The LSRLPOA committee and the Lake Steward are volunteers who attempt to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities. We are grateful for the encouragement of lake property owners when given and we are willing to answer their queries to the best of our abilities, but we cannot offer professional advice. If any of our reports raise questions of a legal or professional nature then the readers are respectfully referred to appropriate sources of advice.
Lake water sampling was carried out last week by the RVCA and for the Ontario Lake Watch program. We have posted the results from last year on the website. There are some issues revealed by those figures which may merit attention by the appropriate residents of Rainbow or Little Silver Lake.
One of the duties of the Lake Steward is to maintain the beaver baffler system which was installed some years ago. Since January, members of the committee have been in the stream a total of four occasions to carry out this task, three times before the ice broke up on the lake and in very hazardous conditions.
The most recent visit was May 19th when all of the flotsam that had caught on the fence just before the culvert was removed, including the 6×6” “bridge” which had come adrift in the spring runoff and was impeding flow through the culvert.
The beaver dam was destroyed during that runoff, and although the beaver are still present, they have not yet attempted to rebuild the dam.
It was also noted that the baffler pipes were again blocked and will need to be cleaned out when a dam is built. This should restore it to full performance. This is a task for the next Lake Steward, since further work within the water is forbidden (we understand) until July.
The entire region has been faced with exceptional high water: almost daily bulletins were issued by the RVCA at the time of the spring thaw, and as recently as last week the RVCA reported that Bob’s Lake was again at flood level.
After the ice disappeared, I carried out an informal survey of lakefront structures. In the entire lake there were just two or three that appeared to be in serious need of repair, possibly exacerbated by the high ice level. Since one of those structures was the dock belonging to the Lake Steward it was known that some repair to the foundation would be required after the winter onslaught: the ice and high level simply completed the process of dilapidation and did not precipitate the damage. All the other flooded structures appear to be unscathed, but the Association is sure that property owners will be best able to assess that for themselves.
Comments about maintenance of the beaver dam and baffler are provided on the website. If a member has detailed technical or legal questions about the advice we have received, we suggest that they seek independent legal counsel. We repeat that we are a group of volunteers attempting to carry out our duties amidst very busy schedules and under difficult conditions. We do not have the skills to respond to detailed legal or technical enquiries that relate to advice from conservation authorities or other sources.
We are also not a source of detailed information about the habits of beaver – we can only speak from our own experience as property owners and from a perusal of public domain information.
If the members as a whole consider that any members of the committee have not fulfilled their jobs, then they are strongly encouraged to attend the annual meeting and nominate another member to replace them.
Dr. Frank Johnson P. Eng.
Lake Steward 2011-2014
Shoreline Naturalization and Solutions for Shoreline Erosion