Letter from the GLWS President | December 22, 2023

President’s Letter to Society Members

Our membership director Henry Brander and Communications Officer Jeremy Crawford have continued signing new members since our annual meeting at the end of August and the GLWS now boasts over 2000 members. Congratulations to them on that success. Thank you to all who have signed up and all that active support. 

We are all concerned with the fall in the level of our lake. The attached figure shows that the level has now come down almost to all-time lows similar to those experienced in the late 1970s and again in the 2004 time frame. These low levels are causing concerns at marinas, boat launches, and beaches around the lake and your society is anxious to restore traditional lake levels. Our primary thrust to do so is to restore the stabilization system which was in operation for nearly 50 years before the problems with Prussian carp. As you can see on the attached graph the lake continued to fluctuate after the startup of the stabilization system in 1976 but it was able to hold its level of the lake until 2018 when it was shut down due to the presence of Russian carp in our source of the Blindman River.

Update on stabilization.

A committee of the GLWS directors has been meeting since the summer with the Water infrastructure operations branch of Alberta Agriculture “WIOB” who now operate the stabilization system and senior staff in the regulatory arm of Alberta Environment and Protected areas “AEP”. It was AEP that imposed a moratorium on the pumping to avoid transferring the invasive species. This fall AEP provided the requirements for a regulatory application that would allow pressurized filtration to be added to the Gull stabilization system. If approved that would allow repeal of the moratorium, installation, and restart of stabilization.

WIOB plans to apply for regulatory approval in the new year and is currently carrying out preparatory work required by AEP for a Water Act application. The most important is a new hydrological study of the lake to try to quantify the benefits of stabilization which is already underway and will be completed in Q1 2024. WIOB has also prepared a stakeholder engagement framework to keep stakeholders both around the lake and further afield informed on the project and answer questions before the application. The GLWS has contributed to this document in relation to the recreational, economic, wildlife, and habitat value of the lake. We expect this to be posted on our website.

Our primary thrust is the restoration of stabilization as the system already exists and it has a very large water license with a priority of over 40 years. However, we have identified that there may be other ways to add water to the lake.

AQUIFER PUMPING

We have identified that the Haynes member of the Paskapoo formation, a deep aquifer may be a significant source of water that could be viable for lake stabilization. To that end, we have appointed Lon Kasha as the project manager and have released a study to  Hydrological Consultants Ltd. Lon is the director of the GLWS and a counselor in the Summer Village of Gull Lake. He is a petroleum engineer with extensive experience in pumping deep aquifers for various oil field uses. At the same time, he will be looking at abandoned waterflood facilities that may be capable of feeding the lake. Your society raised nearly $10,000 to proceed with this study based on donations from both summer villages and individuals.

CHARITABLE STATUS and in the interim a way to make donations.

Your society has recognized that it may be necessary to raise at least some of the funds required for adding filtration to the stabilization system or possibly embarking on deep aquifer pumping. To that end, we realized it would be useful to have charitable status so that we could give contributors a tax receipt. Fortunately, a retired legal man Neil Skinner who is a resident of Raymond Shores and Victoria volunteered to undertake the significant task of preparing an application to the Canada Revenue Agency. Since that time we have been preparing histories of the society our previous projects and our aims and details of our board and governance for presentation to CRA. As you might imagine it’s an onerous process because the government is keen to ensure that only legitimate organizations enjoy this kind of power to grant tax receipts. As of this writing, I believe that the application has been completed and is being considered by CRA. We had hoped to complete that by year end but not likely at present.

We have identified that in the interim we can make arrangements with the Summer Village of Gull Lake whereby they would receive donations with the aim of benefiting the lake and transfer them directly to us and still issue a tax receipt to the donor. If you are interested in making a donation let us know. 

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

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


Best wishes to all members for the holiday season.

Norval Horner
GLWS President