Bill Muncie's "Pre-spawning coho" is on display at The Landing Grill in Nanoose, and his "High Tide Feed" is displayed at Serious Coffee in Parksville, Mark Hobson's "Surface Tension" is displayed at The Beach Club in Parksville and his "Catching the Strays" is at the Coastal Community Credit Union in Qualicum Beach. All prints are high-quality lithograph prints of the originals that are owned by the Pacific Salmon Foundation. Each print is beautifully and newly reframed by the Pacific Salmon Foundation. MVIHES shares in the proceeds of this auction. This auction closes October 25th, please encourage your friends to go have a look....and make a bid!
BC Auditor General’s Report on Groundwater confirms Mid Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society’s (MVIHES) worries about the gap in knowledge concerning this precious resource.
On December 1st, the BC Office of the Auditor General released its findings on the state of groundwater management in the province. It concludes that because of insufficient information, lack of protection from depletion and contamination, lack of control over access and of local authority to take responsibility for groundwater, the government is not effectively ensuring the sustainability of the province’s groundwater resources. The report recognizes that although the province is committed to improving the protection of the quality and quantity of groundwater through the Water Act Modernization process, that will not lead to new legislation until at least 2012.
Not content to wait until 2012 to get in line with other priority watersheds for attention, MVIHES has initiated a major study of the aquifers in the lower Englishman River watershed with Hydrogeologist, Dr. Gilles Wendling. With the help of many community well-owners, the Regional District of Nanaimo, the Ministry of Environment, Vancouver Island University and significant funding from RBC Blue Water Project, Living Rivers and the Real Estate Foundation of BC, the Society is taking action now to understand groundwater in the Englishman River watershed.
MVIHES Project Coordinator, Faye Smith, says that the report is a huge wake-up call to start paying more attention to our water resource. It’s not just that we could put at risk our drinking water, but we could also be putting our entire ecosystem at risk if we continue to develop in places that may be important recharge areas or in aquifers that are already stressed.
For those that may have missed Gilles Wendlings November 4th, 2011 presentation on The Englishman River and its Aquifers, here is a video of that presentation.
There was a full spanning debris jam at survey station 11, a distance of 540 m from the confluence. This jam was approximately 10 m long and 20 m wide filled with 200 to 300 pieces of historic logging debris as well as second growth trees washed in from erosion. There was one full spanning cedar log holding it all together.
Work parties were held during a total of three full days within a period of 10 weeks. We positioned approximately 15 pieces of large conifer/maple on-site logs and anchored them with 300 feet of 1/2 inch galvanized steel cable and hardware. Volunteers and students moved the rest of the wood to the anchored habitat structures creating log spurs on each bank. Cable, hardware and heavy tools were purchased with the capital funds. Due to the volume of wood in this jam, which was much greater than anticipated, this was the only location dealt with in 2011.
The chloroplast browse covers on a hundred riparian red cedars previously planted by our volunteers, were removed and saved for re-use. Approximately 90% of the trees survived and were over one metre in height. We also did some grubbing and debris clean up around them. New trees will be planted during the spring planting season.
The project was developed from the 2004 Restoration Plan by MVIHES's biological advisors, D. Clough & W. Warttig.
Bill Muncie's "Pre-spawning coho" is on display at The Landing Grill in Nanoose, and his "High Tide Feed" is displayed at Serious Coffee in Parksville, Mark Hobson's "Surface Tension" is displayed at The Beach Club in Parksville and his "Catching the Strays" is at the Coastal Community Credit Union in Qualicum Beach. All prints are high-quality lithograph prints of the originals that are owned by the Pacific Salmon Foundation. Each print is beautifully and newly reframed by the Pacific Salmon Foundation. MVIHES shares in the proceeds of this auction. This auction closes October 25th, please encourage your friends to go have a look....and make a bid!
