After taking July off, the Grand River Conservation Authority membership gets back down to business with some fairly typical administrative matters. Look for the monthly budget update, some proposed changes to bylaws and new draft policies, and along with the current weather conditions, a report on some flooding that happened last month during those big rain storms. Let’s check out the breakdown of the agenda for August…
NOTE: This meeting will be in a hybrid format and broadcast from the GRCA Administration Centre on YouTube starting at 9:30 am.
Correspondences – It’s a big mailbag this month and it seems to centre around a couple of specific topics. In the first basket there’s still some lingering concerns about the land inventory tackled at the June meeting, and in the second basket there’s new concerns about safety awareness and signage along with the watershed. There’s also a letter about the condition of waterways and sports fishing, and a budget request from Halton Region that the 2025 budget increase not exceed 4.8 per cent.
GRCA Administrative By-law Update – There are three changes or possible changes here. First, following the June membership meeting, staff are looking to reduce the time available for delegations from 10 minutes down to five. Second and third, staff are now looking for direction on keeping two vice-chairs or going back to one, and one concerning the implementation of term limits on the chair and vice-chair, which staff are looking to maybe postpone again.
Cash and Investment Status – As of the end of July, the GRCA had Notes Receivable in the amount of $62,213,831 with outstanding cheques written in the amount of $147,278.
Financial Summary – The GRCA is now looking at a possible $213,500 surplus of the fiscal year, and this despite the fact that operating expenses increased by $231,000 due to more money spent on compensation and benefits, plus another $500,000 earmarked for the new Nature Centre at Guelph Lake. This was offset though by an increase in self-generated revenue by $1.26 million.
Quarterly Permits issued under Ontario Regulation 41/24 – The GRCA approved 171 permits in the last quarter, but only eight of those were in Guelph.
Land Acquisition and Disposition Policies – The GRCA presently owns over 50,000 acres of land in nearly 500 different parcels, and they all have their unique purpose and functions from reservoirs and flood control to campgrounds and parks. From time to time they either buy new land, or they dispose of land that they no longer have any use for and obviously there are rules and guidelines to cover each of those processes, largely crafted with guidance from the Ministry of Natural Resources. These are those polices.
Draft Conservation Areas Strategy – As for the land owned by the GRCA there needs to be a strategic plan for that. This is the draft of the new plan, and once approved at this meeting it will go out for consultation with the public. Letters will be sent to participating municipalities as well as the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and the GRCA itself will be having a pair of webinars. A tentative consultation period is scheduled for between August 28 and October 4.
City of Guelph Well Monitoring Agreement – The City requested that the GRCA install groundwater monitoring in the area of Logan Well on Eastview Road, and that work is being completed right now as part of the Water Supply Master Plan. These will be permanent installations for long-term monitoring.
July 2024 Flood Event – There was some minor flooding in a few different communities around the Grand River watershed last month, Paris observed record rainfall and so did the Mill Creek system and the Shades Mill Reservoir. During a week long period, the GRCA put out six different flood messages and saw about 50,000 extra hits on their webpage compared to the same period last year. For the record, Guelph received near 133 millimetres of rain between July 10 and 16.
Current Watershed Conditions – With all that in mind, Lake Erie is above the long-term average, and reservoirs are at their normal operating levels for this time of year. As of August 13, the three-month indicators for precipitation are showing above average conditions at at all eight climate stations, and as of the writing of this report those stations reached 45 per cent of the monthly average for August.
Guelph Politico 