The Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) has completed its draft budget for 2016, which proposes an increase of around $139,000 over the previous year.
The draft budget totals $8.4-million, with an operational levy contribution from local municipalities of $2.1-million. The levy increase from the previous budget works out to around $0.65 per household valued at $200,000.
"The reason we were looking for a budge increase is to continue responding to some of the pressures we know we have in the region. Things like climate change, things like water quality and blue-green algae," says ERCA General Manager Richard Wyma. "Theses are things that need, and benefit from, a regional approach."
Wyma says 2016 is year four of a five-year plan to further reduce the conservation authority's operational deficit, which was nearing $500,000 in 2012. He says the ERCA has been able to tackle the deficit without using levy contributions from the local municipalities.
"We're investing about $100,000 a year into that operational deficit," he says. "The intention is, by the end of 2017, that operational deficit will be completely eliminated."
The conservation authority has a number of projects outlined in the draft budget, including installing new climate stations, making improvements to the Grand Marais Drain in Windsor, and the Cypher Systems Group Greenway. According to Wyma, over 70 km of Greenway trail have been acquired and funded through donations and corporate support, at no cost to municipal taxpayers.
The ERCA also plans to continue monitoring streams and recreational beaches for harmful algae blooms and work towards a more rapid method of detection of the toxin they produce.
"We have some very real issues that we're facing in our Great Lakes with blue-green algae. We need to spend time and effort to address those problems," says Wyma. "We [also] have some very real problems with respect to climate change that are having a huge impact on our infrastructure on our shorelines. Not just public infrastructure, but private infrastructure."
The budget also proposes planting more than 120,000 trees in the region, establishing 20 acres of prairie habitat and creating four new wetlands that will help restore hydrology, improve water quality and habitat for wildlife and fish.
The final vote on the budget is expected to take place in February, 2016.
