Community
Action Plan
The Five Year Community Action Plan involves
delineating a clear set of actions that include timelines and funding
strategies. Activities to be undertaken
include:
• Community education and advocacy
• Preparation of 5 yr Plan
• Biological Inventory
• Preparation of Harbour Atlas
• Feasibilty studies: Regional recycling,
UFN sewage treatment, Pump
out stations at marinas
• Implementation of study findings:
• Garbage clean-up: Large items (cars,
appliances.) Small items (beach clean-ups)
• Restoration of Streams
• Research traditional, historical
and current uses of the harbour - (ongoing, include information as it
becomes available)
The research from “Phase 1” of the UHP resulted in the identification
of the following priority actions for “Phase 2” of the Ucluelet
Harbour Project:
• Carrying out a biological inventory
of the harbour (continuing the foreshore mapping exercise, the product
of which will be a map based atlas of the harbour).
• The identification of important ecological
habitats and key restoration sites in the harbour.
• The identification of potential problem
sites around the harbour (e.g. buried abandoned fuel tanks and other dump
sites, leaking septic fields, etc.). Compile the information that exists
regarding the monitoring of these sites, and where no information exists
conduct tests of soil and water samples to assess the risk these sites
pose to the health of the harbour.
• Promoting the education and awareness
of actions to improve the health of the harbour. Ensure that communities
and all people who use the harbour have access to the best available information
on how to keep the harbour healthy. Examples include the promotion of
the green boating guidelines, septic field maintenance, water saving techniques
to limit the pressure of community growth on the sewage treatment facility,
and proper garbage disposal.
• Conducting a feasibility study on
methods to deal with the septic outflow from the Ittattsoo reserve. Options
include pursuing funding to route the outflow through the District of
Ucluelet sewage treatment facility or building an independent biological
waste treatment facility on the reserve.
• Conducting a feasibility study of
a recycling program for the region. Providing residents with an affordable
method of garbage disposal will curb the amount of garbage that gets dumped
into the harbour.
• Conducting a feasibility study for
the installation of pump-out stations in the marinas for boat bilge (grey
water and engine room bilge).
• Conduct feasibility studies for the
removal of two human-made structures in the harbour (the log sort spit
at the back of the harbour, and the causeway to Hyphocus Island) that
are blocking the flushing action of the tides causing sediment build-up
and the loss of shellfish beaches.
• Continue garbage pick-up from the
beaches and backshore. Remove large objects from the backshore (abandoned
cars at the car dumps, and abandoned fishing trollers on the shoreline)
as well as continue smaller garbage pick-up from the beaches (tires, plastics,
etc.).
For more information, read the Community
Action Plan (pdf)
Shorekeeper
Surveys
In 2001, the Habitat Stewardship Coordinator initiated a Shorekeepers’
program in Ucluelet. The goal was to enable interested individuals and
community groups to obtain standardized, credible data over time from
a specific physical site – and from the data to document and evaluate
the nature of change, if any, that is occurring. Both physical substrate
characteristics (e.g. sand, mud, and rock boulders) and biological features
(e.g. rockweed and eelgrass beds) are identified and mapped, and then
sampled for species diversity and abundance.
The Ucluelet Shorekeepers’ surveys were established in June, 2001
at two sites. The sites
were resurveyed in June and July, 2003. The Shorekeeper
Survey (pdf) report describes the sites, an evaluation of how well
the volunteers were able to use the standardized protocols, and recommendations
for improvements.
Shorekeepers Photo ID Sheet
(pdf) - this photo id sheet was developed for the shorekeepers as an aid
in identifying marine species in the harbour.
Eelgrass
Report
Eelgrass habitat is of such importance to the sustainability of commercial
(and noncommercial)
fish stocks that it is protected under the Fisheries Act. The “No
Net Loss” policy prohibits destruction of this important fish habitat.
Some research estimates that close to 70% of commercial fish species rely
on eelgrass habitat at some stage in their life history (Durrance, pers
comm. 2002).
In 2001- 2002, as part of the Ucluelet Harbour Project, a biological inventory
of the harbour began with mapping of critical habitats, the foremost of
which are eelgrass beds. The
Report on the Biological Inventory of the Harbour: Eelgrass Survey
(pdf) is available here for review.
