The RVCA spearheads a huge range of watershed management activities, and one of them is keeping harmful contaminants out of our drinking water through septic inspections. Not sure what that means? Meet Adam Dillon, your friendly, neighbourhood regulations inspector, to find out:
Simon Lunn knew he needed to drill a new well and decommission his old one. What he didn't figure was that the conservation authority would hand him $1,000 towards his costs.
Mr. Lunn, a long-time Smiths Falls resident near the Smiths Falls Golf and Country Club, received the funds through the Rural Clean Water Grants program, which covers up to 90 per cent of costs for projects that protect water resources in the watershed.
Christmas has come early for the fish of Wolfe Lake.
RVCA staff and volunteers could be spotted sinking bundles of old Christmas trees into the Westport-area lake on Sept. 5.
But this wasn't just an extreme head-start on underwater holiday décor; the donated brush bundles will also provide valuable habitat for several fish species in the lake, according to RVCA aquatic biologist Jennifer Lamoureux.
The RVCA and its partners are angling to help walleye stocks recover in Wolfe Lake.
With a generous grant from the TD Friends of the Environment Fund, RVCA staff teamed up with volunteers from the Wolfe Lake Association and the Westport Area Outdoors Association to create two new spawning beds on Scanlan Creek at the end of August.
No Swim advisories are no fun, but our aquatic experts are working hard to keep our water and beaches clean – one wetland restoration at a time.
The Black Rapids wetland project is a perfect example of how a natural feature like a wetland can act as a water treatment plant to filter pollution out of the water - reducing the impact on our summer fun at the same time.
You know what they say: "If you build it, they will come." But that old adage isn't just for haunted baseball fields – it also applies to wetland projects right in the heart of Ottawa's greenbelt.
Last fall, staff at the RVCA and the National Capital Commission created 10,000 square metres of new wetland habitat along Stillwater Creek, just south of the new DND headquarters off Moodie Drive and Highway 417.
Thanks to observations from the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre, which is located nearby, staff at the NCC and RVCA discovered the wetland had been suffering annually from extreme low water conditions. Most of the year the wetland was completely dry, dominated by long, reedy grasses that don't encourage much biodiversity.
Custom-built smartphone apps are changing the way staff at Rideau Valley Conservation Authority get their work done – and saving time, money and headaches in the process.
This spring, the RVCA launched its latest app, this one for classifying shorelines – something no other conservation group is doing digitally.
Gone are the bulky clipboards and windswept papers of previous surveys. And vanquished are the days of tedious data entry after a long season on the water.
These days, with the tap of an app staff can quickly analyze a shoreline, take a photo and input all the relevant data into a digital database, all from the palm of their hand – and from the middle of a river.
Like any good legacy, there comes a time when you must take a deep breath and leave it in the hands of the next generation.
That's precisely what Ashton farmers Arn and Jan Snyder will do this summer after 32 years of painstakingly sculpting their land into an environmental haven for people, animals and trees.
May 3, 2019 - As thousands of Canadian students walked out of class to protest climate policies on May 3, a group of Nepean High School students were going back to basics.
Shovels in hand, the 14-person crew braved wet weather to plant 500 trees at MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre in Cumberland. Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) provided the seedlings and taught the students how and where to plant them.
