Love Your Lake
Love Your Lake 2024
An important shoreline survey will be taking place on Otty Lake in the summer of 2024.
Otty Lake applied for and was selected to have Otty Lake assessed through the Love Your Lake Program, a partnership of Watersheds Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
The Love Your Lake program will provide Otty Lake property owners with a great opportunity to learn more about their shoreline, understand what positive steps they have taken, and will offer recommendations on how to better protect their property.
The surveys will take place over two weeks this summer, July 22 to August 2. The surveys are done by boat and no one comes onto your property.
In the spring of 2025, each property owner will have the opportunity to access their confidential shoreline property report based on the data collected. Residents will receive a letter in the mail with a code they can used to download their report. These reports are not shared with any regulatory bodies or with other lake residents.
Volunteer Boat Drivers Required. The support of the Otty Lake community for this program is crucial. We will also be looking for volunteer boat drivers to provide water transport for the surveyor. (Reimbursement for gas expenses will be provided.) Reid Kilburn will be coordinating that aspect of the program. Reid can be reached at (613) 326-0493 or [email protected].
More Information Coming! A letter will be arriving via Canada Post from Watersheds Canada in advance of the assessments. Watch for more on the Love Your Lake program on this website, on our Otty Lake Facebook Page, and in email messages. Lake Ambassadors (formerly Area Counsellors) will be an important conduit for information as well.
Summary Report
In addition to the personalized shoreline property reports, the Love Your Lake program provides each lake organization with a valuable Values Survey/Lake Summary Report. This report summarizes the data collected along the entire lakeshore, indicates what shoreline property owner’s value about their lake and encourages stewardship action at the community level.
We will be able to compare this to the Otty Lake Shoreline Assessment of May 2015 and to a 2005 shoreline survey to see the results of shoreline stewardship actions in the intervening years. This will help the OLA to determine where to focus its future efforts.
Love Your Lake 2013
You may remember that our lake was surveyed by the program back in 2013.
In the spring of 2014 each Otty Lake shoreline property owner received a printed confidential shoreline property report. At the time it was suggested that the property owners keep their copy in their Shoreline Handbook binder. You may still have access to that report. The reports identified the positive things property owners have done along their shoreline to improve water quality, and provided constructive recommendations to improve shoreline health specific to that property.
2014 Response to Surveys
Here are some of the comments made by property owners following the receipt of their 2014 assessment reports.
We received our shoreline survey in the mail today. What a lovely report! Very informative, and well laid out. Thanks so much for coordinating this on our behalf. That report of course prompted me to order some more plants. Have to plant more on the slope to the water. So – here goes!
I was reading my “Love Your Lake Property Report” and noted the opportunity to apply for one of the free shoreline naturalization projects …..Thank you for enabling Otty Lake residents to benefit in so many ways from the information and opportunities provided.
We are very pleased with the report on our shoreline and will try and correct and improve the areas that are mentioned in the report.
How lovely to get personal assessment of our shoreline property, it is nice to know we are doing something right.
More About the Program
Please consult the Love Your Lake website for further details on the program.
Or see these Frequently Asked Questions by Shoreline Property Owners.
Love Your Lake Ontario
Sine 2013 the program has surveyed 36,000 properties and 164 lakes in Ontario. It works with six regional partners, including Watersheds Canada in our region. Otty Lake was one of the first lakes surveyed through the program.
See Regions and Lakes
Otty Lake Shoreline Assessment Report
The 2015 Otty Lake Shoreline Assessment Summary Report provides baseline data that will help in the planning of future Otty Lake shoreline stewardship activities. The Report is a lake-wide summary of the information gathered through the 2013 Love Your Lake surveying of 474 Otty Lake shoreline properties (totaling 93.3 % of the Otty Lake shoreline).