A Tribute to Our Wetlands

Today is World Wetlands Day and to we are thrilled to welcome Danielle Fequet to the blog. Danielle works with Ducks Unlimited Canada and will tell us a bit about the history and importance of World Wetlands Day followed by a story about her time exploring wetlands in the city of St. John’s! For more about Danielle, see the end of this post.

Winter at Bidgood Park in St. John’s, NL

As winter settles into eastern Canada, the days of mucking around in wetlands seem far away, existing only in memories and plans yet to be made for the warmer months ahead. As we celebrate World Wetlands Day, it’s the sensory experience of traversing local wetlands, of soaking in their earthy smells and the sounds of bird and insect life, and appreciating their dynamic role at the interface of land and water, that comes to mind. 

Although World Wetlands Day falls in the heart of winter in our part of the world, this annual event marks the signing of the first official agreement between nations to conserve natural resources in modern times. The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was ratified in Ramsar, Iran on February 2^nd, 1971, and World Wetlands Day has served as a wayfinder for wetland conservation ever since. This year’s theme, Wetlands Action for People and Nature, reminds us of our responsibility to wisely manage resources not only for the sake of the environment but for our own well-being and resilience. 

In my work as a Conservation Programs Specialist with Ducks Unlimited Canada, promoting the value of wetlands is the main event – and spending time in them is a highlight of my job. Many wetlands are hidden gems, lying just beyond our highways, neighborhoods, and industrial areas. Others are well known and visited often; however, hidden or not, they all provide society with valuable services we aren’t always aware of. These services include filtering contaminants from water, reducing flooding by holding water, recharging ground water, storing carbon, providing habitat for a variety of species, and serving as places for people to reconnect with nature. 

During the 2021 field season, I was lucky enough to explore 25 wetlands throughout the City of St. John’s to assess them using a tool called the Wetland Ecological Services Protocol adapted for Atlantic Canada, which has been specifically calibrated for use here in NL. We call it WESP-AC for short and it involves a field evaluation plus an in-office assessment using aerial imagery. 

WESP-AC was developed based on the best available wetland science by Dr. Paul Adamus, a preeminent wetland scientist and ecologist. It’s a rapid assessment method which evaluates indicators of wetland function rather than directly quantifying the functions themselves, which would require a considerable investment of time and resources. Although using WESP-AC does require training and a background in the sciences, it doesn’t involve any field equipment beyond a trowel, a pH meter, a GPS unit, and data sheets. 

In the field assessing wetland functions, St. John’s, NL

One of the most notable sites we visited during the summer was a 60+ acre wetland complex that lies along the shore of the elusive Third Pond in the Goulds neighbourhood of St. John’s – which just happens to be where I live. Third Pond is one of a series of ponds that eventually make their way to the ocean. You can catch a glimpse of the pond from my street, especially after the leaves have fallen each October. I’ve been considering how to access Third Pond and the wetland on its western shoreline pretty much the entire 5 years I’ve lived here – first wistfully, as our growing family left limited time for mucking about, then more purposefully, as getting away for an afternoon of wetland exploration became less impossible. While there are areas that provide obvious access to the pond, my quest was to find access to the lacustrine wetland that didn’t (at least not obviously!) skirt over someone’s land.  

The large marsh complex backs on to the community’s recreation facilities (I suspect the wetland may have been encroached upon to build them) and provides flood mitigation services for free. At first glance the recreation facilities seem to be a good access point, and I ventured out one of the hottest days of summer. Already more than 30°C, it was even warmer and steamier inside a pair of waders that fit like clown shoes (econo waders never seem to come in an adequate range of sizes). The water was shallow in late August, so a meandering route through Dirty Bridge River, which converges with Cochrane Pond Brook, was the obvious path. 

But I quickly discovered that the height of late summer marsh vegetation serves to highlight your own insignificance. On foot, the stream channel included labyrinthine branches and no real vantage points. Being so close to town, the bustle of the day was audible, but it was also clear that if a person were to get caught up in the marsh, it could be a while until anyone found them. With that in mind, I was liberal in my application of fluorescent flagging tape and sent screen shots of my location in Google Maps to my check-in buddy back at our sweltering office.  

After slogging for nearly an hour, and surviving my first encounter with stinging nettle, I finally made it to where the wetland blends into the edge of the pond. I couldn’t tell you why it took so long to venture not much more than half a kilometer, other than to point out that many a traveler has been led astray by Faeries in Newfoundland in the areas between the cultivated and the wild. 

