Addington Highlands Council - Oct. 8/09

Jeff Green | Oct 08, 2009

Lake planning coming to Addington Highlands

Rosemary Teed, representing the Skootamatta, Sheldrake and Pringle Lake Management Plan steering committee, made a presentation to Addington Highlands Council on Monday October 5. Other members of the committee that is working on the plan accompanied her, including Terry Murphy, the General Manager of Quinte Conservation.

“What a lake plan will do is identify and protect lake characteristics that are valued by our community, promote community discussion, education and action, and recommend land use objectives for the protection and enhancement of the lake,” Teed told council.

Pringle Lake is a smaller lake that feeds into Skootamatta Lake by way of Wolf Creek. Sheldrake Lake is located very close to Skootamatta, and water quality and development issues are shared by residents on all three lakes, so it made sense for them to work on the lake plan together, according to Rosemary Teed.

The lakes are also a major source of water for the Moira River system, which feeds into the Bay of Quinte.

“We want to assure council that our goal is not to stop economic development; it is a matter of making sure that the development that we have is balanced with the preservation of our environment for ongoing community enjoyment,” Rosemary Teed said.

The steering committee wanted to make a presentation to Council at this early stage in the project for a few reasons, the primary one being that any lake plan will have to be developed to work with the township’s Official Plan, so the township will have to be involved. As well, Rosemary Teed said the committee would like to establish a contact person on council, and they also were looking for a nominal donation, $500, towards the cost of the plan.

Reeve Henry Hogg said he would be willing to be the contact person for council for the next year. “I can only commit to a year because there will be an election next November, and we don’t know who will be representing Council after then,” he said.

As far as the $500 is concerned, Hogg said that it would have to wait until the 2010 budget deliberations take place in February.

The lake planning process will include various other community partners in addition to council.

There are two “r”s in Deerrock – Deputy Mayor Helen Yanch couldn’t help but ask Quinte Conservation General Manger Terry Murphy to change the sign on the Deerrock road. (Quinte manages that road). It is not Deer ock,” she said. “It is Deerrock with two ‘r’s”.

Murphy said he would look into installing a new sign.

AFAR pull back – Councilor Louise Scott reported that AFAR (the Addington Frontenac Area Radio) has done some more detailed engineering work and has now determined that the 500-watt transmission signal that they hope to send from the TVO tower north of Bon Echo will not likely reach listeners to the east of Plevna, or as far to the southeast as Sharbot Lake.

The problem is that a 3500-watt signal station based in Gatineau uses the same signal that has been assigned to AFAR, and the Gatineau signal will push AFAR back.

The current plan is to serve Addington Highlands and the western parts of North and Central Frontenac in phase 1 of the project, and to work on a second phase later on to expand the reach of the signal to Sharbot Lake and the Ompah/Snow Road area.

This still requires negotiating an affordable deal for use of the TVO Tower. AFAR has enlisted the support of Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky, who will be contacting Education Minister Kathleen Wynne (whose ministry oversees TVO) on behalf of AFAR.

Tender price beats estimate – The tenders for the rebuild of the Matawatchan Road came in much lower than anticipated. The winning bid, by Dunford Construction, was $757,418.30.

The project is being supported by a federal/provincial infrastructure fund that is slated to provide 2/3 of the cost of a $1.35 million estimate on the work, so Council decided to extend the amount of road to be rebuilt in order to make full use of the grant money. The township’s share of the costs is covered in the 2009 budget.

Bridge almost complete, but funding? – Road Superintendent Royce Rosenblath reported that the Wagers bridge repair is almost complete. Unfortunately, the federal grant supporting the project has not been delivered, with the province asking about an environmental assessment for the project.

“There never was a requirement when the work was initiated,” said Reeve Hogg, “but now they seem to be holding back the money.”

Staff will look into the matter.