Disclaimer & Copyright Notices; Optimized for the MS Edge

First Lake, Lower Sackville

Updated: October 30, 2021

Caution: Since First is a shallow lake, the standard limnetic (i.e., open-water) trophic parameters may not represent the true trophic status of the lake

Acknowledgements

Contents:

• Water quality, and general overview
  
  
• An overview of our concerns
• Hypolimnetic lake aeration prescribed
  
  
• Demonstration project for stewardship practices
• View Halifax County's 54:47 minute educational video produced by us at Shaw Cable, Lower Sackville in May 1994
  

• Concerns of stakeholders and Government agencies
  
  
• cf. OneDrive folder of this lake
  

Water Quality

Select scientific modelling and chemical/biological limnology are part of our miscellaneous archives

The bathymetric map; the morphological data; the location map; the Shubencadie River headwaters flow chart; peruse our predictive modelling, and view a relevant model; the paleolimnology of lakes in the HRM

Overview of our concerns

Our secondary concern has been with sporadic high fecal counts in parts of the lake and no single location has been indicative of the overall fecal pollution from multiple sources.

There has been no scientific evidence of any reduction and/or return to its natural background values based on our predictive TP modelling.

Even of more importance as a comparison are the trophic guidelines of the CCME and the indicator thresholds for anthropogenic stressors of freshwater lakes in Nova Scotia.

This is one of the lakes in HRM which has been studied extensively by various researchers inclusive of us limnologists as well as by paid consultants. The vast majority of the scientific and consultant studies are easily available to the public through a combination of the Novanet library system, the HRM, and our OneDrive.

Hypolimnetic lake aeration prescribed

There have been several successful case histories of lake aeration worldwide as well as in Canada.

Concerns of stakeholders and Government agencies

• Media article on beach closures in 2017
  
• Lakefront residents oppose further development of walking paths around First Lake (2006)
  
• Concerns of John Sheppard PEng of the Halifax County and solutions offered by a landscape company (1992)
• Eventual concerns expressed by Councillor, Bob Harvey, of Dt# 20 which includes First Lake (2003)
• An interesting 1972 article
• An aerial photo of heavily silted First Lake (1970s)

Acknowledgements

The jpeg scan of the fish was extracted by biologist, Peter Shacklock, from the Tv show we had produced featuring underwater video of the fish species of the Shubenacadie Lake system during year-1994.