We contributed to the ‘Council of Canadians' campaign, ‘Save Our Water', in the spirit of working together on behalf of our planet.
A representative of the Ontario Government told us that we might be eligible for a new form of funding for environmental projects through non-profit organizations. We will explore this new pool of Government funding.
Mr. Bill Leeney will act as our new webmaster on a volunteer basis. He will begin by upgrading our site and securing a new server in the interest of better communications.
The ‘Friends' have joined the Ontario Environmental Network who will forward important environment bulletins as they develop. We will include their logo in our improved website.
We held a luncheon meeting with the stakeholders in our Private Buoyage/ Public Dockage proposal. This information update and ‘Question & Answer' meeting was well attended and the representatives were asked to contact us with their decision to participate or not before our AGM in June.
We were present at the first Espanola ‘Paper Festival' in May to support this new event and to give us good exposure to the general public.
At our A.G.M. in June, not having been contacted by any of the stakeholders, we decided to shelve the Lower Spanish River Private Buoyage/Public Dockage System proposal.
At the A.G.M., we agreed that from now on, we should put more emphasis on environmental information assimilation, packaging and outreach programs as part of our mandate.
Finally, at that meeting, we agreed to hold quarterly meetings from now on.
On September 10, 2005, the ‘Friends' organized a cleanup of the whole Spanish River through the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup program. The M.N.R. cleaned the Upper Spanish and approximately 125 volunteers cleaned the Lower Spanish River all the way to the delta at Spanish, Ontario.
A suggestion was made that the ‘Friends' spearhead a Spanish River water quality monitoring program.
We agreed to develop the 10 years retrospective concept on the ‘Friends' accomplishments.
At our December meeting, a power point presentation was made through Sagamok First Nation Community on fish related projects. Bruce McGregor from Ontario Fisheries Department outlined five different projects produced from 1999 to 2005. Chris Selinger from the M.N.R. explained their role in developing a healthy fish culture on the Spanish River.
A concern was brought up at the December meeting about an article in Better Farming's October 2005 issue on municipal sewage bypasses and spills that occurred in the Espanola area. Our chairman will investigate this claim and report back at our next meeting.
Finally, at the December meeting, Ed Tate raised the possibility of the ‘Friends' restoring a locally historical Alligator boat. He presented a photo of one taken in 1919 and explained their unique role in the early logging days of Northern Ontario. It was decided to look into this interesting project.
