City looking into creating a Lake Use Management Plan

Chestermere city council directed city staff at the March 19 council meeting to begin work on a lake use management plan for Chestermere Lake.
Kathy Russell, the Parks and Recreation Manager with the city explained that Chestermere needs a plan for the lake so that a long-term vision for the lake can be created and followed.
“We want a plan because we want to understand and know what issues may face us in respect to things like water quality, or long-term sustainability of the lake,” she said.
The management plan will answer questions such as what the purpose of the lake is, what the lake provides and how recreation can be accommodated on the lake.
While the city knows they want a management plan, they aren’t sure what the plan will look like. Just as every lake is unique, every management plan has to be tailored to its specific lake.
Russell said Chestermere Lake is very different from other lakes in the province, so it needs a specific lake use management plan.
“We have permanent homes surrounding our lakes, so we have almost 400 homes that have a shoreline,” said Russell.
Additionally, Chestermere Lake is also actually a reservoir, owned by the Western Irrigation District (WID).
This distinction changes how the Lake is managed since it needs to serve agricultural needs on top of being a recreational lake.
Work on the plan is being looked at to start in 2018, and Russell thinks it will take the entire year to complete.
“We’ll need to consult with the public fairly early on once we have questions in mind because we’ll want to know what the community thinks is important about the lake,” she said.
Not only will they want to know what residents feel they will also want to know what other stakeholders, such as the WID, feel.
To do this the city will be developing a public engagement process.
While work on this has not yet started yet, it will likely include both a face-to-face consultation and a survey to gather both qualitative and quantitative information.
Russell has looked at a number of other studies to see if policies are included as a part of lake use management plans.
“We’ve reviewed 10 plans with that specific question in mind, and discovered that they typically don’t they typically provide recommendations,” said Russell.
The first step in the process to create a management plan will be for the city to develop a request for proposal and send that to consultants who will submit proposals.
Once completed, Russell said that the lake use management plan will create the framework to do more detailed work on the lake in the future.
The management plan will help city council to make consistent decisions about the use of the lake by both residents and visitors to the community.
Deputy Mayor Mel Foat said he has heard discussion in the community about whether or not the lake should become a private lake open to only residents of Chestermere to keep lake traffic down.
“When everybody puts their boats in there, there is a concern for safety,” said Foat.
He said they need to look and see how they can make the lake a better recreation facility.
Foat said though that any changes made to the use of the lake will not affect resident’s ability to use the lake.
Every resident of Chestermere is allowed to put their boat in the water.