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Another Online Pond Bites the Dust

It might be hard to understand how a pond seemingly teeming with life can be a bad thing, but that’s exactly what was happening in Pangman Springs.

Pangman Springs is a 100-hectare property on the Oak Ridges Moraine within the East Holland River subwatershed.

One of the creeks running through the property contained an online pond. Online ponds are generally not good for fish, as the pond slows the water down and allows it to warm up, both of which make the water less attractive for fish. The pond also had a barrier at one end that prevented fish from migrating further upstream.

This year we removed the pond and let a creek re-establish itself instead, creating more habitat for fish. We also created 0.4 hectares of wetland habitat, which improves wildlife diversity on the property.

​An Occasion to Celebrate​

Earlier this year we completed the construction of a new bridge in Sheppard’s Bush Conservation Area in Aurora. The new bridge replaced the remnants of a 100-year-old sawmill, which was acting as a public trail connection between two sides of the creek. The concrete crossing was structurally unsound, constraining water flows and acting as a barrier to fish migration. To mark the completion of the project, we held an opening ceremony and tree planting with students from a local school in May.​​

We’re Done “Kidding” Around this Creek

We’ve partnered with the City of Barrie to reduce the potential for flooding from Kidd’s Creek at Dunlop Street and to restore the health of the creek.

Besides flooding, washouts were barriers in the creek were preventing fish from reaching critical habitat. The entire project will take place over several years, but this year we naturalized the area in and around the creek, reducing erosion and removing barriers for fish.

We started by reshaping the land around the creek, using bioengineering techniques to stabilize its banks. One technique used trees that, instead of being removed from the site, were repurposed as anchors. Their root wads were strategically lodged into the banks of the creek to stabilize the soil.

The creek can now adapt to larger rain events without being eroded, and barriers for fish have been removed, providing them with more habitat. A Community Tree Planting will be held in Spring 2020 to celebrate the improvements.

Did you know?

About 2,300 cubic metres of dirt (230 dump trucks) had to be removed from the floodplain to enhance the banks around the creek. Rather than trucking the dirt away, we repurposed most of it to create lookout points out of the floodplain. In the end, we only had to truck 300 cubic metres (30 dump trucks) offsite, which saved the project money as well as reduced its carbon footprint.