Shoreline Restoration Project on Cornwall Campus

Submitted by the Sustainability team 

SLC’s Cornwall community made significant strides in restoring and protecting the campus shoreline this fall. Last October, first-year Environmental Technician students, the River Institute, and Watersheds Canada’s Natural Edge Team joined forces on a shoreline restoration on the Cornwall campus. 

The restoration work was part of a larger project funded by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Canada Nature Fund for Aquatic Species at Risk (SAR) to improve habitat for SAR, such as the cutlip minnow found near SLC’s shoreline. For this project, the River Institute is partnering with The Natural Edge, a Watersheds Canada program that is delivered nationally, and was created to enhance habitat for both terrestrial and aquatic species, improve water quality, and naturally control erosion. Working together, the project team installed beneficial native plantings along the St. Lawrence shoreline at several sites in the Cornwall/Akwesasne and Long Sault area this past autumn. 

As shorelines are a vital habitat for 90% of Canada’s aquatic species, protecting the shoreline has become an important component of SLC’s Sustainable Landscape Management Plan. The team focused on planting along the inlet on the Cornwall campus, in and around an area where some plantings were completed last year. In addition to supporting our native species, shoreline restoration efforts protect from erosion, improve shoreline stability, reduce flood risk, runoff of sediments and nutrients into SAR fish habitats, and increase long-term resiliency of waterfront habitat – all of which are critical to building a more resilient campus that is prepared for the effects of climate change. 

The Sustainability team would like to thank participating SLC students, Jordan Ann Kevan de Haan, Professor and Environmental Technician Program Coordinator, Chantal Lefevre of Watersheds Canada, and Elsie Lewison, Matt Windle and Kate Schwartz of the River Institute for making this project possible.  

For more information on the cutlip minnow, and other Threatened Species and Species at Risk, check out the Fish Identification Nearshore Survey or FINS project led by the research team at the River Institute. The team has created an informative StoryMap to share the project’s progress.  
 
Additional Resources:  

This resource included fish diversity highlights in the Upper St. Lawrence River area
More information on at-risk minnow species