The  goal is  to restore the health of the Middle Maitland  River by allowing  natural water flow  as well as to  enhance the  natural  beauty and  recreational  value of  Listowel Memorial Park  as outlined  in the approved Greenway Master Plan.

Still Real Trouble in Listowel’s Maitland

I grew up next to the Maitland River and it’s dam . As a kid I fished in it, swam in it, boated on it, skated on it, snowmobiled and tobogganed across it. Most evenings we will walk the dog beside the river and still enjoy a great attachment to it.

But east of the dam where we of Listowel have chosen to impede the natural flow of the river, there resides an unnatural and unhealthy pond of stagnant water. The Middle Maitland Rejuvenation Committee which the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority is a part of, had identified the need to remove the dam years ago and leave the river alone, and we voted it down.

Milfoil is an invasive plant that is now growing from the river bottom. The sheer mass of plants creates stagnant mats on the water, a great habitat for mosquitos, but milfoil also impedes the oxygenating effects of wind on the surface which breathes life into the water below. A lot of this information is not new but it is going unheeded. And now most recently the Chinese Mystery Snail, more commonly found in your aquarium than a river, has been found in this same pond.This invasive species can transmit diseases and parasites to humans and has been identified by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Our company has been fortunate to have worked with Maitland Valley CA in the sustainability and health of our forest resource within the watershed. Emulating nature, forest management teams create forest cover which naturally retains more surface moisture, slowing runoff and retaining it . We need more healthy forest cover and wetlands in the watershed in order to ensure that the river will continue to flow and that we will have more water to filtrate into our soils and aquifers . We have learned our efforts can have a tremendous effect on water quality and volume.

We need to further understand the long-term effects of our daily decisions on the sky above us , the earth and water below. A large degree of unfairness has been dealt the Maitland River in Listowel and we need to immediately revisit and implement our municipality’s approved Park Master Plan which calls for the removal of our dam .

Richard Keeso

President

J. H. Keeso & Sons Ltd.

http://jhkeeso.com