The Environmental Committee, over the course of many years, has held workshops, conducted two major surveys, gone door to door and spoken with property owners, summarized annual general meeting questions and concerns and been able to determine key issues. It is our hope through Indigenous meetings and talks, this data will get expanded and improved in the coming months. Currently the identied actions in this action plan are a combination of the data that has been collected, coupled with general knowledge and insight into what is required to accomplish some of the values and targets. This list of actions is in no way to be considered complete or final, but instead an evolving list of actions for the coming months and years ahead. 

Some of the key actions may have overlapping characteristics with other actions. 

1. To build a sustainable integral relationship with the South Algonquins and Kijicho Manito Madaouskarini bands that have history and interest in Whitney and McKenzie Lake area and watershed.
2. To jointly increase knowledge, and partner in stewardship, developing common goals and actions for the future. 

1. McKLPOA to offer honorary voting membership in McKLPOA to appointed AOO representatives (chosen by KMM) until the land parcel is fully awarded.
2. McKLPOA executive and environmental committee members meet regularly with KMM bands and discuss initiatives, actions, and principles. 
3. Encourage KMM to provide and share knowledge of the land, and its peoples, to McKPLPOA to help education and provide greater understanding for the purpose of greater stewardship and joint goals development.

1. Building Relations

1. Connect and jointly discuss the area, values and visions of all parties, to arrive at common goals and actions that can achieve them. 
2. Encourage the active participation of indigenous communities in the planning and actions of McKLPOA.

To evalute the health of McKenzie shorelines and ensure that natural shorelines are maintained and degraded shorelines are rehabilitated.

1. Establishment of a Natural Shoreline – To establish buffer zones, in cooperation with the municipalities, that would protect natural vegetation in areas between the development site and the high water mark;
2. Implement Shoreland Maintenance Program – To ensure shorelines maintain desire properties, in cooperation with the municipalities and property-owners, by planting indigenous plants to reduce erosion and nutrient loadings as well as mitigate the impact of contaminants from surface runoff water; and
3. Replacement of Shoreline Structures – To provide assistance and advice to residents who need to upgrade old structures near the shoreline.

To further engage and involve more property owners to take an active role and participate in the Lake Plan Goals and Targets, and in it's own continuous improvement.

1. Increase membership or member participation in environmental committee activities, specifically in relation to Lake Plan Targets and Objectives.
2. Increase learning content in McKLPOA online classroom for members to learn and understand more about stewardship and other aspects the natural environment around them.
3. Hold regular committee meetings engage and bring new ideas, concerns and issues to the forefront.
4. Research and obtain funding to aid in completion of more complex targets or goals.

1. Actively solicit members and non-member participation by presenting value and meaning to the actions and goals of the Lake Plan and area stewardship. This is integrated with other tasks as the activity in itself will hopefully draw participation and engagement.
2. Run a regular "Speak Series" with high profile speakers talking about key subjects which the membership has expressed concerns or interest in learning more in. 
3. Find and obtain quality courses and learning material to post in LMS course. This could engage indigenous communities to create courses with their knowledge and ways for members to learn about.
4. Raise the frequency of committee meetings to coordinate with members as to what works best for everyone. 
5. Hold social events that have an environmental committee theme to them as both a fun and entertaining event as well as educational. 
6. Research, contact stakeholder partners, and government and apply for funding applicable to certain goals and targets which required dedicated time and/or expense to complete either through professional or specialized firms. 

1. Quality of the Sport Fishing – To protect spawning age fish, protect and enhance aquatic habitat, and to promote sustainable harvest;
2. Fish Habitat - Quality and Quantity – To naturalize shorelines with native trees and shrubs, protect water quality for aquatic species, such as lake trout, by monitoring dissolved oxygen and temperature profiles, and improve spawning habitat through a land use control strategy;
3. Establishment of Benchmark Indices of the Fish Community and Habitat – To determine warm water species relative abundance and lake trout population index;
4. Maintaining Cold Water Temperature with Appropriate Oxygen Concentration to Help Sustain Naturally Reproducing Lake Trout – To monitor the dissolved oxygen and temperature profiles. 
5. Monitor and protect beaver dams to maintain lake water levels.
6. Become involved and collaborate in Sport Fish Stocking - Investigate appropriate methods for rehabilitating and repopulating sport fish, other than lake trout; and
7. Protection of Aquatic Habitat - Land use controls strategy.

