Stormwater management

Need for Stormwater Management

Kawartha Conservation

Kawartha Conservation prepares and publishes a variety of lake and environmental management plans to provide a scientific approach to protecting and managing the environment over the short and long terms. These plans involve detailed field inventories and water quality and quantity studies to identify natural features and factors affecting their health.

Unmitigated stormwater’s impact

The lake’s ecosystem is primarily driven and stressed by human influences like stormwater runoff, which leads to high nutrient inputs, sedimentation, and overabundant aquatic vegetation, which all have harmful effects on the navigational, recreational and aesthetic qualities for residents around the lake.

Stormwater management is necessary to improve water quality. Stormwater carries contaminants like hydrocarbons, metals, oils, nutrients and it’s very high in suspended solids, and which lead to sedimentation.

Stormwater runoff enters Lake Scugog through three large-volume outlets, and was identified as major issue facing the lake’s water quality, by the Lake Scugog Environmental Management Plan prepared by Kawartha Conservation in 2010. Other factors include reduced biodiversity, excess nutrients, sedimentation, excess plant growth, algae blooms and invasive species.

Once stormwater reaches the lake, it cannot be treated.

Lake Scugog Enhancement

Kawartha Conservation’s Port Perry Stormwater Study (2013) identified lacking stormwater controls and a need to mitigate stormwater before it enters the lake. This observation became an impetus for the Lake Scugog Enhancement Project (LSEP).

As part of the LSEP, after stormwater is treated by the oil and grit separators en route to Lake Scugog, it will be deposited into a large engineered wetland that will naturally filter further pollutants from stormwater runoff before it reaches the lake.

Oil and Grit Separators

Oil and grit separators will be installed as a mitigation strategy and enhancement to the Lake Scugog Enhancement Project. They will be installed at specific treatment locations in the stormwater outlets to capture sediment and silt, which contain contaminants like hydrocarbons, metals and oils, and prevent them from reaching the engineered wetland.

These separators help reduce the total load of suspended solids (sediment/silt) that stormwater inputs into Lake Scugog. The engineered wetland will be located where the largest sediment input loads enter Lake Scugog, at the Baagwating and Casimir stormwater outlets.

Join us in enhancing Lake Scugog

The success of this project requires contributions from many, including governments, foundations, businesses and personal charitable donations.

We are looking for visionaries to join us in caring deeply about Lake Scugog, its ecosystem and the people in its community. Join the Township of Scugog’s journey in environmental leadership and in its commitment to the communities in Scugog.

Get involved today. Contact us at

Phone: 416-409-8296

Email:   lsepfundraising@gmail.com