Conference Sponsors

Conference Location

Oakwood Inn Resort
Grand Bend, Ontario

GPS Address:
70671 Bluewater Hwy, South Huron, Ontario

www.oakwoodinnresort.com

www.oakwoodinnresort.com
/directions.htm

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This year's conference was attended by about 170 people, including First Nations people, landowners, politicians, agency staff, academics and students.

Matt Pearson
Chair, The Coastal Centre

Welcome
Welcome to “Is the Coast Clear?”, the Coastal Centre’s sixth biennial conference on Lake Huron’s coastal environment.  The theme for this year’s conference is “The Living Coast:  biodiversity and the health of Lake Huron.” in support of the United Nation’s declaring 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. We are pleased to be hosting this conference in beautiful Grand Bend, on the shores of Lake Huron.

www.cbd.int/2010/welcome/
www.facebook.com/iyb2010

Conference Program (617 kb)

Opening presentation - Is  the Coast Clear 2010 - notes page (401 kb)

Keynote Address
Bill Andrews,
Professor Emeritus,
University of Toronto

www.bill-andrews.com

Coastal Biodiversity and the Health of Lake Huron
This is a summary of my talk at "Is the Coast Clear?",the biennial conference of the Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation, held at Grand Bend on August 20, 2010.  I apologize for not including the photos.  The total file size with them included exceeds 200 megabytes.

Bill.Andrews-Coastal.Biodiversity-Word.summary.doc (52 kb)

Getting Beach Water Quality Information in Real Time — Richard Whitman, United States Geological Survey

The Issue

• Beach water is monitored for E. coli, an indicator of human fecal contamination
  
  
• E. coli results are not available until 24 hours after sample is collected
  
  
• E. coli concentrations fluctuate

Whitman_real-time-water-quality.pdf - 25pgs (1.57 mb)

Lake Huron Biodiversity Conservation Strategy — Patrick Doran, The Nature Conservancy.

Lake Huron is the fourth largest lake in the world, and has the world’s longest freshwater coastline and collection of freshwater islands.  Numerous globally rare ecosystems, natural communities, and species are associated with Lake Huron.

(available soon)

Beach Processes—the foundation of life on our shores — Dr. Robin Davidson-Arnott,   Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph.

Coastal sand dunes form landward of the top of most sandy beaches. Sand transported from the beach by wind is trapped by vegetation leading to the growth of a foredune.

Coastal-Dunes-RDA.pdf - 50pgs (6.7 mb)

The Common Reed  Invasion—Provincial Initiatives — Janice Gilbert, Ontario Parks, and Fran Letourneau, Dover Agri Serve.

Common Reed (Phragmites australis) is an invasive grass species that is causing detrimental damage to coastal beaches and wetland areas in Ontario, reducing biodiversity and destroying viable habitat for native species, including Species at Risk.

P.australis-a-major-threat-to-GL-habitats-LHCCC-workshop.pdf - 52pgs (7.32 mb)

Hitting a New Low? - Lake Levels on the Upper Great Lakes — Chuck Southam, Environment Canada.

This presentation is designed for people that would like to know more about the ups and downs of Great Lakes water levels. The purpose of the talk is to explain how and why water levels fluctuate and to put the current low water level conditions on the upper lakes into perspective. To further general understanding, descriptions are kept simple and the use of technical jargon and acronyms avoided.

Chuck.Southam-water.levels.pdf - 42pgs (3.17 mb)

Lake ecology: The status of Fisheries in Lake Huron — Arunas Liskauskas, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

The Lake Huron aquatic ecosystem is experiencing profound changes to the composition and dynamics of its fish communities. Most of these recent changes are a consequence of the continued introduction of invasive exotic species which have altered food webs affecting the most minute plankton species as well as to top predator fishes.

Fish.community_ecosystem.change_OMNR_August_2010-low.res.pdf - 39pgs (3.45 mb)

The Wexford:  Elusive Shipwreck of the Great Storm, 1913 — Paul Carroll, Goderich.

By telling the sad tale of the steamer WEXFORD, and using visual media, participants will be able to re-live her story, emulate the terror of her crew on her final voyage, and, share images of the shipwreck as she sits today.

Marine.Heritage-Wexford-PCARROLL .pdf - 3pgs (574 kb)

Dune Ecology:  protecting a rare coastal environment - Alistair McKenzie, Resource Management & Natural Heritage Education Supervisor, Pinery Provincial Park

The sand has been delivered via a conveyor belt in the lake, but now what?

Coast_is_Clear_Aug2010_ASM-low.res.pdf - 51pgs (3.34 mb)

“Is the Coast Clear?”

SUMMARY WRAP UP
Patrick Donnelly, LHCCC

Summary.Wrap.Up.pdf - 10pgs (1.13 mb)

“Is the Coast Clear?” is a one-day conference, held biennially, to bring those people together who are interested in learning more about the state of our lake’s coastal environment. With past conferences held in Goderich, Port Franks, Grand Bend and Port Elgin, the Coastal Centre’s goal is to take this event to different communities along Lake Huron to make important information about the coastal environment accessible to as many as possible. This year’s conference will be of interest to cottagers, farmers, municipal staff and Councilors, public agencies, industry, environmental NGO’s and anyone else interested in the future of Lake Huron’s environment.

Theme:
"Living Coast: biodiversity and the health of Lake Huron."

The Lake Huron coast has been showing signs of stress. Beach postings warning of risks to swimmers, algae fouling of beaches, invasive species, loss of habitat and degradation of important coastal ecosystems are some of the indications that we might be heading down a path that may be difficult, and expensive, to pull back from.  Intensive farming, intensive cottage development and increased demands on coastal resources have been some of the changes to the Lake Huron watershed over the past twenty years.

Taking preventative actions now can help to avoid a further downward trend in environmental quality.  This requires an informed coastal community to come together to plan and execute actions toward coastal conservation.  This conference is intended to bring people and ideas together to build on this process.