UPDATE: “ – Public Open House is Postponed. Please note that due to the ongoing storm recovery, the Public Open House will be rescheduled to another day in the near future. We will update this page once a date is confirmed.”
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Original Post
From the announcement at www.shapeyourcityhalifax.ca/bedford-west:
Read more of the HRM announcement at www.shapeyourcityhalifax.ca/bedford-west
UPDATE JULY 26, EVENING:
Continue reading
Update ug 2, 2023: E. coli results from the Beach Monitoring program at Sandy Lake indicate very low levels of E . coli at 5 locations across Sandy Lake Beach, ranging from ‘Non-detect to 4.0 CFU/100ml. Samples were taken on Monday, July 31st at just before 12noon…As a result, Sandy Lake Beach has been re-opened to swimming.
Update 17Jul2023: HRM Public Service Announcement
“The Halifax Regional Municipality is advising residents that Sandy Lake Beach in Bedford has reopened to swimming.
Sandy Lake Beach is a supervised beach. Municipal staff regularly test the water quality at all supervised municipal beaches, as well as two unsupervised beaches, during the summer months.
Previous test results showed high bacteria levels in the water, but follow-up tests now show the water is once again safe, in accordance with Health Canada guidelines.”
Sandy Lake at Peverill’s Brook, by Jeremy Vaughan. Click on image for larger version.
A wonderful collective of artists has been creating works based on their experiences at Sandy Lake Regional Park.
Their gorgeous paintings and drawings will form part of a 2-week long art show at Second Gallery (Upstairs at 6301 Quinpool Road, Halifax), called “Sanctuary – Save Sandy Lake.”
The show opening is on Thursday, July 13, from 6 pm to 8 pm and ALL are invited (so is everyone you know). It runs for 2 weeks.
Read more about the artists’ inspiration and how it relates to the campaign to save critical lands – including important wildlife corridors connecting the mainland and lands of the Chebucto Peninsula – and protect Sandy Lake in the press release about the show. Continue reading
Eastern Hemlock is a prominent component of the forests around Sandy Lake; some trees are over 200 years old.
Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, aka the Hemlock Vampire, “can cause defoliation, twig dieback and mortality in as few as 4 to 10 years, though it can take up to 20 years”. It was discovered in SW Nova Scotia in 2017 and has been progressing northeast. There are no reports of it yet in Halifax County, but it’s pretty likely it will make its way here eventually.
Individual Hemlock trees can be protected by treatment with systemic insecticides. That’s not very practical for protecting large stands but it is being applied on a few larger stands such as the Old Growth hemlock at Sporting Lake by ecologists with the intention of saving a few mostly intact systems in the event that the pest sweeps the province before better methods of control (not involving use of toxic pesticides) are developed. Continue reading
Having a ‘Naturalization Coordinator’ for HRM is a welcome initiative, but it should be coupled with a commitment, wherever and whenever possible, to place new developments on sites that are already ecologically degraded. Continue reading
Sandy Lake & Environs on May 30, 2023
Click on images for larger versions
At times, it is completely silent by the water and in the forest by Sandy Lake, but not on May 30, 2023.
When I took my usual walking route by the lake and into the forest there were two prominent voices that I had learned to recognize from past walks by Sandy Lake in “mid- to late-spring”*.
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*The phases of spring: Early – April, Mid – May, Late – the first half of June, From Spring Wildflowers
Continue reading
The massive wildfire that started in Tantallon on Sunday May 28, took a step closer to Sandy Lake & Environs yesterday, when it evidently jumped to the Farmers Dairy area or started there independently:
It seems to have been quickly brought under control –
this a.m. on Twitter: Continue reading
I have made use of the Forest DCL (Development Stage Layer) in the NS Provincial Landscape Viewer to illustrate the abundance of Mature and Muti-Aged-Old Forest in the area of Sandy Lake, e.g. see the map at the top of the page Mature/OG Forest.
Recently I learned that this layer had been updated, and checked it out in relation to the Sandy lake area. To my surprise, the new DCL reclassified some significant areas I knew from ground observations to be Old Mature or Muti-aged/Old Growth and that had been classified as such in the 2017 version of the map; the reclassification now identifies these areas as Early Mature Forest – including the 200+ year old hemlock stand on ‘The Peninsula’. Continue reading
Nature Nova Scotia, the Federation of Nova Scotia Naturalists, announced on their Facebook site yesterday that they had recently joined the Sandy Lake-Sackville River Regional Park Coalition “to help spread awareness and take action on the threats facing this rare gem”.
Nature NS appeals to supporters to “Help us save Sandy Lake by writing to government today. Ask Premier Tim Houston to remove these old forests, pristine lakes, and species at risk habitats from the province’s Task Force on Housing list of rushed development areas. Sandy Lake should be protected park land, belonging to all Nova Scotians.”
View Undeveloped Shorelines and Rare Old Forests in Bedford NS Threatened by Rushed Housing Order on the Nature NS Website (Posted Mar 19, 2023) for details.
