Hello,
For those of you unfamiliar, Sandy Cove Creek is a tributary that hosts hundreds of thousands of minnows each spring and provides spawning habitat for Brook trout. In fact, Sandy Cove Creek is one of the very few Lake Simcoe tributaries that runs to the lake that hasn't been disturbed.
As someone who has lived just off of Lockhart road just a few minutes from Lake Simcoe for the past decade and has enjoyed the wonders, we recently became aware of a proposal to drop 314 housing units directly beside Sandy Cove Creek, rather than keeping it zoned as 'retirement'.
This plan calls for extensive dewatering of the area, and a clear-cut of the timber on the lands, even though the land is populated by all types of birds, reptiles and mammals, and this is on top of all of the clearcutting that took place south of Lockhart for the new development there.
As there are no local amenities, this plan will also introduce hundreds of vehicles onto Lockhart road, which has no buffer between itself and the lake. Vehicles will be dropping tons of sand and salt on the road, which will flow straight into the lake. Other roads that terminate at the lake have some sort of buffer, be it a crossroad, a beach, greenspace, but Lockhart has no such filter, just two ditches that go straight to the lake.
Two weeks ago I stood in front of Innisfil town council and pleaded for them to deny this development amendment, as it destroys one of the last untouched tributaries, and removes a major buffer between the existing housing and the lake. After the meeting, I was approached by our deputy mayor, who asked that I continue to raise concerns and dig up anything I can to help in the fight.
I've been reading over hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents, and last week was able to raise enough concern with town planning that they looped in town engineering and requested peer reviewed investigation into my concerns.
I'm writing this for a few reason. 1) to make everyone here aware of a situation that is potentially harmful to our hobby, 2) to ask that you sign the petition to stop this abomination of a land use proposal, and 3) to ask if anyone might have a contact with the MNR who would be interested in looking into this.
This development has a high probability of destroying the habitat used by the minnows, something that will ripple through the food chain.
The petition can be found here:
Save Sandy Cove CreekTo the moderators, I would ask that you allow this to stay up, but I understand if you feel the need to remove it.
To anyone who plans to reply "IT'S NO USE, YOU'LL NEVER CHANGE IT!", well that's my problem and my time, not yours, so no worries, all good.
I've attached a picture of one of the pools that hosts minnows in the spring. Take a look, can you believe the number of minnows?!?! It's incredible!
Sandy Cove Creek
