Brewer Pond may soon be reconnected to the Rideau River in an effort to create a new fish habitat and help diversify the ecosystem.
The key purpose of the project is to restore the river and to have the area — which was once a part of the riverbed — to be reconnected, said Jennifer Lamoureux, an aquatic and fish habitat biologist at the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority.
The area where the pond currently sits was actually a series of islands in the middle of the river, Lamoureux said.
In the late ‘60s, a berm, or raised barrier, was created and the pond was filled to a higher elevation than the river to provide a swimming area for local residents, she said.
“It didn’t last very long, the swimming aspect. Things just kind of naturalized,” Lamoureux said.
In the mid-90s, a number of groups started to think about the pond itself, and looked at options to bring it back to the river.
In 2004, a group of students at Carleton University worked with the Ottawa South community on the idea of connecting Brewer Pond to the Rideau River, Carleton environmental science professor Kringen Henein said via email.
Henein’s students wrote a report with recommendations on how to install a pump to circulate water along with the benefits.
Since then, the project has not been realized, but there is still local interest in the reconnection, Henein said.
Fred Michel, director of Carleton’s Institute of Environmental Science, said this year, students from the institute have again joined with the community in a study of trees in the Brewer Park and surrounding area.
“We are currently involved in the new discussions concerning the reconnection of Brewer Pond to the river,” Michel said.
Connor Childerhose is a Carleton student who worked on Brewer Park last term and did research into different ways that the parks in Ottawa can be improved.
“There’s very little oxygen in the pond which is why plants and animals don’t live in the pond,” Childerhose said via email.
Plans to reconnect the pond to the river would greatly improve the amount of oxygen in the pond and clean up the water itself, he said.
Dr. Steven Cooke, Canada Research Chair in Fish Ecology and Conversation Physiology and an associate professor of environmental sciences and biology at Carleton, is applying for external funds from a US source to do post-restoration monitoring of Brewer Pond.
There is government-mandated monitoring that will be done, but this will not be sufficient to determine if and when muskellunge, a species of fish, are using the restored habitats, Cooke said via email.
In partnership with Muskies Canada, Cooke has applied to the US Becker Foundation to seek funds to do science-based post-restoration management to determine whether it is successful at increasing habitat for muskellunge, he said.
In March, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority will be holding an open house with the community to present the project of reconnecting Brewer Pond to the Rideau River.
“It will be kind of an information session to present the project, and a draft set of plans to get some feedback,” Lamoureux said.
She said she hopes that construction will begin in the fall and be completed in one month.
“There’s a lot of energy being put into it, and a lot of really great potential to restore something that once was and improve biodiversity,” she said.
“We are hearing a lot from the public, and the response has been fairly positive, very positive actually.”
