Wasaga Beach is All About Water “Point of View” printed wrong date for Meeting

Here is the entire Point of View that was printed in Issue 20 of beach BOOSTER but this time with the correct day…Wednesday, August 3rd.

Wasaga Beach is all about the water!

Wasaga Beach is a unique place, boasting many attributes, but our proximity to and location on Nottawasaga Bay (southern part of Georgian Bay) is what makes us what we are.
A stretch of 14 kilometres of sand led to the naming of the town of Wasaga Beach. The warm shallow waters of The Bay brings millions of summer visitors to our shores to enjoy this natural wonder. We are also blessed with the meandering Nottawasaga River running through our town, providing even more opportunity for water recreation and adding miles of riverfront shoreline to our geography. We are all about water in Wasaga Beach. Our relationship with Georgian Bay and the Great Lakes is an important one.
The Great Lakes are in trouble. Although most of us have noticed over the years… very little is being done by the citizens of water front communities to help! Water levels are dropping quickly and have been for years. With the receding waters in our community comes the invasive species Phragmites, replacing sandy beach with a foreign weed. Navigation in the Nottawasaga River is restricted with the mouth of the river actually blocked at times with a sandbar.
This loss of water in Georgian Bay is not a cycle or due to Global Warming. Water is being lost at an incredible rate. Lost means gone for good. The Great Lakes are a result of water left from the glaciers of the Ice Age. Only 1% of the water in the Great Lake Basin is renewable, with precipitation, rivers and creeks.
Although there are several different theories on what is happening to our resource for fresh water, it’s been proven that years of reckless widening, shoreline work and dredging of the St. Clair River (which drains Lakes Huron and Michigan) has increased the outflow significantly. Our natural reservoir of clean, fresh water is simply being flushed through the lakes and into the ocean!
Despite heavy snowfall and extreme spring rainfall, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay are well over 10 inches below average and it is expected to drop below this catastrophic level by fall. It’s interesting to note, that both Lakes Erie and Ontario are slightly higher than average, due to the increased outflow through the St. Clair River.
The International Joint Commission Upper Lakes Study Board is holding public meetings this summer to hear from people like us! They have asked that the Board “start looking at what type of structure would be required to recapture the lost water”
Finally someone is offering to listen.
We now have a chance to express our concerns of the life blood of Wasaga  Beach…Georgian Bay!
Make a point to come out to be an important part of this special meeting being held at The Royal Canadian Legion in Collingwood, On Wednesday, August 3, 2011. (7:00 pm to 9:00 pm)
Your voice and concern for our Bay must be heard! If we don’t speak up, the IJC assumes we don’t care. For more information, please visit www.fallingwaters.ca or contact beach BOOSTER at info@beachbooster.com . Please pass this important information on to all who love Wasaga Beach and Georgian Bay!