ALMS Volunteer of the Year Award
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 Each year, ALMS recognizes the genuine dedication and enthusiasm shown by one of our outstanding LakeWatch Volunteers. This year, we have chosen to recognize the efforts of Larry MacPherson, our Wizard Lake volunteer.
Larry is the third recipient of the LakeWatch Volunteer of the Year Award - joining Terry Noble of Lac Sante and Garry Kissel of Minnie Lake. Yes, Terry, Garry, and Larry - I swear we don't pick our Volunteers of the Year based on a rhyme scheme.
You can read more about Larry and Wizard Lake by clicking on 2014 Recipient after the jump!
Thank you to all of the volunteers who make our programs possible. If you would like to find out how you can become a LakeWatch volunteer, contact Brad at [email protected] or visit www.alms.ca for more information.
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NALMS Adventures 2014
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This year's North American Lake Management Society conference was held in sunny Tampa, Florida. While most people associate Florida with the ocean, the state actually has a very active LakeWatch program - with over 1800 volunteers monitoring 600 lakes!
At this year's conference, Bradley presented the results of the Pigeon Lake Phosphorus Budget to a packed house. A number of attendees were very interested in the citizen science aspect of the project and the presentation resulted in a lot of great discussion!
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What did Albertans say about Healthy Lakes?
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Environment and Sustainable Resource Development released two documents this week relating to the Water Conversations held across the province last year. The Water Conversations were based around four main topics:
- Healthy Lakes,
- Hydraulic Fracturing and Water,
- Drinking Water and Wastewater, and
- Water Management
The Action Plan which arose from these conversations includes both short term goals and long term goals. The short term goals for healthy lakes are:
- Enhance lake governance systems to clarify roles and responsibilities;
- Fill information gaps to improve lake monitoring, evaluating, and reporting; and
- Enhance public awareness about lake management to further support Albertan's in keeping lakes clean and healthy.
The long term goal for Healthy Lakes was to 'advance a provincial lake policy that supports an integrated approach to healthy lakes in support of economic, environmental, and social impacts.'
While these are all excellent goals, these are points ALMS has been working towards for a number of years, and we look forward to continuing to be involved in the process!
You can view all both documents released by ESRD below:
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ALMS Wins Alberta Ecotrust's Mapping What Matters Random Draw!
| Just for completing Alberta Ecotrust's Mapping What Matters Survey, we were entered to win, and won, a $1000 Mini-Grant for Capacity!
The Mapping What Matters project goal was to better understand Alberta's environmental nonprofits (ENGOs) and determine how Ecotrust can best support them. Alberta Ecotrust conducted a social network analysis and comprehensive needs assessment and has published their results online! Check out the results of this great project here!
Thanks again to Alberta Ecostrust for the prize and to Greg Boorman for accepting the award!
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| Get Involved - Tracking Lake Ice! | |
IceWatch, a program of NatureWatch, is a volunteer monitoring program that collects freeze and thaw data from lakes across the country. Every data point we collect contributes valuable information to our climate record. In fact, just this year, the earliest recorded ice-on date for Lake Superior was observed on November 15th!
We now have a number of stewards across the province who are uploading their ice on/off records to IceWatch. If you would like to make observations or share your historical records it is easy to do! Just follow the link above for further instructions! As well, if you require any assistance uploading your data do not hesitate to contact Brad.
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