Check Your Watershed Day

Volunteers Needed for the 2nd Annual
Check Your Watershed Day
Saturday, July 21, 2007

On Saturday, July 21st, (rain date: July 28^th) Central Lake Ontario Conservation (CLOCA) will be hosting a Check Your Watershed Day event in Oshawa and we need your help! Volunteers are needed to get their feet wet as they work in small teams with a trained leader to locate streams and check water flow levels throughout the Oshawa Creek Watershed. Central Lake Ontario Conservation works in partnership with the community to protect and enhance the land and water resources of local watersheds. The water flow data gathered from Check Your Watershed Day is one of many indicators used to measure watershed health. The event will run from 8:30 am to 1:00 pm concluding with a BBQ lunch for all participants. The day will start and finish at the CLOCA Administrative Office at 100 Whiting Ave . , in the south end of Oshawa . Any students under the age of 18 require the accompaniment of an adult.

Participants are asked to register online.
"Registration Form"

Along with Oshawa Creek Watershed, two other watershed events will take place in the Region of Durham . The long- range goal of the program is to track water flow in all of the watersheds originating within the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Click here for more information on the other Check Your Watershed Day events happening in Durham

For more information regarding the Oshawa Creek Check Your Watershed Day please contact
Mr. Jason Barnucz, Aquatic Biologist with Central Lake Ontario Conservation at
(905) 579-0411, ext. 123 or by email: jbarnucz@cloca.com.

Why You Should Volunteer?
Volunteers will collect valuable stream flow data from small streams in order to better understand the overall health of the watershed. Many factors can affect stream flow including storms, droughts, deforestation, mining and construction, as well as natural cyclical changes. The volunteer-collected data is an important step towards keeping our streams flowing and clean for present and future generations.

Why measure small streams?
Every watercourse is significant. Small streams offer a great opportunity to measure water flow. If there is a drought or any adverse developments that affect water flow, we see it first in a small stream. As well, by measuring in mid July, at "summer low flow", the water that is flowing can be directly attributed to the headwaters in the Oak Ridges Moraine.

What’s so special about the Oak Ridges Moraine?
Formed over 12,000 years ago, the Oak Ridges Moraine is a significant landform in southern Ontario stretching 160 km from the Niagara Escarpment to Rice Lake .

Known as the “rain barrel of Southern Ontario”, the Moraine provides drinking water to over 250,000 people and includes the headwaters of over 65 rivers and creeks that deliver cold, clean water to Lake Ontario. In addition, it is home to a diversity of woodlands, wetlands, kettle lakes, bogs and significant plants and animals.

Oshawa Creek Watershed

Interesting Fact: The Oshawa Creek Watershed consists of 120 km² of land which drains into Lake Ontario ,
resulting in an average of 98,805,000 litres of water per day being discharged into Lake Ontario .