Since January 2009 the following sequence of reviews were held as part of the process for assuring watershed community support of the Plan:

January 15 -Board and Associates review and amendments
January 28 -Review by Agriculture and Landowner sectors
February 12 -Review by Fisheries and Tourism sectors
March 4 -Public Meeting for final review of the Watershed Management Plan.

At each of these meetings all goals and strategies and their time lines were reviewed. Amendments, additions proposed were recorded and incorporated in the Plan by Jennifer. At each meeting, participants indicated their endorsement by a show of hands. No dissent was expressed. In addition, comments by expert reviewers from the Department of the Environment were incorporated. On this basis, the Board considered that the requirements for community support were fully met.

In particular, the years of intense work by David Latimer paved the way for this moment by creating a record of a decade of watershed acheivements, putting us in a position to receive strong Department of Environment financing last year.

This in turn enabled us to hire Coordinator Jennifer Roma whose knowledge, diverse skills and dedicated work ethic produced a Plan of which we can be proud.

We can now look forward to implementing our Plan in a systematic way and with the prospects of receiving accelerated funding because of the Plan.

That is my hope, Verner Smitheram, Co-Chair FCBB

Please view the Official Watershed Management Plan.

Download the pdf here. (9 meg File)

(Published in The Guardian March 25, 2008) Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay are planning a public meeting on Wednesday, March 26th, at 7:30pm, at the North Shore Community Centre in Covehead. The purpose of the meeting is to share with watershed residents and landowners the progress that has been made in the development of the Watershed Management Plan.

Over the last several months consultations have occurred with community residents and landowners, and specific groups such as farmers, fishermen, and tourism & recreation sectors. In addition to these meetings, the group recently completed a series of workshops where development of the Watershed Management Plan began with members of the various communities.

The meetings have given Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay the opportunity to learn from residents what issues they would like to see resolved in the watershed, and how they see moving forward in this regard. This information is what makes up the bulk of the Watershed Management Plan.

"It is not useful for me, or anyone from the Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay group, to develop a management plan for the area on our own," says Jennifer Roma, Watershed Coordinator. "If community involvement and support is not there, the plan will go nowhere in the end."

"This has not been a problem however for the Covehead-Brackley area watershed, since support and involvement from the communities in developing the plan has been substantial. We (the Friends group) have been really impressed with the enthusiasm, support, and amount of knowledge that we have received from watershed landowners."

The group is counting on that community support and enthusiasm to bring people out to this next public meeting.

For more information on Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay, people may call Jennifer Roma at (902) 368-8972 or email her at jennifer.roma@gmail.com.

For general information on the group and the watershed area visit their web page at www.stanhopecovehead.pe.ca.

(Published in The Guardian March 12, 2008)The Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay watershed management group recently started a series of workshops to develop a Watershed Management Plan for the area. While the first meeting went well organizers are hoping to boost the numbers of participants to these workshops in the coming weeks.

"The way the workshops are structured, there isn't a 'attend one, attend them all' attitude, although we would certainly like to see some returning faces for consistency in the process," says the watershed coordinator for the group. "In the first workshop we talked about the issues in the watershed, got some ideas for a vision statement to answer the question of where we want to go with watershed planning, and addressed some general goals that we would like to reach as we move forward in this process."

"The coming weeks are very important because we will be discussing in more depth what kinds of things we can do on-the-ground to start to solve the issues that we know exist here."

Some of those issues that were identified in meetings with residents earlier this year are soil erosion, deforestation, loss of wildlife habitat, communication and education initiatives, and high nutrient loads in the streams and the bays, leading to heavy plant growth and anoxic events, as plant growth dies off and robs most or all of the oxygen from the water in the process.

Two more workshops are planned this month, one on Thursday, March 13th and the other on Wednesday, March 19th. The meetings will start at 7:30pm at the North Shore Community Centre in Covehead. Some of the topics that will be addressed are steps that need to be taken, both in the short-term and long-term, to address the issues within the watershed. The group will also be looking for ideas from residents on evaluation strategies. Both long-term residents and seasonal cottage owners are invited to attend and contribute to the process.

For more information, people can call or email Jennifer Roma at (902) 368-8972 or jennifer.roma@gmail.com.

For general information on the Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay visit their web page at www.stanhopecovehead.pe.ca.

