[All] Fw: Regarding Z-12-04

[Louisette Lanteigne]

Hi folks


In the attachments is my presentation for tonight's City of Waterloo council meeting regarding Z-12-04, the proposal to place new development on the UW Ecological reserve lands.The first power point will be the one I present. The second one is a written submission. Meeting starts at 

Laurel Creek's Ecoli levels have been studied by Lake Ontario Waterkeepers and it's one of the most highly polluted tributaries for Ecoli throughout the Grand River watershed. The report states it is not linked to agriculture. I suspect it may be the geese.

If we reduce water volumes heading into our wells, and if we drive away the snapping turtles it will make matters worse. Snapping Turtles help to keep the geese populations in check but right now populations are declining rapidly due to auto collisions and most of these are breeding females crossing Bearinger Road to go to and from Laurel Creek to Columbia Lake looking for mates and building nest.

In Ontario we've seen 70% decline of wetland habitats and most of our Provincal Turtles are going extinct.  I met with the Amphibian and Reptile experts at the Toronto Zoo on Saturday. Some populations like the woodland turtle, have dropped 70% from 1998 to 2001 and currently Snapping turtle numbers are unknown but we do know they are being severely contaminated with mercury and PCB's and that current hunting and collision numbers are swiftly driving these animals towards extinction. The MNR lacks reasonable data because they rely on development reports as their baseline data and it's highly subjective, often blatantly flawed data due to poor test times and methods. 

The MNR allows the harvesting of up to two snapping turtles a day to anyone with a hunting or fishing licence. I'd like to ask for a motion tonight to prohibit all hunting of snapping turtles in our city. They're not fit for human consumption based on the most current data and other municipalities have successfully passed similar motions, 

There are several inexpensive ways we can help design solutions to help maintain the local snapping turtle populations. We can protect known nests, we can even build new nesting grounds but what we need most is a reasonable wildlife corridor from Columbia Lake to Laurel Creek. By protecting the turtles we can help to offset ecoli, phosphate and nitrate risks associated with the geese. 

If folks would like to give comment about this project send a quick email to Waterloo City Council at:

 brenda.halloran at waterloo.ca, karen.scian at waterloo.ca, scott.witmer at waterloo.ca, angela.vieth at waterloo.ca, Mark.Whaley at waterloo.ca, diane.freeman at waterloo.ca, jeff.henry at waterloo.ca, melissa.durrell at waterloo.ca 


Louisette Lanteigne
700 Star Flower Ave.
Waterloo Ont.
N2V 2L2
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