Karen van der Zalm knew something was awry when a swath of her Fort Erie farm flooded two years in a row.
ENVIRONMENTAL GRANT- I-CAN-T.E.R.
The stretch of Beaver Creek running through the property where van der Zalm has operated ICAN-T.E.R., I Can Therapeutic Equestrian Riding Association of Niagara, for 30 years, could no longer manage the volume of water from winter thaws and spring rains. And it raised a red flag.
Beaver Creek, once navigable by canoe and a power source for a community mill, was struggling. The invasive emerald ash borer changed the structure of the surrounding woodlot, affecting the health of the protected waterway as the insects felled tree after tree in a once verdant canopy.
“It was an absolute mess. The trees were falling and blocking the flow. It was damaging the creek,” van der Zalm said. “If we don’t take action to help the creek, it’s not going to be good.”
van der Zalm hopes to never see flooding and damage like that again, thanks to a $15,000 Environmental Grant from Niagara Community Foundation to initiate the Beaver Creek Restoration and Enhancement Project, a three-phase environmental protection endeavour done in partnership with Sustainable Fort Erie.
In Phase One, completed last year, ICAN-T.E.R., Sustainable Fort Erie, and community volunteers tackled the area from House Road to Ott Road. They completed a thorough ecological survey, created a management plan, hired an arborist to remove diseased trees and leave others to create animal habitat, and purchased new trees and vegetation for planting.
The money also contributed to a new habitat for the grass pickerel, a species at risk that spawns in tributaries surrounding the Great Lakes, doing fish counts, creating turtle basking sites, erecting signs, printing brochures, and facilitating educational programming to teach others about this critical waterway.
Now sights are set on Phase Two and continuing the work further along the creek.
“We’re so grateful to NCF,” van der Zalm said. “We would never have been able to do anything like this financially without that partnership. It put it all into action.”