1. Quality of the Sport Fishing:

1. Encourage MNR to enforce Ontario Fishery Regulations in regards to the harvest of spawning age fish;
2. Support and continue to encourage MNR and DFO in their activities to protect known habitat through the Public Lands Act and Fisheries Act;
3. Develop in cooperation with the DFO, the MNR, Indigeous Communities  and McKLPOA, an information package for landowners regarding the protection and enhancement of fish habitat, and circulate it to lake residents;
4. Encourage and assist the MNR to document spawning activities and identify critical shoreline habitat; and
5. Encourage and assist the MNR to conduct a volunteer creel survey to document harvest activity (fishing gear, fish size, quotas, time of capture or season, etc.) and if necessary, initiate a process to amend the Ontario Fishery Regulations to support the sustainable management and harvest of McKenzie Lake fisheries.

2. Fish Habitat – Quality and Quantity:

1. Continue to educate landowners and lake residents about the necessity and process of maintaining a natural shoreline;
2. Assist the MNR, in cooperation with community partners, to physically improve lake trout spawning beds, where required, by adding rock rubble to the areas below the high water mark.

3.  Establishment of Benchmark Indices of the Fish Community and Habitat:

1. Encourage and assist MNR to conduct a Near Shore Community Index Netting Program; (Nearshore Community Index Netting InstructionsNearshore Community Index Netting Instructions)
2. Encourage MNR to conduct a Spring Littoral Index Netting Program for Lake Trout; and
3. Encourage MNR to update the bass spawning activity files.

4. Collecting Inventory Data on Catchment Waters:

1. Initiate a project to map and assess all streams including their sources (headwaters) and route to McKenzie Lake and further down the watershed;
2. Conduct an aquatic stream inventory to gather information regarding the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of each watercourse; and
3. Conduct a rapid inventory assessment, using kick and sweep methodology, to collect samples from the streams’ benthic community.

5. Maintaining Cold Water Temperature and Appropriate Oxygen Concentrations to Support a Naturally Reproducing Lake Trout Population:

1. Initiate, with advice from the MOE and HSEL, a regular dissolved oxygen and temperature profile testing program, and share this information annually with local municipalities, appropriate agencies, and local lake residents; and
2. Continue, in cooperation with the Lake Partner Program, sampling phosphorus levels and conducting Secchi disc measurements of water clarity to collect base line data, which will be updated regularly and shared annually with local municipalities, appropriate agencies, and local lake residents.

6. Preserve beaver dams to ensure lake water level:

1. Request the support from the municipalities and the MNR for this request; and
2. Request that the MNR evaluate the impact of the drawdown on lake trout population in the lake by reassessing the spawning areas, after drawdown completion, to ensure sufficient substrate is available to spawning fish.

7. Protection of Aquatic Habitat:

1. Encourage the municipalities to prohibit development and increase setbacks, where appropriate, (i.e., adjacent to critical habitat);
2. Encourage lake residents to reduce nutrient loadings in order to improve water quality;
3. Encourage lake residents to restore buffer zones and the littoral and riparian zones in order to improve water quality and habitats;
4. Post signage, at all water access points, regarding the threat of invading exotic species, their harmful effects on lakes, and the procedures to ensure the protection of the lake system and aquatic habitat; and
5.  Increase public awareness about invasive and exotic species through McKLPOA LMS system as well newsletters and signs.

To assist property owners obtain reasonable and affordable access to the Internet through various partners.

1.  McKLPOA reaching out and connecting with other "POA's" to form a larger group able to negotiate effective tower placement and subscriber base for viable systems. 
2. Lake St. Peter POA was contacted and Explorenet was contacted for shared tower placement - research was pending.

1. Partner engagement 

1. Currently with the release of Starlink Internet Service at affordable prices, we have ceased efforts to engage other partners at this time.

To maintain and improve, where possible, the water quality standards of McKenzie Lake, and to promote public awareness of lake water quality and identify opportunities and support standards that may improve the quality of lake water.

