Long time Sandy Lake volunteers Ed G and Derek S performed the late summer/Aug monitoring of Sandy Lake on Aug 8, 2025 in collaboration and with the support of the Halifax LakeWatchers program as we have been doing since Aug 2022. The profiles are shown on the Limnological Profiles page; results of chemical analyses will be posted when received.
Key results/implications:
(i) Deep water oxygen continues to be very low:
Fig 1. Deep water oxygen levels at Sandy Lake 1971-2025. In 2024 and 2025, we saw a return to the trend of falling deepwater oxygen during summer stratification of recent years; it was interrupted in 2023, apparently due to flushing (turnover) of the lake brought on by heavy rains in Aug 2023. See: 2024 Limnological Profiles – return to historic trend of declining oxygen
(ii) 2025 Conductivity values are consistent with a long term trend of increasing conductivity (salt content), slowed in last few years, re: warmer winters and slowdown in development within the watershed, but likely to increase further in future if proposed major development goes ahead/normal winter salting. For more details, see Addendum 1: Trends in Conductivity/Salt Content.
Fig 2. Specific Conductivity values for surface water and deep-near-the-bottom water at Sandy Lake 1971 to 2025. In the lower figure the 2023 data are excluded and the averages between surface and deep samples are plotted. SPC is a measure of salt content – EC (salt) Notes.
Data further confirm precarious state of Sandy Lake
The Aug 2025 observations further support the contentions (i) that “Sandy Lake is in trouble NOW”, and (ii) that a major development on its headwaters as proposed by Clayton Developments and recently given the go-ahead* by the provincial authorities now overseeing development in HRM (but not that in other municipalities) will “do it in”.
*See post: “Community studies are complete for the Sandy Lake special planning area” – NS Gov 16May2025
Data continue to be ignored
As described in a post on July 25, 2025, I was shocked to read the Stantec Community studies for the Sandy Lake Special Planning Area and see that while Stantec acknowledged my input to their review process, they made no reference to our limnological observations, nor to those conducted independently by Casey Doucet in 2021. Stantec’s own limnological observations on Sandy Lake were conducted in 2023, a year that our multi-year observations show clearly was highly anomalous because of the extreme precipitation in July and August; further, without explantion, their deep water sampling extended to only 10 m depth.
Stantec – and whoever approved their study on the govermment side – completely ignored the evidence for occurrence of Internal Phosphorus Loading at Sandy Lake; if acknowledged, it would have meant (i) much stronger remedial actions would have to taken to ensure the proposed development will not impact Sandy Lake, or (ii) no significant development should take place.
I detailed my concerns in lengthy documentation which I sent on July 18, 2025 to NS Growth and Development Minister LeBlanc and to HRM Lead Planner for the Sandy Lake SPA Melissa Eavis; cc’d to others involved in decision-making related to the Sandy Lake SPA and/or other lakes in HRM.
To date, my letters have been acknowledged only by two of the many recipients: the Sandy Lake Conservation Association, and a contact person for the HRM Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee.
I know, It’s summer time and we are all distracted, more so now by the fires burning our province up…