Nearly $1M goes to P.E.I. watershed groups for Fiona remediation work

The P.E.I. Watershed Alliance has received $983,000 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency for projects related to the recovery from post-tropical storm Fiona.

The money was awarded in October 2023 and given out to watershed groups on P.E.I. to help restore areas damaged by the September 2022 storm. The alliance supports 25 watershed groups on the Island.

The Morell River Management Co-operative received a little more than $200,000, said Hannah Murnaghan, its watershed co-ordinator. Fiona severely damaged paths along Peggy's Trail at Mooney's Pond.

"You really couldn't see where the trail was anymore — there were that many trees down," she said.

The funding covered the repairs to Peggy's Trail as well as parts of the boardwalk, and allowed for crews to continue working during the winter months to open some of the access trails for further work, Murnaghan said.

The photo on the left shows a section of trail shortly after Fiona hit P.E.I. On the right, a walkway has been cut through downed trees. (Morell River Management Cooperative)

"The boardwalk is almost done," Murnaghan added. "The construction for that is ongoing and we're working on the trail at Mooney's Pond as well, trying to fix some of the uprooted trees that kind of tore up parts of the trail. Our crew is also working on our access trails right now."

The funding also allowed the group to contract heavy machinery to clear out uprooted trees, Murnaghan said. It paid for four crew members and chainsaw operators, as well as two contractors.

"The trail is open now and we hope by spring, summer of this year that all those uprooted trees are going to be fixed and the boardwalk is expected to be reopened by this spring," she said.

Funding allocations

In order to get access to the dollars, watershed groups in P.E.I. had to submit a work proposal for what they would do with the funding to the alliance. Executive director Heather Laiskonis said the amounts requested and needs varied, with smaller projects looking for chainsaws or other basic equipment while those like Morell's required more. Some groups just wanted to do some mapping.

Trees downed by Fiona damaged this bridge near Mooney's Pond. (Morell River Management Cooperative)

"It's all been allocated," she said of the money. "All 25 groups received funding."

The groups need to spend their funding by March 31 under ACOA rules, but Laiskonis said she's hoping to get extensions for some work that needs to be completed in June because migratory fish pathways will keep people from reaching the sites until then.

"Most of the groups were able to pivot to trail cleaning and doing a lot of assessments and surveys and really shoring up their ability to work effectively in the spring and the summer," she said.

Every watershed group was also able to pay a staff member in January, something Laiskonis said would not have been possible without this funding.

Recovery won't be quick

Even with the money, she said, full recovery will take years, if not decades.

Restoration work will be needed along the Hillsborough River, as well as in Morell and Souris, Laiskonis said.

"We don't use the word clean-up anymore because we want to shift the thinking… [that] these [are] areas that need to be cleaned up. These are areas that need to be maintained and taken care of," she said.

That means recognizing dead wood is part of the natural process that makes soil and creates habitats for creatures, she said. As trails continue to be cleared for use, the watershed groups will be leaving some tree trunks on the ground to help improve the ecology of the land.