New executive ensures future of Ompah Fish Hatchery

Feb 11, 2010

The Ompah Conservation Association’s (OCA) Fish Hatchery received a healthy dose of community support recently, resulting in the appointment of a new executive board of volunteers early in December.

The future of the hatchery became uncertain last year when past OCA president and former hatchery manager Dave Slack announced that he, along with the OCA’s acting secretary/treasurer Cecelia Slack, his wife, would be stepping down after five years of dedicated service.

This was not the first time that the future of the hatchery came into question this past year. Back in May 2009 Dave Slack, who also held the role as hatchery manager, was forced to step down in that role for health reasons but stayed on as OCA president.

At that time an emergency meeting was called to find a new manager. Sheila Bissett, a relatively new resident to Ompah, volunteered to take on the role as manager temporarily until a new replacement was found and Dave Slack graciously offered to train her for the job. Sheila quickly became fascinated and fond of the work and the fish under her care, and agreed to take on the role full-time.

A period of calm ensued but in November the future of the hatchery once again became uncertain after Slack informed Sheila that he and his wife were planning to retire as respective president and secretary/treasurer. Again to avoid a possible closure, Sheila took immediate action and approached a group of Ompah residents who she thought might be interested in taking on the executive positions.

On December 3, Sheila’s efforts panned out when a group of 14 interested residents held a meeting that focused on determining the future life of the hatchery. By the end of it a new executive committee was appointed: Brain Moffitt, president; John Hawe, vice president; Leo Ladouceur, secretary/treasurer; and Sheila Bissett, manager.

Brian Moffitt recently said he was excited to begin planning for the future. “I feel very optimistic. We have to make some very basic decisions about what exactly the hatchery is going to be: Will it be a nursery or a hatchery? We also want to explore other possible roles the hatchery can fulfill in the community.”

He continued, “Hopefully by the spring we will have a clear idea of our mandate and an operating plan in place that will determine how exactly the hatchery will fit into the community.”

While Moffitt admitted that “It’s a little early to be fleshing too many things out,” he explained that the new executive plans to get input from the local community, the MNR, local cottage and conservation associations and the municipality of North Frontenac to see what their objectives are so as to find common ground from which to work.

High on the list of topics for the new executive to address is an emergency plan and monitoring system to be put in place in the event of future power outages at the hatchery.

Two outages that occurred over the holiday season required that countless volunteer hours be put in by Shelia, her husband Paul Dore and Brian Moffitt to ensure the fishes’ survival and the safety of the generator that kept the fish alive through the three-day ordeal. While the outcome of the crisis was a positive one since all of the 1480 trout survived the ordeal, a minor variation in the events leading up to those outages could have had a disastrous outcome.

As a result, the new executive plans to set up a monitoring and alarm system that will monitor any power outages and then notify a list of volunteers who can respond immediately to the situation. An outage of just two hours is enough to kill all of the fish at the hatchery since they rely on a powered pump and oxygenator to breathe.

Along with the executive board, the Ompah fish hatchery also relies heavily on the commitment of a very necessary group of volunteers from the community to keep it functioning. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Brian Moffitt at 613-479-0170.