Lake Ontario, ON

My Watermark is Lake Ontario.

I live near Bluffers Park, in a property that overlooks the lake, and have been very concerned for a long time with the TRCA. In their attempt to green the bluffs they are planting trees in an area that really shouldn’t have trees in it. They are attempting to stop the erosion of the bluffs and a lot of that has to do with preserving the properties located at the top of the bluffs, and not really with preserving the nature of the bluffs themselves. They can’t stop the erosion completely because of the lake currents and the underground streams that run under the bluffs. They are changing that nature of the bluffs, altering the wildlife corridor. For example, they are taking away the habitat from the cliff and barn swallows that live down there. There are a lot of invasive species, particularly at the top of the bluffs, such as dog strangle vine, where there used to be tall grass meadows. With the introduction of armour rock and the creation of beaches and the proposal to put a walkway that runs from Victoria park down to the Rouge, they are doing a lot of damage to the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Scarborough.

Lake Ontario is one of the largest freshwater bodies in the world, and the bottom line is we all live downstream from somebody, so the effects of the lake that I live near is going to the St. Lawrence, and ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean.