Stratford area watershed group educating the environmentalists of tomorrow

Prince Edward Island has a wide variety of watercourses and wetlands throughout all three counties, and watershed groups across the Island work tirelessly to protect and support them. This work is supported in part by the Government of Prince Edward Island's $2.1 million annual watershed management fund.

One of those groups is the Stratford and Area Watershed Improvement Group, also known as SAWIG.

SAWIG was started in 2009 by a group of Stratford residents. The group was concerned about the health and sustainability of their watershed. To voice their concerns, residents held regular meetings to discuss how to enhance their watershed.

Water School

Since 2009, SAWIG has produced new and unique ideas aimed at ensuring the ecological integrity of the region's watershed for future generations. One of those was the creation of the Water School/Water's Cool initiative for grade school children.

Sarah Wray, the current watershed coordinator for SAWIG, says that Water School has become a really successful program for the group since it began.

"Water School was created in 2011. It was brought to life by a previous SAWIG coordinator, as well as a water technician for the Town of Stratford."

At Water School, students from Stratford and Charlottetown area spend the day learning about water conservation methods like how to save water and how the groundwater system works.

"They get to do a lot of interactive, hands-on modeling through some great props and slideshows that we have available to them," says Wray.

"They learn about the importance of wetlands and buffer zones. They learn how to identify where things might be leaking in their house to conserve water, and overall, understand the important role that water plays in a watershed and how their actions impact water," she explains.

Because of the role that Water School plays in educating students around water conservation, students who take part in the program come out of the experience with a renewed awareness and understanding around protecting our waterways.

Wray says that if young people learn the tools of the trade at an early age, they are more likely to have a personal stake in protecting the environment for future generations.

"The overarching theme of the watershed portion of Water School is that everything in nature is connected. So, by engaging students in these activities, they learn how their day-to-day actions can have ripple effects on the entire watershed.

"When in this program, we encourage what they learn and apply it to their daily lives. And it creates a great environment where students feel empowered and engaged to get involved in water conservation in their home communities," says Wray.

SAWIG undertaking big projects to help the community

Water School is one of SAWIG's largest and most popular programs, but the group is also busy undertaking several projects aimed at helping watersheds within their watershed boundaries. These projects are made possible through the support from different environmental grants, donations, environmental organizations, the Government of Prince Edward Island and the Government of Canada.

"We do have a few big projects that we're working on this year due to some grants that we have. One of them is the EcoAction Community Funding program, which is through Environment and Climate Change Canada.

"That project is looking at the rehabilitation of the Fullerton's Creek watershed. We're putting in about 1,200 trees and shrubs along riparian areas to create better buffer zones. We're [also] doing some brush mats to increase vegetation establishments on banks, so that we can improve flood plain connectivity," said Wray.

A riparian area is the transition between watercourses/wetlands and dry uplands and these areas are important to aquatic and terrestrial wildlife. The project aims to conserve and protect freshwater ecosystems in the Stratford area through the improvement of water quality, stream bed composition and stream flow. In addition to the above activities, the project also involves removing in-stream invasives and stream blockages.

"We also have another cool project, which has come from the Prince Edward Island Watershed Alliance. They applied for a big nature Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund grant, which is looking at saltmarsh restoration and carbon capture. So, we're going to be planting about 500 plant plugs in the Kinloch saltmarsh area to be able to increase the buffer between the saltmarsh and the road and improve diversity in that area."