Are you interested in how we measure the health of the Nashwaak Watershed? We’re starting a new social media series to give you more information about our field work and the data we collect!  Check out our Facebook and Instagram to follow along every Wednesday. This week, we’re starting off with our temperature logger program. This is the third year that we’ve deployed HOBO temperature loggers throughout the watershed. This year we have 37 loggers installed in the Nashwaak and its tributaries that measure the water temperature every 4 hours. If you see one, please leave it be! Find out more information here.

From this information we hope to 1) determine the location of cold water refuges that are important to fish in the hot summer months so that we can restore or protect them and 2) monitor how warm the main stem and the larger tributaries get in the summer and compare those results year to year. The graph below shows the average summer temperature for 2018. The Nashwaak averaged almost 20C last summer while the tributaries were much cooler (16.5C).

Join us at The Ville Cooperative on Thursday, March 14 (back up date March 21st)  from 6 – 7:30pm for an introduction to rain gardens. Rain gardens capture water that runs off of hard surfaces, such as driveways, rooftops and walkways. The garden is designed, and specific plants are selected to allow water to infiltrate back into the soil and remove pollutants from the runoff. Rain gardens are beautiful, and provide homes for butterflies and pollinators.

Adam Weaver, experienced permaculture practitioner, of The Ville Cooperative will lead us through an immersive introduction to Rain Gardening.  

The NWAI remains opposed to the Sisson Mine project which intends to use water bodies frequented by fish to dispose of the mine waste that will be generated by the mining operations. We are encouraging concerned citizens to participate in the process by providing comments directly to Environment and Climate Change Canada before March 18, 2019. Please submit your comments directly to: ec.mmer-remm.ec@canada.ca

The proposed Amendments to the Metal and Diamond Mining Effluent Regulations (the Regulations) in relation to Sisson Mine Project in New Brunswick were published in the Canada Gazette. Click here to view the amendments.

In May 2018 the Nashwaak Watershed Association submitted a response to the proposal to amend the Metal Mining Effluent Regulation (MMER) for the Sisson Mine Project. Click here for the NWAI submission to Environment and Climate Change Canada, May 2018.