Joe Slater wins conservation award

Jeff Green | Oct 28, 2010

Photo: Joe Slater, left, receives the award.

Joe Slater is well known in the Crow Lake area as a charter member of the Crow Lake Association and a resource person and volunteer for the Bobs and Crow Lake Association.

Joe is the former Director of Water Resources for the Ministry of the Environment. In addition to providing hydro-geological input to the Crow Lake Management Plan, he has taken on the project of gathering and formatting water discharge data for the Tay River going back 30 years, and discharge data from Christie Lake going back 60 years.

The latest work he has done for the Bobs and Crow Lake Association was to compile 10 years of water temperature data.

But none of these activities were the reason Joe Slater won a Tri-Valley Conservation Award last week.

The award, which is given by the Rideau, Mississippi, and South River Valley Conservation Associations, was presented to Joe for the work he has done developing the Sandi Slater Memorial Trail in the Meisel Woods Conservation area near Crow Lake, one of the hidden gems of Frontenac County.

The walk is now a self-guided 5 kilometre loop through the Meisel Woods, which is named after its founder John Meisel.

Below is reprinted an excerpt from the testimonial: “Joe Slater is a naturalist and a good natured community minded leader. Mr. Slater’s incredible vision, planning skills and work ethic were instrumental in recruiting volunteers for the planning and completion of the Sandi Slater Memorial Walk at Meisel Woods Conservation Area. The trail, a memorial to his late wife, began as an extension of the natural trail already on site. Mr. Slater recruited naturalists, now known as the Crow Lake Community Volunteers, to groom the current trail and plan and construct a trail extension including building and installing an information kiosk, and directional signage. All the work has been done keeping in mind the fragile ecosystem of the conservation area. In 2008, Phase 2 of the trail was completed. This included extending the trail around the tip of Bass Lake, the 60 acre headwaters lake that is surrounded by the conservation area … Joe is currently working on phase 3 of the project.”

Charles Billington, the Communications Director for Rideau Valley Conservation (RVC), said the “RVC was happy to see Joe honoured in this way. He is a really knowledgeable guy who does a lot of work, all the time.”

For his part Slater said he is pleased to have received the award, even if it meant a pretty long drive to the community of Finch to receive it.

“It was quite a nice little ceremony they had,” he said.