Ecosystem Valuation

Decision-making about ways and means to protect and preserve the Sylvan Lake watershed is limited by the lack of information on its value. The methods used by environmental economists who study ecosystems are explained on a website maintained by the US Department of Agriculture. The following paragraph is an excerpt that introduces a few methods …

Report on Lacombe County’s Sylvan Lake Wastewater Proposal

Dozens of property owners from the Kuusamo Krest, Yuill, Palm Cove and Blissfull Beach communities on Sylvan Lake who would be affected by the Lacombe County Sanitary Servicing Project attended a meeting tonight with Council for a presentation and discussion of the proposal. The County's policy requires each of the four groups to install community sewage systems that connect individual holding tanks to a …

Riparian Areas, Wetlands and Land Use – RDRWA Report

The Red Deer River Watershed Alliance released its Background Report on Riparian Areas, Wetlands and Land Use in 2013-02. Here is part of the introduction: To set targets and synthesize information while still accounting for major landscape differences throughout the Red Deer River watershed, five Landscape Units were defined based on dominant land use and natural …

SLWSS President Presented with Diamond Jubilee Medal

Editor Steve Dills reported on the award ceremony in the Sylvan Lake News. Graeme Strathdee, president of the Sylvan Lake Watershed Stewardship Society, received a Diamond Jubilee Medal from M.P. Earl Dreeshen at a ceremony held at the Sylvan Lake Legion on December 19. By acknowledging the volunteer contribution of the president, the community also recognizes …

Municipal Powers, Land Use Planning and the Environment

The Environmental Law Centre published a report on this topic in 2005. The document may also be downloaded from the ELC website. This link should be used in reference lists: http://elc.ab.ca/Content_Files/Files/MunicipalPowersLandUsePlanning.pdf Text from the Introduction is reproduced here: Municipalities exercise a broad range of powers that have significant direct and indirect impacts on the environment. …

Reference Library of Sylvan Lake and Watershed Documents

Many watershed reports, laws and regulations are available in the SLWSS Library Documents may be downloaded from that site or viewed without doing so. File sizes are shown in the table.

Sylvan Lake Water Quality

Sylvan Lake continues to rank in first place among the recreational lakes in Central Alberta because of its high water quality. Please click on the graphic to enlarge it. The lake water is sampled and analyzed periodically by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, by the Alberta Lake Management Society (ALMS) and by the SLWSS. The …

Restore the Shoreline

Since shoreline property development started at Sylvan Lake decades ago the riparian zone adjacent to the lake has changed. Government surveys classify much of that zone as "impaired".  Property owners can help to restore some riparian zone functions by looking critically at landscaping and structures with the goal of improving water balance and reducing nutrient …

Watershed Report Card Preview

What will the Sylvan Lake watershed look like in the future? Annual reports by the watershed municipalities to Municipal Affairs contain some important population, land use and financial data that can be scaled up to indicate the changes that will occur in the next few decades in the growth projections hold. Baseline data for the …