1. Water Quality Testing – To continue to collect water quality information through the MOE’s “Lake Partner Program” as well as a thorough inventory of the benthic and plankton communities. Maintaining a consistent monitoring program, which collects routine samples from various locations, will produce and contribute to, over time, a database that could be used by lake residents, resource managers, and researchers to establish trends in water quality and standardized monitoring protocols.
2. Encourage a Phosphate-Free Life-Style in the Lake Community – To assist the municipalities with educating, on a regular basis, all members of the lake community about the importance of using only phosphate-free laundry and dishwasher detergents and refraining from using pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers on waterfront properties.
3. Maintenance of Buffer Zones –To encourage the Municipality of Township of South Algonquin to enforce buffer zones within 30 m of the high water mark in order to protect tree and vegetation cover as well as the riparian and littoral zone habitat from development, and to mitigate the impact of septic field nutrients and surface water runoff into the lake.
4. Identification and Protection of Wetlands –To ensure that the municipalities have maps that depict all wetlands within their jurisdiction, especially the identified Provincially Significant Wetland complexes on McKenzie Lake, and to ensure that land use planning decisions are consistent with provincial policy and Official Plans.

1. Water Quality Testing:

2. A Phosphate-Free Life-Style in the Lake Community:

1. Encourage the use of phosphate-free products through the McKLPOA Newsletter, notices to the public, and on the McKLPOA web site
2. Identify alternatives to non-ecologically sound products (environmentally friendly laundry and dishwater products, etc.) and ensure that these phosphate-free products, which can be identified in the McKLPOA Website and on notices to the public, are widely available for purchase at local stores
3. Solicit and encourage public support for a municipal ban in Township of South Algonquin on the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers on properties abutting a water-body, or at least within a defined buffer zone measured at 30 metres from the high water mark, and challenge and encourage each municipality to establish a by-law to this effect;
4. Encourage property owners to maintain healthy and approved septic systems and monitor waste and usage.
   
   

3. Identification and Protection of Wetlands:

1. Distribute maps that accurately identify the boundaries of the wetlands of North Chainy Lake, McKenzie Lake and all watershed wetlands of McKenzie Lake,;
2. Make a formal request to municipalities to identify the location of wetlands in official plans and zoning by-laws, if they have not done so already. Encourage the municipality to provide appropriate land use policy to ensure their protection, and require an environmental or lake impact assessment to be completed and peer reviewed by a qualified consultant at the expense of the proponent, selected by the municipality, for proposals of any development in or adjacent to Provincially Significant Wetlands (PSWs);
3. Ensure that all wetlands have the same level of protection as the PSWs; and
4. Develop an education program that highlights the ecological significance of wetlands, including the significance of wetland habitats for “species at risk” conservation in Ontario, and promotes the need for wetland conservation.

1. To gain a better understanding of all surrounding characteristics of the environment, which includes but is not limited to: physical, chemical and biological characteristics, fish habitat, wildlife habitat, water quality, other wildlife habitat and use patterns, etc.

1. Have qualified data & information for monitoring, planning and protection efforts;
2. Better understand physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the area and communicate the information to McKPOA membership.
3. Log, inventory and track the collected data and information for trending studies and longitudinal variation research.

1. Inventory of Physical, Chemical and Biological Characteristics

To initiate a detailed study, which includes standardized MNR monitoring protocols or methodologies, to be completed for the streams that flow into and out of McKenzie Lake. Qualitative and quantitative data should be collected to identify and assess the specific features (e.g., the presence or absence of indicator species that contribute to the health of the lake system and each individual stream). The inventory will also classify each stream in terms of community indices (cold water vs. warm water) in order to map the location of cold water streams and the critical cold water spawning sites within each stream.

2. Stream Inventory to include:

To ensure the future health of the lake through continued property owner maintenance, improvements or upgrades  of septic and waste systems.

1. Mandatory Regular Septic System Reinspection – To cooperatively work with the Township of South Algonquin to initiate a mandatory septic system reinspection program, which would be contracted to the Regional Health Unit, to be conducted every 5 years;
2. Regular Maintenance of Septic Systems – To conduct a campaign among lake residents to promote the regular pumping out of septic systems every three to five years; and
3. New Technology for Septic Systems – To monitor the licensing of new septic system technology and make the municipalities and residents aware of its availability.

To ensure the future health of the lake through continued property owner maintenance, improvements or upgrades  of septic and waste systems.

1. Mandatory Regular Septic System Reinspection – To cooperatively work with the Township of South Algonquin to initiate a mandatory septic system reinspection program, which would be contracted to the Regional Health Unit, to be conducted every 5 years;
2. Regular Maintenance of Septic Systems – To conduct a campaign among lake residents to promote the regular pumping out of septic systems every three to five years; and
3. New Technology for Septic Systems – To monitor the licensing of new septic system technology and make the municipalities and residents aware of its availability.

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