Category: Environment

Plant Your Bank

Free Trees & Shrubs!!!
 
The BWC with support from the New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund and the World Wildlife Fund Canada is excited to announce our 2023 Plant Your Bank Too project.The ‘Belleisle Plant Your Bank Too’ project is focused on engaging with local landowners and community members to assist you with planting native trees and shrubs. You provide the site and we provide the trees and shrubs, people-power and permits. Planting your bank can help to create buffers to reduce impacts of flooding, create habitat for wildlife like birds, butterflies and turtles and protect water quality by reducing runoff, erosion and water temperatures. Let’s all work together to keep Belleisle and the St. John River Healthy!
 
For more information or to request a site visit please contact us at belleislewatershed@gmail.com.

Winter Salt Use

Winter Salt Use

Travelling safely on winter roads is important to all of us – and we can keep our roads and sidewalks ice-free while not degrading water quality, aquatic habitats, and infrastructure in the process. Community members and government departments need to work together to reduce salt use, find alternatives, and stop the pollution of our Province’s aquatic ecosystems.
 
Here is some useful information about how to use Salt more effectively. 
Here are a few tips on how to make the most of your household salt application:
 

1. Shovel first, and shovel well: get all snow out of the way before salting. Salt that is applied on top of snow melts into storm drains, then creeks and rivers much more quickly.

2. A coffee cup at a time: apply salt with a smaller container, like a coffee cup so you can control how much goes onto the ground more easily. A coffee cup of salt is enough to melt a 20 foot driveway.
 
3. Pick an alternative, like coffee grinds or traction sand: be mindful of the temperature, salt isn’t effective when it’s below -10C, so there is little benefit to applying it, use an alternative instead. Both traction sand and coffee grinds work at lower temperatures.
 
For more information about road salts, please contact us at belleislewatershed@gmail.com or follow us on Facebook.
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Road Salt Sampling

Salt Water Testing

Did you know… After some winter storms salt levels in New Brunswick’s watercourses can reach 35 parts per thousand that’s the same amount of salt that’s in the ocean! Increased salt levels in streams can contaminate aquatic habitats, harm aquatic life, and make it tough for wildlife to find clean, safe drinking water. Many of us depend on local groundwater to feed our wells for drinking water. Well, systems are not equipped to filter out excess salt, so road salt can end up in our tap water, where it can cause health concerns for people with high blood pressure and even harm our pets and live stock.

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Belleisle Marsh Road Salt Sampling

Belleisle Marsh Road Salt Sampling

The BWC has teamed up again with Miss. Giddens Grade 9 Science Class from BRHS to continue to learn about how road salt affects Belleisle Marsh. The students were out in the marsh the other day and will be collecting and testing water samples throughout the winter and learning about water quality in a local context.

Last year we found lower than expected salt level and hope that’s a trend that continues in 2023. Results for this year will be available in the spring and we can’t wait to see what they discover!

colin