CLOCA keeping up with changing times
CLOCA staffer Jackie Scott sights and records a northern goshawk nest as part of the conservation authority’s numerous monitoring programs that keep track of bird and amphibian populations as well as environmental conditions across the watershed.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
By their nature, watersheds are always changing. For the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, the entity responsible for the conservation and monitoring of a space nearly six times the size of Oshawa, it is more than plenty to keep an eye on.
Now, the conservation authority is making sure its monitoring programs are keeping up with the times to ensure it is gathering the right information moving forward.
Better known by its acronym, CLOCA is responsible for an area that extends from Clarington in the east to Pickering in the west and stretches as far north as Scugog, covering 627 square kilometres and 18 different watersheds.
To keep up with matters such as water quality, animal populations and habitat information, CLOCA uses several different monitoring programs, some of which have been in place since the late 1980s.
“With all the changes happening in our watershed with growth and infrastructure improvements and the lands based on climate change and the new technologies and new skills that are out there, we want to make sure that our monitoring program is answering the questions that we feel are relevant to the watershed,” says Heather Brooks, CLOCA’s director of watershed planning and natural heritage.
CLOCA’s monitoring programs include the Durham Region Coastal Wetland monitoring project, wildlife monitoring programs for bird and amphibian populations, and programs for habitat monitoring, water quality and invasive species.
The conservation authority has multiple monitoring stations across the region, some of which provide real-time information on water levels and flooding conditions.
With several pressures and changes facing the large swath of watershed – the growing expansion of Highway 407 and possible pipelines being only two – it is crucial CLOCA continues to gather this information to inform any potential decisions that need to be made.
CLOCA plays a role in not only informing its own decisions on preservation priorities within the watershed, but are also a key stakeholder in many city development decisions when it comes to environmentally significant lands.
“Without that data and that baseline information, we just wouldn’t have the science to put our judgements on record,” Brooks says.
“It’s the foundations of so many of CLOCA’s programs and our input into municipal programs and development and those kinds of things.”