Citizen launches legal action against Mount Hope Development Ltd, re: damage to wetland 1Aug 2025

Posted on August 1, 2025 by admin

Google Earth Images June 10, 2021 and Oct 16, 2024.
Click on image for larger version.

View: Zebedee files legal action against Eisner Cove Wetland development project by By Francis Campbell for Saltwire/Chronicle Herald Aug 1, 2025

News Release by Bill Zebedee July 31, 2025:

PRIVATE PROSECUTION CASE FILED AGAINST CLAYTON DEVELOPMENTS, DARTMOUTH
At an August 1, 2025 press conference at South End Baptist Church, [60 Hastings Driven Dartmouth, Bill Zebedee will announce he has filed a private prosecutive case against The Mount Hope Development Limited Partnership.

“It is unfortunate,” said Zebedee, “I must take this step. It’s the government’s responsibility to enforce the Nova Scotia Environment Act. It shouldn’t be up to a private citizen, to ensure the laws of this province are being enforced.” Continue reading →

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Community Studies for Sandy Lake (Bedford, NS) Special Planning Area “ignore” critical data on water quality 25Jul2025

Posted on July 25, 2025 by admin

Sandy Lake (Bedford NS) View towards northwest over “northern basin”. It looks pristine, but limnological observation conducted by volunteers 2017 to 2024 and ongoing indicate it’s in a highly precarious state now, before the shovels have hit the ground for a new development that could house up to 16000 people in an area of concentration of headwaters and many wetlands.  Stantec Consultants said they did not intend to ignore the observations in their Community Studies of the Sandy Lake SPA, but noted that their studies were “accepted”. Click on image for more aerial views.

By David Patriquin

The critical data have to do with very low deep water oxygen and evidence for “Internal Phosphorous Loading” in Sandy Lake. Recent monitoring and research reveal that such conditions now exist in more than a few lakes in HRM and elsewhere in NS.  Mitigation measures additional to those now being recommended for new developments – including in some cases, no new development – are required to protect the water quality of such lakes.

A related issue: Why did Stantec Consultants “ignore”  our observations? They offer no explanation. The most likely justification or pretext for excluding them that I can come up with, and which is suggested by the one reference to them in the Stantec Reports, is that they were conducted by volunteers who were seen as biased, and/or not scientifically competent. It’s an important issue because probably well more than 50% of all monitoring of surface waters in NS is conducted by volunteers.  Today we call such activity “Citizen Science”. Do we dismiss it a priori or consider criteria for assessing its credibility?

On May 16, 2025, the Nova Scotia Government/Dept. of Growth and Development announced (bolding inserted): “Community studies are complete for two areas identified by Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) for growth – the Sandy Lake special planning area in Bedford and the Highway 102 west corridor lands in Halifax” and that “the municipality will now undertake secondary planning for the two areas.” Continue reading →

Posted in Community, Conservation, Sackvile River Watershed, Sandy Lake, Water Quality | Leave a comment

Hemlock Wooly Adelgid found at Sandy Lake 20May2025

Posted on May 20, 2025 by admin

Tell-tale signs of HWA: wooly patches on the undersides of hemlock twigs

Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (HWA), a highly destructive pest on hemlock trees, was observed on a single tree on the drumlin just past Sandy Lake Beach Park last fall.

HRM folks with assistance from the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) and others are keeping an eye out on it, but we can all help in both monitoring and presenting or slowing its spread.

Read more

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“Community studies are complete for the Sandy Lake special planning area” – NS Gov 16May2025

Posted on May 17, 2025 by admin

Sandy Lake Special Planning Area

So we learn from a NS Gov News Release “Minister Designates New Special Planning Area; Two Major Studies Complete – NS Growth & Development, 16 May 2025. Some excerpts from that document follow (brown text, bolding inserted).

——————–

More homes will be built faster in designated planning areas in Bedford and Halifax.

Community studies are complete for two areas identified by Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) for growth – the Sandy Lake special planning area in Bedford and the Highway 102 west corridor lands in Halifax. Continue reading →

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Bedford West Surface Waters exceeded phosphorus thresholds in 2024 9May2025

Posted on May 9, 2025 by admin

Sampling Stations

From Item No. Info 2, North West Community Council May 12, 2025: Bedford West Water Quality Status:

A water quality monitoring program has been ongoing in the Bedford West Secondary Plan area since 2009, through Development Agreements executed under the Bedford West Secondary Planning Strategy. Results from the fall 2024 sampling event, the 2024 Final Report for the monitoring program are presented in this report….

The full final report from the 2024 Bedford West sampling program prepared by WSP Canada Inc is
available on the halifax.ca website.

Continue reading →

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The Kingswood Ratepayers Association concerned about Sandy Lake 14Apr2025

Posted on April 14, 2025 by admin

Global News illustrates sign erected by Kingswood Ratepayers Association

Saving Sandy Lake was the lead item on the 6 pm Global News Maritimes for Apr 13.

It begins with a a statement by Chris Bryant of the Kingswood Rate-payers Association: “You’ve got an area like this one were standing today you can’t build another one of these. Once it’s gone it won’t come back.”

Continue reading →

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Unusually late BGA bloom in Sandy Lake (Bedford) reported in Harmful Algal News (UNESCO) 20Feb2025

Posted on February 20, 2025 by admin

Extracts from Harmful Algae News for Feb 2025

It’s hardly the kind of publicity one would like to see for Sandy Lake.

The now confirmed, unusually late bloom of BGA (Blue-Green Algae or Cyanobacteria) in Sandy Lake, besides being another warning sign that we can’t take the seemingly near-pristine state of Sandy Lake for granted, appears to be among the latest if not the latest occurring bloom yet reported for Nova Scotia*.

See:

Unusually late occurrence of a Dolichospermum bloom in a Nova Scotia lake
by Linda Campbell, David Patriquin, Michael Agbeti in Harmful Algae News (HAN): An IOC Newsletter on Toxic Algae and Algal Blooms. Open Access. 78:10-11. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14883731. PDF Link.

Continue reading →

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HRM Regional Council adopts recommendations related to LakeWatchers Report 14Nov2024

Posted on November 14, 2024 by admin

View Item No. 15.3.2, Halifax Regional Council November 12, 2024

This document includes a Staff Report dated Apr 22, 2024, and the full LakeWatchers State of the Lakes Report, 2022-2023 SAMPLING YEARS

“Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee received a staff recommendation report dated April
22, 2024 to consider an in-depth analysis of the 2022-23 LakeWatchers program, a program initiated to monitor the water quality of 73 lakes in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). Continue reading →

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Curious BGA Bloom on Sandy Lake (Bedford, NS) in early November 11Nov2024

Posted on November 11, 2024 by admin

Bottle with Sandy Lake water
Click on images for larger version. Viewed at max size, individual clumps of cells/colonies appear as small beads – approx 0.25 mm diameter, they can just be discriminated with the naked eye.

Circumstantial evidence suggests the appearance of “green aggregations” on the shoreline on the west side of the lake followed fall turnover of the water column, bringing up phosphorus-rich water from the hypolimnion which stimulated growth of a nitrogen-fixing BGA (Cyanobacterium), the ID confirmed by specialists to be Dolichospermum  flos-aquae.

On Thursday, Nov 7th of 2024,  D.S., a resident of Sandy Lake, arrived at my doorstep with a small bottle of Sandy Lake water he had collected along the shore on the west side of the lake in the late afternoon of Nov 6th.

It had a very distinctive layer of green near its top (pic at right).

“Green Aggregations” by the shore, west side of Sandy Lake
Nov 6, 2024

He showed me photos of where  he had sampled.  The next day, he said, it was gone.

I put some drops  from the green layer under my Dissection Microscope and could just barely see the individual cells. That characteristic (very small cells) and the pattern of clumping of filaments of cells suggested to me it was  a BGA (Blue Green Alga) aka “Cyanobacteria”.*
_______
*While the term BGA  (Blue Green Algae) remains in common use today,  these organisms are more correctly (scientifically) described not as algae but as a type of bacteria in the Phylum “Cyanobacteria“. These are photosynthetic bacteria, the light-capturing pigments sometimes giving them a blue-green colour, hence the common name. Continue reading →

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Happy Thanksgiving 2024

Posted on October 12, 2024 by admin

Two Pics from a visit to Sandy Lake & Environs on Friday Oct 11 illustrate the beauty of this place, especially appreciated on Thanksgiving weekend.

At Sandy Lake Beach Park on Oct 11, 2024. Kids built this structure in the summer past, a safe place to play and swim, BUT we can’t take it for granted.  A major new development on the headwaters and associated wetlands to the SW of Sandy Lake could “do it in“, and have impacts on the wild lands of Chebucto Peninsula as well (re: the Wildlife Corridor to the west of Sandy Lake).

Continue reading →

Posted in Community, Conservation, Regional Plan, Sackvile River Watershed, watershed | Leave a comment