Barrie Creeks, Lovers Creek, and Hewitt's Creek Subwatershed Plan

The Barrie Creeks, Lovers Creek and Hewitt’s Creek Subwatershed Plan
Source
Groundwater
(shallow
subsurface
flow)
Existing (kg/year)
Committed Growth
Scenario (kg/year)
Change (Existing
Condition to
Committed Growth)
Committed Growth
(with BMPs) (kg/year)
Change (Committed
Growth scenario with
BMP implementation)
64 64 0 64 0 0
Point sources 0 0 0 0 0 0
% Change (with BMP
implementation)
TOTAL 377 511 134 475 -36 -7%
- Based on Strategic Direction #3 in the Phosphorus Reduction Strategy, future development should be
moving to no net increase in phosphorus. Currently our understanding is that the province is working on a
phosphorus reduction tool to ensure this.
Another way to look at the phosphorus loading of each subwatershed is the amount per year
per hectare. Figure 3-11 illustrates this, showing that while the total phosphorus loading to Lake
Simcoe from the Barrie Creeks and East Holland River subwatersheds are roughly equal
(Figure 3-9), Barrie Creeks contributes almost seven times more per hectare. Barrie Creeks is
actually the highest contributor per hectare, almost three times Oro Creeks North which is the
second highest contributor per hectare in the Lake Simcoe watershed.
Although Hewitt’s Creek has the lowest percent total phosphorus loading to the Lake (Figure
3-9), it falls in the middle of Figure 3-11, contributing more phosphorus per year per hectare
than eight of the other subwatersheds. Lovers Creek is ranked 6 th lowest per hectare despite
being 3 rd lowest in total phosphorus loads per year.
Figure 3-11: Phosphorus loading (kg/yr) per hectare under current conditions for each Lake
Simcoe subwatershed (data: Berger, 2010).
Chapter 3: Water Quality – Surface and Groundwater 100