Eventful debut for ERCA’S climate change specialist
Region dealing with shoreline erosion, algal bloom fears and reducing emissions
Claire Sanders’ first year as the climate change specialist for the Essex Region Conservation Authority was certainly memorable.
The Windsor-essex region spent more than six months of 2019 under an extended flood watch where record high lake levels saw significant shoreline erosion that closed municipal roads, washed away others on Pelee Island, threatened homes and property and had municipalities from one end of the county to the other offering sand bags.
Residents along the shoreline between Leamington and Wheatley experienced 15 flood events since March and Leamington had to expedite emergency repairs to dikes to help protect 400 homes.
“It’s been a very impactful year for us,” said Sanders, who stepped into her role as climate change specialist last December.
ERCA identified climate change as a key focus in its 2016-25 strategic plan. The authority decided to add a climate change specialist in response to the significant storms and subsequent flooding experienced in the region in both 2016 and 2017.
It’s not known how many of the other 36 conservation authorities across the province have a staffer dedicated to climate change since neither the Ministry of Environment nor Conservation Ontario track exact staffing positions.
A spokesman for the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority said those duties fall to CAO Mark Peacock.
“My guess is that we wouldn’t find many mainly because climate change initiatives tend to become embedded within another position such as director of watershed management,” said Jane Lewington, who handles communications for Conservation Ontario.
ERCA’S board of directors felt a dedicated position was necessary.
“As a first for Essex Region, we knew the plan would require significant research, consultation, and partnership building, strengths of Claire’s in her previous role,” said ERCA’S general manager Richard Wyma, referring to Sanders’ time as ERCA’S remedial action plan coordinator for the Detroit River.
Sanders said the past year in her new role presented “a steep learning curve.”
“When the process started a year ago, we weren’t sure where our priorities were going to fall,” Sanders said. “Our programs have mirrored what we’re seeing in the community.”
First up was one of the worst planting seasons in memory for area farmers who couldn’t get corn in the ground because of cold, wet conditions.
“We have our own farm and we couldn’t plant corn,” Sanders said. “We had to plant soy beans instead and doing soy beans year after year is not good for soil health.”
She said ERCA also had 20,000 trees it couldn’t plant because of persistently wet conditions, ultimately offering the saplings to the community at large before they spoiled.
Conditions on the Great Lakes also had ERCA’S water quality team on high alert looking for dangerous algal blooms during the summer months.
Another priority that emerged, Sanders said, is the need for community energy planning with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
That was a topic of discussion by municipal leaders at a recent Windsor-essex Climate Action
Symposium.
“We need to help with energy planning,” Sanders said. “It’s not meant to be a finger-pointing exercise, we want to bring municipalities together. Can we assist on a regional level and let’s figure out a way to reduce those emissions.”
Sanders said data collection will begin in January as ERCA works toward helping develop a community energy plan.
Wyma noted the partnerships Sanders built with municipalities and in the sectors of agriculture, health and energy have allowed ERCA to launch a regional energy plan.
“We have been able to learn what has worked and what hasn’t worked and have developed a work plan that includes coordination of a regional municipal energy plan with funding from the province matched by strong support from the County of Essex and our municipalities,” Wyma said.
Looking ahead to 2020, Sanders noted the issues with high water won’t recede any time soon.
“It looks like high water levels for the foreseeable future,” she said. “We hear that the sea level is going to rise and Great Lakes water levels are going to continue to be very variable so we’ll continue to see challenges with that. I think we’re making progress. A lot of municipalities are working on stormwater plans and emergency flood preparedness.”
Updating floodplain mapping was one recommendation made by an independent review of flood management and events of 2019 by the Ministry of Environment.
“Our mapping is old, as it is across the province. So many things have changed since the ’70s and ’80s. Shoreline mapping is a big priority,” Sanders said.
Special adviser Doug Mcneil’s report to the ministry said ominously: “landowners that thought they were 100 years away from erosion hazards might now be 50 years away.”
Sanders said shoreline erosion is a casualty of climate change and “it’s a difficult thing for people to get their head around. It truly takes a community, it takes the region and really everybody to come together to find solutions.”