(Published in The Guardian Monday, March 3, 2008) After a couple of busy months setting the groundwork, with stakeholder meetings and public meetings, the Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay watershed management group is moving forward this month with the next step in the process: developing a framework for a Watershed Management Plan.

Several stakeholder meetings were held early in the year, with groups such as tourism and recreation, commercial and sport fishermen, farmers, and landowners in the watershed communities. These meetings provided the Friends group with a chance to introduce themselves to residents and discuss what watershed planning is, but more importantly gave watershed residents a chance to provide input in determining existing problems in the watershed.

In addition to these meetings, the group held a nitrate testing clinic early in February, with approximately 250 people coming out to get their well water tested. More recently a public meeting was held, with a Surface Water Biologist from the PEI Department of Environment, Energy & Forestry giving watershed residents an update on the quality of surface and ground water in the Covehead and Brackley area. The public meeting had a very successful turnout and, once again, attendees were given the opportunity to provide their feedback on problem areas they see in the watershed.

"What all of this feedback provides us is the basis for the Watershed Management Plan - determining issues and concerns that watershed residents have about the quality of water in their area," says Jennifer Roma, Watershed Coordinator. "With this information we can begin to develop the larger plan."

"Once issues are identified, the next step is to set goals to solve the existing problems. Within those goals, we also have to determine how we will achieve them. In other words, what specific activities need to take place in order to see goals accomplished? And of course, there has to be a means of evaluating the process. A Watershed Management Plan addresses all of these components."

Developing a framework for that Management Plan is what the group hopes to achieve in the next few weeks with a number of facilitated workshops. The workshops will be structured to fill in the gaps for the plan, through community input and discussion. Residents of the Covehead-Brackley watershed area (West Covehead, Covehead Road, Brackley Point, Brackley Beach, Winsloe North, North Milton, Harrington, Union Road, and Stanhope) interested in participating in this process should call or email Jennifer Roma, if they haven't already done so, at (902) 368-8972 or email jennifer.roma@gmail.com.

For general information on the Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay visit the web page at www.stanhopecovehead.pe.ca.

(Published in The Guardian Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008) At the North Shore Community Centre in Covehead last weekend, David Clark, along with the Department of Environment and members of the Friends of Covehead and Brackley Bay watershed management group, provided residents the opportunity to have their drinking water tested for nitrate levels.

Four similar clinics were held across the province in 2007, and because of their popularity seven more have been scheduled for 2008, Clark said."Everyone's pretty curious, they want to know," he said. "They have questions and they want answers. They're environmentally concerned - it's great."

The process of testing for nitrate levels in water only takes a few minutes. The water sample is put into a machine called a spectrotometer, which passes the sample by a beam of light of a certain wavelength, measuring the absorbance, Clark said, adding the absorbance is an indication of how much nitrate it contains.

The guidelines issued by Health Canada state anything under a reading of 10 is safe to drink, he said, although he couldn't confirm how many samples from the clinic were considered either safe or unsafe.

One of the main questions raised at Saturday's clinic was, 'What are the sources of nitrates?', Clark said.

"Sources of nitrates can be anything from fertilizer on lawns and fields to manure piles to leaking septic tanks to piles of degrading plant material," he said. "Anything can leach nitrate into the ground." He said it's difficult to pinpoint one specific cause of nitrates on the Island as they can vary from place to place. "In one area, you might have more nitrates contributed from fertilizer, where in another area you might have a lot of nitrates contributed to problems with tanks."

Before their water was tested, residents were asked to fill out a questionnaire, asking them about their well and septic system, two areas that could cause nitrates to accumulate in their drinking water.

Clark said if water has a high nitrate reading, there could be other problems."The problem with older wells is they're not as deep, there's not enough casing and surface water can get into them. So nitrates can leach into them, bacteria can leach into them," he said, adding bacterial problems could cause serious health issues.

"This is a great way to bring people in and get them thinking about not only just nitrates, but all the other problems that could exist."

The next clinic will be held Feb. 16 at the Miscouche Recreation Centre.

Jennifer Roma, watershed co-ordinator for Friends of Covehead and Brackley Bay, was recently hired to help create a long-term watershed management plan for the area. She said holding clinics and public meetings not only provides residents with information, it also allows them to give their input as to what they think some of the problems are and suggestions about how those problems can be corrected.

