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Grassroots group aims to protect Lake Mindemoya on Manitoulin Island

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Sudbury -

A grassroots group of concerned citizens has formed to take a look at concerns surrounding Lake Mindemoya.

The residents of Central Manitoulin got together after Stan Drystek and his neighbour approached town council with their concerns.

"The concerns here really range," Drystek said. "One is fluctuating water levels, and there has been quite a lot of shoreline erosion in some places. And the other thing that is happening is there is quite a lot of shoreline development happening along the shoreline."

The stewardship committee has so far 12 members, including two councillors from Central Manitoulin itself.

The goal is to look at some of the problems facing the body of water and to come up with solutions and recommendations for the municipality.

"One of the best filters for water quality is natural shoreline -- it acts as a filter for any kind of runoff and that's rapidly disappearing on this lake, so we're concerned about that," said Drystek.

Purview of the lake right now falls mostly to Central Manitoulin, although M'Chigeeng First Nation shares some of the shoreline. The group has asked the committee for M'Chigeeng members to join its efforts.

Drystek said their goal is to be a proactive -- instead of a reactive -- group of citizens. They've seen lakes elsewhere encounter real trouble when it comes to things like development, and they're hoping to avoid those issues and to keep the water pristine.

The lake has been an integral part of the community's recreation activities, tourism, the environment and it's the main source of drinking water for Mindemoya.

Group member Allan Holroyd and his wife bought a cottage resort on the eastern shore back in 2008, and have started to see things like walleye and pickerel decline.

He told CTV News that it's the current talk around the campfire with fishing enthusiasts. They want to know where the fish have gone.

"And we've had zebra mussels, we've had temperature changes in the lake, we've had a whole bunch of stuff and it's going to happen again," said Holroyd.

"There's a lot of pressure being put on the lake and people retiring at 50-years-old now, got nothing to do, they want to go fishing so there's going to be more and more pressure."

He's been asking the Ministry of Natural Resources about restocking the lake and is hopeful they'll be more proactive in watching the supply.

"The province needs to get involved, there needs to be more money to the MNR, I know they're cash-strapped," said Holroyd.

One of the town councillors who sits on the committee is retired veterinarian Dale Scott. Scott said he's encouraged to see a committee like this form where the goal is to come up with solutions.

"I think council has a responsibility to look after the assets that we have" he said. "It's our town residents of Central Manitoulin, but it's also our tourists, visitors that keep our economy going, and we love to have them come and visit us. We want them to respect our municipality, but we want them to enjoy what we have and we don't want it to change."

Scott said typically, things get handled on the municipal level by a complaint coming into town and then bylaw has to look at it. He likes the proactive approach.

"By having a good, cohesive group that works together, it's important and I think education and communication -- to our residents on the lake especially -- will be key," he said.

One of the things the group said it would like is to see testing of the water to double from the current two times a month it's getting from Public Health Sudbury & Districts.

The group is meeting regularly right now, but once it gets more established, Drystek anticipates it may only have to meet once a season to look at the concerns they're seeing for that time of year. 

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