The Grosvenor Park forest is a little bigger this week after hundreds of students filled it with trees in celebration of Arbour Day.
About 450 Grade 1 students from across St. Albert gathered at Grosvenor Park Friday morning for a belated Arbour Day tree-planting. The annual event is meant to celebrate the city’s forests.
The planting was originally supposed to happen Wednesday at Lions Park, says Erin Gluck, the city’s parks and recreation co-ordinator, but they had to cancel it due to rain. They then had to move the planting to Grosvenor because the International Children’s Festival needed Lions Park for its tents.
This year’s planting occurred in a small clearing east of the outdoor pool, said city arborist Kevin Veenstra. The city planned to put an outdoor track there about 50 years ago, but never did.
The students planted about 450 white spruce, saskatoon, cranberry, wild rose and aspen poplar trees, Veenstra said. They also got to make their own tree medallions made from wood disks sliced as part of the city’s pruning program, learn about trees and hang out with an owl.
New this year were St. Albert children’s entertainers Rooney and Punyi, who led the students in a rousing rendition of the city’s new Arbour Day theme song, “T-R-E-E.” The entertainers were meant to replace the usual ceremonial tree planting, which wasn’t very inclusive, as only a few students could help plant the tree, Gluck said.
Arbour Day is a great way to help kids take ownership of their parks, said Maureen Rooney, one half of Rooney and Punyi. “If they’ve planted a tree in a public area, they’ve invested in that area,” she explained, and will be more likely to respect it.
Students also got their own white spruce trees to take home to plant. Kids should make sure to plant their trees where they’ll have plenty of room to grow, Veenstra said, and are clear of any power lines.
Next year’s planting will likely be at Lions Park, Gluck said. Call her at 780-418-6005 for details on future tree plantings.
City residents can now get their first-ever official look at the state of the Sturgeon River.
The first-ever State of the Sturgeon River Watershed Report was quietly unveiled Friday afternoon on the city’s website as part of the agenda package for Monday’s council meeting. The report, which has been years in the making, represents the most comprehensive look yet at ecological conditions in the Sturgeon watershed.
This is just the 30-page summary, said city environmental manager Leah Jackson, who presented the report to the Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC) Thursday night — the full report is about 180 pages, and is still undergoing some final tweaks. “It’s like a coffee table version, so there’s plenty of photos.”
The EAC approved the final draft of the report on April 26, after numerous delays and two years to the day after the study’s terms of reference were finalized.
What took so long? Part of the delay was due to a manpower crunch at Aquality Environmental, the lead consultant on the report — they have a staff of three, and their services are in high demand throughout Alberta.
But most of it was due to the sheer volume of material, Jackson said. There have been about 500 studies done on various parts of the Sturgeon, all of which had to be reviewed by the consultants, EAC, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and other groups. “I think this surprised all of us in terms of how much work it ended up being.”
The report examines the current state of the Sturgeon, Jackson said, and tries to identify key issues and data gaps in it. “It’s not a ‘how to repair the river.’ It really is a snapshot in time.”
The report measures the state of the river based on 15 indicators, including land use, livestock density, benthic invertebrates and fish. Each indicator was ranked as good, fair, poor or unknown (due to lack of data) based on available information.
The report found that the Sturgeon watershed as a whole was in ‘fair’ condition, based on three ‘goods,’ five ‘fairs,’ three ‘poors’ and four unknowns. A similar, much shorter review of the river in 2005 by the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance also ranked it as ‘fair.’
The Sturgeon was considered ‘poor’ in terms of vegetation types, Jackson noted as an example, because almost all of its native plants have been replaced. Low levels of pesticides and E. coli in the water earned the river a ‘good’ in those categories.
Council will now have to develop an action plan based on the report, said Coun. Malcolm Parker, who sits on the EAC. “What’s important now is what the next steps are.”
The summary report is available on the city’s website under the minutes for the May 28 council meeting. Copies of it will also be sent to schools and governments throughout the watershed.
The Gazette will do an in-depth review of the report next Saturday.
