- Apllications Now Open To Local Environmental Stewards
News from Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
August 27th, 2015 – Ontario is calling on community groups to help protect, restore and enhance the Great Lakes by applying for a Great Lakes Guardian Community Fund grant.
Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and beyond from space. Click on the image to enlarge and you may see the Niagara River connecting the two lakes. These are our precious life-sustaining fresh waters to protect and preserve.
Now in its fourth year, the fund provides a grant of up to $25,000 to not-for-profit organizations, schools, First Nations and Métis communities and other local groups for projects that have a direct environmental benefit to the Great Lakes. Past projects and activities supported by the fund have included:
- Planting trees
- Creating rain gardens
- Restoring wetland habitat
- Controlling invasive species
- Cleaning up beaches or shorelines
- Naturalizing stream banks and shorelines.
Applications will be accepted until October 23, 2015.
Supporting local efforts to protect the Great Lakes and other watersheds is part of the government’s economic plan to build Ontario up. The four-part plan includes investing in people’s talents and skills, making the largest investment in public infrastructure in Ontario’s history, creating a dynamic and innovative environment where business thrives, and building a secure retirement savings plan.
Quick Facts
- This year’s fund will award $1.5 million in total for eligible projects.
- Since 2012, $4.5 million has been awarded to 221 community-based projects in Great Lakes watershed areas, including the St. Lawrence River Basin and the Ottawa River.
- Projects must be completed by February 2017.
- Since 2012, more than 11,000 volunteers have helped plant 85,125 trees, release 2,133 fish, create or enhance 643 kilometres of trail and collect 586 bags of garbage.
- Ontario’s Great Lakes Basin is home to 40 per cent of Canada’s economic activity and 95 per cent of Ontario’s agricultural land.
Additional Resources
- Learn about the Great Lakes Guardian Community Fund.
- Read Ontario’s Great Lakes Strategy.
- Find out about the proposed Great Lakes Protection Act.
Quotes
“I strongly encourage people to become local guardians of their lakes and apply for a Great Lakes Guardian Community Fund grant. This fund gives communities the opportunity to undertake activities that will make a real difference for the environment, while uniting community members around a common goal. The fund not only recognizes and supports our local Great Lakes champions, it empowers them to do their part to restore, protect and conserve our Great Lakes to keep them drinkable, swimmable and fishable.”
Glen R. Murray -Minister of the Environment and Climate Change
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Niagara At Large 
We have several groups that help tidy up our creeks, in Fort Erie there is ” FOFEC” Friends of Fort Erie Creeks, they run bingos and use those funds to drag stuff out of the Creeks that have been dumped in there, tires , motorcyles, bikes, stoves, you name it, even kitchen sinks, these grants are not large enough to make real progress in clean ups.Our Town Fort Erie was cited for dumping raw sewage into their creeks 35 years ago by the Globe and Mail, they have done very little about that practise. tens of thousands of gallons of raw sewage dumped via the Black Creek into the Niagara River, even though there was a court order by OMB Judge A.J.Chapman not to do that. the Mayor Wayne Redekop ( Lawyer) in “Contempt of Court” he allowed several sewer lines to be extended in violation to a court order. The sewage lagoon is overloaded here.
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