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Understanding the health of Crane Lake's riparian

The MD of Bonnyville is keeping a close eye on the riparian areas of Crane Lake, while brainstorming ways they can improve its overall health.
25.news.Crane Lake
The MD of Bonnyville hosted an information session to update residents on their findings of the health of the Crane Lake riparian area.

The MD of Bonnyville is keeping a close eye on the riparian areas of Crane Lake, while brainstorming ways they can improve its overall health.


Since 2016, Crane Lake has been part of a riparian restoration program, and has been viewed both from the air and up close and personal.


Overall, the health of the lake looks good, said Katlyn MacDonald, environmental coordinator for the MD during their presentation on the results of their study on June 9.


“A majority of the lake is actually healthy, there is very little disturbance,” she expressed. “There are some areas that aren’t inside of the (Crane Lake) subdivision that have been influenced by recreational users, some oil and gas development, but primarily it’s recreational users.”


Using an aerial drone study, they took a look at the health of the riparian areas of the lake, determined what is impacting its health, and considered solutions.


Of the 19.4-kilometres of shoreline, including the stretch surrounding the lake’s island, about 85 per cent of the riparian management area is covered with vegetation of any kind.


But what their aerial study can’t determine, MacDonald said, is exactly what type of vegetation is down there, which is why they brought in Kerri O’Shaughnessy of Cows and Fish and her team.


“This is the difference between going in and figuring out if it’s native, invasive, or if it’s disturbance caused. You can’t really tell that from an aerial drone other than the fact that you can see there is no ground cover, that there’s a canopy, or a change in vegetation,” explained MacDonald.


O’Shaughnessy, a riparian specialist with Cows and Fish, an organization under the Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society, worked with others in a number of riparian spaces along the lake in order to determine whether they were healthy, healthy but with problems, or unhealthy.


She said, “With the method that we have, you basically get a score from zero to 100 per cent. If you’re in 80 per cent or above, you’re in the healthy category, if you’re in the middle between 60 and 79 per cent, you’re healthy but with problems. If you’re less than 60 per cent, it goes in the unhealthy category.”


In total, 36 sites, which were chosen by the MD, were studied for vegetation, soil, and topography, among others.


Of the sites reviewed, three per cent fell under the healthy category, while 17 per cent were healthy but with problems, leaving the remaining 80 per cent falling into the unhealthy classification.


“The average health rating of all of the sites taken together, is unhealthy,” O’Shaughnessy noted.


However, there were a number of sites that were tiptoeing the healthy but with problems and unhealthy line.


O’Shaughnessy said, if a few adjustments were made, there’s no doubt the health of these areas would improve.


Vegetation and the physical aspect of the riparian area are considered when conducting a site study. O’Shaughnessy looks at the various types of plants, whether they’re native, invasive, or noxious weeds.


“The plant species diversity out here is pretty cool. There are about 206 total unique plant species identified, as well as 10 trees, 45 shrubs, 35 grasses, and 116 broad-leaf plants,” detailed O’Shaughnessy. “Eighty per cent of them are native in that riparian landscape, that’s positive. That means that there are 20 per cent that are non-native, or introduced. Of those, 13 per cent are disturbance caused like blue grass, long grass, dandelions, and clover. There’s also some that are invasive, so things that are on the noxious weed list like Canada thistle, common Tansy, and those types of plants.”


This is a problem that can easily be solved, O’Shaughnessy added.


“There are a few invasive plants, the cover isn’t very high, and it’s one that we can physically tackle. A lot of the plants can be maintained just by hand-pulling, mowing, whipper snippering, that might be something people can tackle.”


During her review of the sites, O’Shaughnessy discovered that over 35 per cent of the forest area surrounding Crane Lake is being removed by humans for one reason or another.


This is something the MD of Bonnyville is hoping to cut back on, in order to improve the health of the lake.


“What I would like to do, is working with lot owners and the Crown, to increase our health and decrease our highly impaired sites,” MacDonald explained. “We want to target a couple of the disturbances, structural variances on the scores can actually have a big shift in how the lake operates and how healthy it actually is.”


This includes permanent docks and illegal boat launches.


According to MacDonald, Crane Lake is home to 14 illegal boat launches, which is a clear indication they need more on the lake itself.


“We had 75 docks noted along the shoreline at the residential subdivision, as well as two or three that were located along Crown lands. Sixteen boat launches were noted, however we actually only have two licensed boat launches on the entire lake. That means we have 14 illegal boat launches on Crane Lake, which means we should probably look at the development of some actual physical boat launches.”


O’Shaughnessy’s recommendation was to “maintain what you have... There’s a really good compliment of vegetation out there that is hard to get back.”


In order to improve the area, she suggests planting, which is already on the list of things to do for the MD.


“Reduce the human-caused alterations to both physical and vegetation. I didn’t say stop, just try to reduce it,” added O’Shaughnessy. “If this particular aspect of riparian health could be improved on every site by one category, that’s going to have the biggest impact to the overall health of the sites that we looked at.”


MacDonald agreed that there are areas that could be improved, but based on the aerial study they conducted, things are looking pretty good.


“Our riparian area is actually healthy and functioning when it is capable to perform riparian functions, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have an opportunity to improve that,” MacDonald noted. “Seventy-one per cent of all of the segments (sites studied by the MD) came back as healthy, 15 per cent came back as moderately impaired, and 14 per cent came back as highly impacted.”


A similar study was conducted in 2006, revealing about 79 per cent of the shoreline as healthy.


MacDonald said, “For the majority of it, we actually haven’t impacted the lake much more than it already was. The areas that have been impacted have slightly shifted from the Crown land to the subdivision over the last 10 years.”

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