Recent concerns over increased frequency and intensity of cyanobacterial blooms on Pigeon Lake has prompted intense study of the lake and its watershed. In 2013 work was done to characterize water quality, sediment quality, and non-fish biota. This data was then used to create a nutrient budget for lake and to undertake a BATHTUB model to explore future management options. The available reports are listed below:
- 2013 Overview of Pigeon Lake Water Quality, Sediment Quality, and Non-Fish Biota– May 2014 (172 pages, 10MB)
- Pigeon Lake Phosphorous Budget– Mar 2014 (35 pages, 2MB)
- Phosphorus Budget Summary – PLWA July 2014 (1 page)
A paleolimnology report and a presentation on the modelling are forthcoming.
Many thanks to everyone who supported this work, it was a group effort by ESRD, ALMS, and PLWA. This was an investment of nearly $200,000 in funding and hundreds of hours in design, management, collection, analysis and write-up and should provide a solid foundation for current and future work being undertaken or considered by stakeholders at Pigeon Lake.
More information on the Pigeon Lake Watershed Management Plan can be found at: www.plwmp.ca
What has the monitoring results of the plan and of the indicators shown? Is there a need to modify the plan? It is important that the lake watershed management plan does not just sit on a shelf. Information gaps should be addressed, action items need to be managed, completed, and evaluated to best address the needs of the lake. Always keep in mind the vision: if the actions taken are not bringing the lake closer to that vision, then the plan needs to be modified. Consider updating both the state of the watershed and the lake watershed management plans at regular intervals to make sure that the actions taken were achieving the desired outcomes and to evaluate what work still needs to be done.
Reporting is an essential component of any watershed management planning and implementation process. There are two main types of reporting that should be shared with stakeholders on a regular basis: implementation reporting & effectiveness reporting.
The development of a lake watershed management plan provides the guidance needed to implement activities, but the plan cannot be static. Monitoring the performance of your management actions is essential to understanding whether your goals have been met, and whether further actions are needed. Monitoring and evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of a lake watershed management plan allows assessment of progress towards the goals and objectives of the plan, identification of problems and opportunities, and a collection of critical information required when performing a 5 or 10 year review of the plan.
Once a plan has been approved by all affected sectors and officially endorsed and released by the steering committee, then implementation can begin in full. Action projects can be large and comprehensive, or made smaller by staging projects over time or into modules that can be tackled one at a time. Fundraising is an issue that many community groups may find intimidating, but experience with programs such as the Pine Lake Restoration Program (see 
The members of the steering committee will continue to play a strong role in facilitating and tracking implementation actions. This includes any actions they were responsible for, as well as tracking other committees and sector’s actions and progress made towards achieving the plan’s outcomes. Ongoing communication is essential to successful implementation and achieving outcomes, therefore a regular reporting mechanism could be set up in order to provide regular evaluation of the plan.
There is no limit to the number or types of lake management actions, but they typically fall into the categories on the right.
This graphic describes how the various committees and groups will work and interact together. The circle size depicts the approximate number of people involved, and the circles overlapping indicates that some individuals may reside in all of the circles and participate in multiple committees as part of the planning process. The technical committee is shown as an arrow, indicating that it is independent and has relatively few people, and yet it interacts with all of the groups. This graphic may look different depending on the lake and the people involved, and a detailed structure should be agreed upon and described in the plan’s Terms of Reference (Step 6).
Helpful resources