Shorelines being assessed

Photo: SILT

Residents around Vaseux Lake should expect to see surveyors on the water this week, as the Southern Interior Land Trust helps facilitate the Love Your Lake program. 

The program will provide lakeshore landowners with a free, personalized evaluation of their shoreline along with recommendations for how to voluntarily protect and revitalize the shoreline to improve lake health while still maintaining a waterfront view.

The Southern Interior Land Trust has partnered with Watersheds Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Federation on the pilot project. This year, shorelines along Okanagan Lake within the District of Summerland and the entirety of Vaseux Lake are being examined. 

It’s hoped additional shorelines will be studied in following years, but each one needs local government approval. 

“Natural lake shorelines, with their ribbon of native plants benefit wildlife and animal movement; protect properties from flood and erosion; and support ecological processes essential to clean, drinkable, swimmable, fishable water,” SILT says.

“Purchasing lakeshore for conservation is prohibitively expensive, so SILT is exploring other ways to spark widespread voluntary care of lakeshores to benefit all living things, including people.”

Shorelines are being assessed by boat on a property-by-property basis using a standardized protocol and datasheet. After the assessments, each shoreline property owner will receive a letter with a unique online access code needed to download their free personalized shoreline property report. 

Local governments and project partners will receive a lake summary report that generalizes the data over the entire area. 

SILT is also supporting the creation of three public shoreline restoration demonstration sites in Summerland where landowners and others can see examples of workable shoreline restoration. 

For more information visit here.