Lake Simcoe funding round includes farmers

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Lake Simcoe area farmers are very interested in getting federal government funding for projects designed to restore the lake’s environment.

Andrew Graham, program manager for the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, says most of the $940,000 the association received as part of an Environment Canada announcement Tuesday to fund lake protection projects has already been earmarked for initiatives.

Graham says they’ve been accepting applications since November, 2010 with the release of project proposal applications for the third year of the Canada-Ontario Farm Stewardship program. “We knew at that time that this program was in place and we started accepting applications then.”

The association’s project is one of 19 new restoration projects to receive funding under round six of the federal government’s Lake Simcoe Clean-Up Fund. In total, the 19 projects are getting $4.1 million in funding. The clean up fund is designed to preserve and protect Lake Simcoe’s environment.

The association received the money for its Lake Simcoe Farm Stewardship program. It’s designed to increase farmer participation in Best Management practices. That will help reduce the amount of phosphorus getting into the lake and increase the overall protection and enhancement of the lake.

Before the association received the $940,000 in funding, Environment Canada contributed some money for projects in the Lake Simcoe watershed but that was limited to two Best Management project categories - septic systems and nutrient testing, Graham says. The remaining best management categories the association was offering were funded through the Ontario government and the Canada-Ontario Farm Stewardship program.

Now with the most recent federal government funding, the number of eligible Best Management categories has been expanded to 18 from two.  “By expanding the list of eligible BMP’s for the Environment Canada money, that’s going to greatly increase the number of projects that receive support from Environment Canada,” he explains.

Some eligible projects include improvements to manure storage and handling facilities, moving livestock confinement out of environmentally sensitive areas and habitat management on land where it meets the water.

Since 2008, the federal government’s five-year Lake Simcoe Clean-up Fund provided more than $15 million to 165 local projects, it says in a government press release. The funding for Lake Simcoe projects is part of the federal government’s Action Plan for Clean Water. Other projects included in the action plan are the Health of Oceans initiative to protect Canada’s three oceans, the clean up of contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes Areas of Concern and action on Lake Winnipeg pollution. BF