"If you don't have the community involved right from the get-go, then they're not really going to buy into it," she said. "The residents have been very enthusiastic and supportive."

An example of what Roma will be looking at is where problems, such as silt in a river, are coming from. "Removing the silt isn't enough," she said. "You have to find where it's coming from. That's the bigger picture of what the watershed management plan looks at."The idea of the public meetings isn't about blaming anyone, she said.

"It's not about pointing fingers. What we're trying to do is get people actually discussing, so everybody understands each others viewpoint." The next public meeting for the watershed management group will be held at the North Shore Community Centre on Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

(Published in The Guardian Friday, February 8, 2008 and in The Northern Star February 2008 edition) There will be lots of opportunity this month for watershed residents in the Covehead and Brackley Bay area to learn more about the health of their water and provide input on water problems and solutions for improvement.

The Friends of Covehead-Brackley Bay Watershed Management Group is inviting the public to two separate events - a free nitrate clinic and a public meeting to discuss water quality in Covehead and Brackley Bays, and the importance of surface and groundwater.

There will be a free nitrate clinic at the North Shore Community Centre gym on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 9a.m. to 2 p.m. Individuals should bring a one-cup water sample in a clean container, such as a mason jar. They can also bring in a neighbour's sample to accommodate those unable to attend. Coffee/tea and refreshments will be available, as well as information on the watershed management group and its activities.

The state of the bays and surface and groundwater will be the topic of a public meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m. at the North Shore Community Centre. Guest speaker Cindy Crane, surface water biologist for the PEI Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry, will present information found from a water quality study done in Covehead and Brackley Bays in 2000. She will also discuss ground and surface water in the area, what each is and what the public can do to impact them positively.

In addition to preparing for these meetings the watershed group has had two successful meetings to date, one with tourism and recreation operators and the other with farmers in the area.

Both of these meetings were well attended and provided the group with important input from residents and business owners on what they see as the problems facing the health of water, as well as solutions to make improvements moving forward.

Jennifer Roma, watershed coordinator, said the group was pleased with the outcome of its tourism and agriculture meetings. A third meeting for fishermen from the area was scheduled for last week.

"What we hope to achieve with these and with the public meetings, is to get people talking about water in the area. We know that the condition of Covehead and Brackley Bays are not good. Recent summers have given us heavy plant growth in the water and foul smells when it finally dies off near the end of the summer. Not only is this not aesthetically pleasing to residents or visitors, if it is allowed to continue it is dangerous for our health and that of our wildlife."

The fact is that improving the health of the bays will only happen with clean-up further up in the watershed, in the freshwater streams that lead into Covehead and Brackley Bays. These are Parson's Creek, Auld's Creek, Bell's Creek, Black River, and MacCallum's Creek. The entire area of the watershed is quite large, just over 7,300 hectares, or 73 km2. It includes all or part of the communities of Brackley Beach, Brackley Point, West Covehead, Covehead Road, Harrington, Winsloe North, North Milton, and Stanhope.

(Published in The Guardian Monday, January 7, 2008) Friends of Covehead and Brackley Bay Watershed Management Group have received funding from the province to move forward with watershed restoration and planning activities, designed to improve the health of the watershed now threatened by factors such as anoxic events, siltation, and groundwater contamination in this popular area.

With the assistance of a newly hired planner, Jennifer Roma, the Friends will focus on community involvement in long-term planning this winter.

"Direct input from people living in the community is a vital part of watershed management planning," says Friends Co-Chair Verner Smitheram. "It is the people in the community that need to tell us what they see as problem areas and play an active role in managing the health of the streams and bays."

"A watershed management plan is vital if we are to move forward," says Smitheram. "We know that our two bays in the area, Brackley and Covehead, are not in good shape but to clean them up, we must first start with each of the five streams that flow into them. In order to accomplish this we have to have a long-term vision and goals. We know from the success of the Souris Watershed plan that community support and involvement is crucial in the development and implementation of efforts to improve the health of the watershed."

The group is hosting several meetings in early 2008 to get this community feedback. Earliest meetings will involve residents in key areas of farming, fishing, tourism & recreation, and landowners. These will be followed by public meetings in February and March, along with a nitrate testing clinic, where people in the communities of Brackley, Covehead, Harrington, North Milton, Winsloe North, and Stanhope will be able to take a sample of their own well-water and get it tested for nitrate levels.