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Glenn Harrington's plan for fixing what ails Rattray Marsh boils down to two key things: getting the carp out and getting the crap out.
Last night at Green Glade Public School, Harrington, the consultant who is doing the environmental assessment that will allow Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) to put the shine back on its jewel of a wetland in Clarkson, presented the consensus recommendations of the steering committee guiding the Rattray restoration project.
"Getting the carp out of the marsh is the most important thing," Harrington said this morning. The fish breed in the marsh, stir up the sediment, prevent small plants from growing and eat some of those plants.
The CVC plans to increase its carp "exclosures" in the marsh to keep the big fish out.
If a concurrent Sheridan Creek Watershed Study by the CVC is as successful as hoped in improving the water quality and reducing the water quantity feeding Rattray, then the pike should make a comeback in the marsh. They will eat the small carp and help restore the natural predator-prey balance.
The presence of the carp is one of the reasons that Rattray has so much open water and no longer looks like the classic marsh it once did.
Getting rid of 200 years worth of sediment that has washed into Rattray from the creek (the crap) won't be quite as easy as excluding the carp.
Here is how it will work:
Crews will isolate different areas of the marsh, one after another, by placing sediment cloth around them. This will likely happen in the fall to keep turtles and amphibians from crawling into the mud and then being harvested along with the foot to 18 inches of chemical sediment that is to be removed. A pump will be placed to remove excess water.
Large excavating equipment will be used to pile the material in a corner of the chosen section, so it can dry out and/or freeze. For two or three days in the dead of winter when the area is dormant, a long line of trucks will move across oak mats or the ice to collect the crap and truck it to the appropriate spot.
Experts will be on hand when the excavation is done to ensure that the beautiful, original peaty layer at the bottom is disturbed as little as possible.
The sediment will be tested and, depending on how toxic it is, it may be disposed of in local landfills or — worse case scenario — have to be shipped to the only landfill site in Canada that takes the really toxic stuff, in Saskatchewan. The latter option (ouch) will cost $2,000 a tonne.
The beauty of the plan is that it will be done in stages. While that clearly increases the cost of trucking, it provides flexibility just in case things don’t work quite the way they are supposed to.
The idea is to restore the original depth of the marsh so that it is no longer the shadow of its former self that it currently is.
In his presentation last night, the personable Harrington never once mentioned the 'D' word, the dirty word in conservation work called dredging.
Although technically that is what is being proposed, dredging is associated with the exercise of deepening the mouths of river beds with huge buckets, Harrington said. "While the intent here is exactly the same, we will be doing it in a much-more controlled way," he said.
You can be sure that Jean Williams and the Rattray Marsh Protection Association, the citizen group that has tirelessly carried on the work begun by Dr. Ruth Hussey to first save and then support the marsh, will be watching carefully.
According to Harrington, once the peaty layer of organic material is revealed through sedimentation removal, there could be some amazing regeneration.
"There was a bog in Wainfleet where they did bog extraction and they got species growing again that had been extinct in the Province of Ontario," he said. "Whatever seeds are buried deep in that peat could grow again."
To be totally anthropomorphic about it, what a nice gift that would be from the marsh to the people who have been so dedicated in protecting it over the years.