Tell-tale signs of HWA: wooly patches on the undersides of hemlock twigs
Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (HWA), a highly destructive pest on hemlock trees, was observed on a single tree on the drumlin just past Sandy Lake Beach Park last fall.
HRM folks with assistance from the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) and others are keeping an eye out on it, but we can all help in both monitoring and presenting or slowing its spread.
Sandy Lake Special Planning Area
So we learn from a NS Gov News Release “Minister Designates New Special Planning Area; Two Major Studies Complete – NS Growth & Development, 16 May 2025. Some excerpts from that document follow (brown text, bolding inserted).
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More homes will be built faster in designated planning areas in Bedford and Halifax.
Community studies are complete for two areas identified by Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) for growth – the Sandy Lake special planning area in Bedford and the Highway 102 west corridor lands in Halifax. Continue reading
Sampling Stations
From Item No. Info 2, North West Community Council May 12, 2025: Bedford West Water Quality Status:
A water quality monitoring program has been ongoing in the Bedford West Secondary Plan area since 2009, through Development Agreements executed under the Bedford West Secondary Planning Strategy. Results from the fall 2024 sampling event, the 2024 Final Report for the monitoring program are presented in this report….
The full final report from the 2024 Bedford West sampling program prepared by WSP Canada Inc is
available on the halifax.ca website.
Global News illustrates sign erected by Kingswood Ratepayers Association
Saving Sandy Lake was the lead item on the 6 pm Global News Maritimes for Apr 13.
It begins with a a statement by Chris Bryant of the Kingswood Rate-payers Association: “You’ve got an area like this one were standing today you can’t build another one of these. Once it’s gone it won’t come back.”
Extracts from Harmful Algae News for Feb 2025
It’s hardly the kind of publicity one would like to see for Sandy Lake.
The now confirmed, unusually late bloom of BGA (Blue-Green Algae or Cyanobacteria) in Sandy Lake, besides being another warning sign that we can’t take the seemingly near-pristine state of Sandy Lake for granted, appears to be among the latest if not the latest occurring bloom yet reported for Nova Scotia*.
See:
Unusually late occurrence of a Dolichospermum bloom in a Nova Scotia lake
by Linda Campbell, David Patriquin, Michael Agbeti in Harmful Algae News (HAN): An IOC Newsletter on Toxic Algae and Algal Blooms. Open Access. 78:10-11. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14883731. PDF Link.
View Item No. 15.3.2, Halifax Regional Council November 12, 2024
This document includes a Staff Report dated Apr 22, 2024, and the full LakeWatchers State of the Lakes Report, 2022-2023 SAMPLING YEARS
“Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee received a staff recommendation report dated April
22, 2024 to consider an in-depth analysis of the 2022-23 LakeWatchers program, a program initiated to monitor the water quality of 73 lakes in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). Continue reading
Bottle with Sandy Lake water
Click on images for larger version. Viewed at max size, individual clumps of cells/colonies appear as small beads – approx 0.25 mm diameter, they can just be discriminated with the naked eye.
Circumstantial evidence suggests the appearance of “green aggregations” on the shoreline on the west side of the lake followed fall turnover of the water column, bringing up phosphorus-rich water from the hypolimnion which stimulated growth of a nitrogen-fixing BGA (Cyanobacterium), the ID confirmed by specialists to be Dolichospermum flos-aquae.
On Thursday, Nov 7th of 2024, D.S., a resident of Sandy Lake, arrived at my doorstep with a small bottle of Sandy Lake water he had collected along the shore on the west side of the lake in the late afternoon of Nov 6th.
It had a very distinctive layer of green near its top (pic at right).
“Green Aggregations” by the shore, west side of Sandy Lake
Nov 6, 2024
He showed me photos of where he had sampled. The next day, he said, it was gone.
I put some drops from the green layer under my Dissection Microscope and could just barely see the individual cells. That characteristic (very small cells) and the pattern of clumping of filaments of cells suggested to me it was a BGA (Blue Green Alga) aka “Cyanobacteria”.*
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*While the term BGA (Blue Green Algae) remains in common use today, these organisms are more correctly (scientifically) described not as algae but as a type of bacteria in the Phylum “Cyanobacteria“. These are photosynthetic bacteria, the light-capturing pigments sometimes giving them a blue-green colour, hence the common name. Continue reading
Two Pics from a visit to Sandy Lake & Environs on Friday Oct 11 illustrate the beauty of this place, especially appreciated on Thanksgiving weekend.
At Sandy Lake Beach Park on Oct 11, 2024. Kids built this structure in the summer past, a safe place to play and swim, BUT we can’t take it for granted. A major new development on the headwaters and associated wetlands to the SW of Sandy Lake could “do it in“, and have impacts on the wild lands of Chebucto Peninsula as well (re: the Wildlife Corridor to the west of Sandy Lake).
The LakeWatchers Report is highly informative, exceptionally well presented, and very timely. In general our results and interpretations of them for Sandy Lake as reported on this website are consistent with the conclusion from the LakeWatchers conclusion that “that most Halifax-area lakes currently suffer from some level of chloride enrichment and show signs of increasing eutrophication.” I was particularly interested in the recognition and discussion of a “Total P measurement issue” (my terminology), the recently measured values seeming to be too low in relation to historical values and to other indicators of trophic status.
The LakeWatchers Report is included as “Attachment A, for Item No. 13.1.2, Environment & Sustainability Standing Committee October 03, 2024: Subject: LakeWatchers Water Quality Monitoring Program Report 2022-2023.
The Executive Summary for Item No. 13.1.2 provides a concise summary of the Report: Continue reading
Great swaths of mixed Wabanaki/Acadian forest by Sandy Lake; bottom, Marsh Lake View more aerial vistas.
Click on images for larger versions
In conclusion, our latest limnological profiles further confirm a long term trend of decline in the health of Sandy Lake (Bedford, NS), and underscore why a major new development on its headwaters could “do it in”.
Update Oct 2, 2024: – Letter to Premier, Mayor of Halifax, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Minister of Environment and Climate Change (Oct 1, 2024)
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Sandy Lake is the diamond in a remarkable piece of land sandwiched between four growth areas (Lower and Middle Sackville-Bedford-Hammonds Plains-Lucasville Road) just NW of Bedford and the top of the Bedford Basin. The Sandy Lake watershed is the largest or second largest sub-watershed of the Sackville River Watershed, depending on how the sub-sub-watersheds are aggregated. That’s the watershed, Sandy Lake included, where salmon are coming back thanks to the efforts of the Sackville Rivers Association and its many supporters.
The large, still undeveloped area includes a wildlife corridor, now mostly a “stepping stone” but still critical for movement of wildlife/genetic transfer (plants included) between the Chebucto Peninsula and the greater Nova Scotia Mainland. It supports great swaths of Wabanaki/Acadian forest, most of it old forest with many pockets of Old Growth; there are even bear in the forests by the Sackville River. Marsh Lake, downstream from Sandy Lake is a “Treasured Wetland”. Thirteen Species-at-Risk make use of this landscape. Read more