As I arrived at the pond, a slight breeze lent some relief from the heat and was made visible by horsetails swaying in the wind. The view was more akin to the majestic Codroy Valley in southwest Newfoundland than what one might expect to see in the province’s largest city. With this view as the backdrop, the real work began!  

Marsh at the edge of Third Pond in the Goulds (St. John’s, NL)

Assessing wetland function can help start conversations about the importance of these places and ultimately support conservation planning. The City of St. John’s has shown leadership and initiative on wetland conservation issues, contracting out a study of wetlands within the city boundaries that will continue in 2022. Our field work last year complemented this study by focusing on municipal wetlands not included as study areas, with the aim of providing the city with information to support action on wetland conservation and the well-being of the people of St. John’s and the planet!

Danielle lives in the Goulds, NL with her family and dog and loves to spend time exploring the bogs and barrens of the high land near the ocean. She has worked with Ducks Unlimited for over a decade and her official credentials include an M.Sc. in Environmental Science from Memorial University and a Certificate of Environmental Practice from Royal Roads University. You can follow Danielle on Twitter @DanielleFequet

Mother Nature, what did you do?

We are excited to welcome back Tara Harvey to the blog today. Tara is a Hydrogeologist with the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority. Previously she told us all about why she was always standing in fields. For more about Tara, see the end of this post.

Field work is fantastic! It’s a great opportunity to get out of the office, stretch your legs, and collect some data. And even when you are doing the same type of field work over and over and over again, Mother Nature can make things interesting when you least expect it.

As a hydrogeologist (someone who studies geology and groundwater), the field work I tend to participate in is rather repetitive and might not be considered super exciting. I don’t get to go searching for animals in the wild, I don’t get to use fancy equipment, and I don’t typically get to travel to far off lands. What I do get to do is go out to construction sites, or other places where we are interested in monitoring groundwater quality or quantity, and either take a small sample or use a measuring tape to determine the water depth. Very exciting, right? Regardless, I do really love field work and have some pretty interesting stories, most of which are all thanks to good old Mother Nature.

In the summer of 2017, I was up in Northern Ontario to do some groundwater sampling. Now, you can collect groundwater samples for many reasons, but the general goal is always to see what chemicals or contaminants are in the water. This time around we were interested in monitoring the movement of chemicals from an active industrial site to make sure there was no negative impact to the natural environment. But what should have been a very easy, mundane, and predictable field excursion turned out to be anything but.

 

Of course, Mother Nature isn’t the only unknown force that can upset a tightly designed field schedule. Nope, you also have to account for the unpredictable behaviour of both the Canadian postal system and your teammates’ memories. Unfortunately for us, on this particular field adventure all three things went a little awry. Firstly, one of our team members forgot to ship some of the equipment we needed for the field work to the site.  The delay could have been a problem – but ended up not mattering, since even the equipment that was shipped on time showed up several days late courtesy of Canada post.

But the most interesting surprise was this….

In case you can’t tell from the photo, that is a completely burned forest! Yes, just the day before we arrived to get our groundwater samples, a forest fire burned through the area, destroying all the vegetation in its path.

The fire had happened so recently that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry were still conducting their investigation to determine whether it had been caused by natural or human forces. Either way, the fire was actually very confined and caused minimal damage beyond a very small section of burned forest. Even the trees weren’t badly affected, and should continue to grow in the future.

Regardless of the limited damage, it was definitely an unexpected sight that we walked into on that first day. Immediately, we wondered what the fire meant for our groundwater wells, which are 2-inch plastic tubes that stick out of the ground and might have melted. Did they survive? Would we even be able to do any of our field work at all? Luckily, we soon found out that although the fire burned everything that was alive, all of the wells on site were perfectly fine since they had protective metal casings over top of them! Thankfully. If the plastic wells themselves had been exposed, this might have been a different story.

Although the forest fire destruction was a surprise, it actually made our work easier in the end, since we didn’t have to fight against the vegetation to go find our wells in the ‘jungle’. And it definitely made for some interesting, if not beautiful, photos.

The lesson I took away from this field excursion, and the lesson I always take away from field work, is to be prepared! You never know what is going to go wrong or what is going to surprise you, especially Mother Nature.

Tara Harvey works as a Hydrogeologist with the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority and has previous experience in research and consulting with the G360 Institute for Groundwater Research and Cole Engineering. Tara specializes in Quaternary geology, aka glacial geology, but now spends much of her time working on Source Water Protection in Ontario to make sure our drinking water sources (lakes, rivers, and groundwater) stay protected.