Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is using Scarborough as a starting point to improve the environment.
The authority invited community members to Adam’s Creek on Oct. 27 to plant native trees and shrubs that will highlight a recently constructed wetland.
A group of 30 Port Union residents came out on Oct. 25 to put 175 bare root shrubs from a local nursery into the ground. The shrub is native to Adam’s Creek.
According to Natalie Affolter, the Project Ecologist of Stewardship Programs in the
Watershed Management Division, local residents were “very interested in what was happening in their own backyard.”
The conservation authority is responsible for resource and shoreline management and it partners with the municipality to look after flood and erosion control as well as watershed health.
The construction of a wetland, including manipulating semi-wet areas to become totally saturated, takes a long time, officials say, and can be very costly.
Gord MacPherson, manager of Conservation Habitat Restoration and Environment Authority said that “The environmental assessment started in the mid 90s.”
It is also very costly.
“The cost is site specific,” MacPherson said. “Adams Creek cost $30,000 [and] most of the cost came from the equipment…We also had to pay for logs, soil, rock and labour.”
The planting event was essential to get residents involved because the watershed project directly affects their living condition, specifically water quantity and quality.