GLWS Update | May 13, 2024

Hello and greetings to all of our Gull Lake Watershed Society (GLWS) Members.

Membership

We report that our GLWS membership has now grown to 2054 members as at May 6, 2024 and we continue to grow each day while we as a small “non-profit” society are so grateful to each and every one of our members for their concern for our Gull Lake health and water levels. Our goal is 5,000 members by the end of September 2024 and still onward from there. The more members we have, the stronger our voice becomes. Please spread the word to your family members, relatives, friends, neighbours, community groups, workmates, and anyone else who appreciates and enjoys our beautiful pristine Gull Lake. If you happen to see me or one of us at a group meeting or farmer’s market with a table and chair under an umbrella spreading the GLWS word about promoting membership, please stop in to say hello. We always enjoy meeting members of our own society. There is no charge to being a member and our website “Gull Lake Watershed Society” has a page called “Membership.” We ask only for first name, last name, and e-mail address.

Initiatives

Blindman River Filtration: The GLWS is finally making some positive headway after 6 years of meetings, e-mails, phone calls, more studies, etc. with Alberta Environment and Protected Areas and also Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation on the “Blindman River Filtration” initiative at the Blindman River pumping station. Although we are not quite there yet, we believe some positive news might be forthcoming soon.

Aquifer Pumping: The GLWS engaged Hydrogeological Consultants Ltd. (HCL) to prepare and provide a complete study on the “Haynes Aquifer Pumping Initiative” located at the lower portion of the Paskapoo Formation which we expect to have by mid-May. Our Director Lon Kasha P. Eng. is heading up this initiative with HCL while the costs of the study is expected to exceed $20,000.00 which will be paramount when proposing this particular initiative to various Alberta Government ministries. Thank you so much for those members who contributed funding for this study.

Charitable Status: As a registered non-profit society, the GLWS is not able to provide income tax receipts for donations received, however, as a society with Charitable status, we would be able to. The GLWS applied late February to the CRA to make the change over and we are expecting a positive response from the CRA hopefully by end June of this year. CRA has come back with several questions so we know they are working on it. We send out special thanks to our Neil Skinner who put the application together along with assistance from our Norval Horner and Craig Macleod. This was not an easy endeavor but rather a difficult one which proved to be a complicated and grueling exercise.

Lake Level Information
• Preferred Level: 899.46
• Target Level: 899.16
• Trigger Level: 898.90
• Actual Level as at Oct. 5/23: 898.48 (Metering Stations not yet activated for 2024)

Please see the attached most recent lake level chart with the latest entry on October 5/23.
(image shown below)

Regards:
Henry Brander
GLWS Membership Director

You can send all donations via e-Transfer to donation@gulllakewatershed.ca

If you want to make a donation via Credit Card payment, please visit our Donations page for the credit card payment link > https://gulllakewatershed.ca/glws-donations/

Please direct all questions or comments to our email address info@gulllakewatershed.ca.