NSWA AGM on June 22, 2017. The 2016-17 Annual Report is available on the NSWA website. We were very pleased to receive updates from

representatives of our various partnerships and alliances.

NSWA STAFF at the AGM -June 22, 2017 Back: David Trew, Cristina Buendia-Fores, Elisa Brose, Gord Thompson, Billie Milholland Front: Brittany Jackson, Breda Muldoon, Melissa Logan, Mara Erickson, Mary Ellen Shain Missing: Ellen Cust