A recent winter storm has created more concerns about an area of Leamington already affected by ecological challenges.
Water levels on Lake Erie have been slowly declining this past year after a period of high water, but the winter storm that moved through the area just before Christmas 2022 exposed more issues at Hillman Marsh, a conservation area on the east side of the Point Pelee peninsula.
Conservationists raised the alarm on high water levels causing a breach in the area this past summer. Now, lower water levels caused by the winter storm created another problem, the loss of fish and wildlife.
Wayne King of the Leamington Shoreline Association told WindsorNewsToday.ca the new set of concerns is serious.
"Those 50-mile-an-hour winds kind of sucked all the water out of Lake Erie, the western basin here, and drove it into the eastern basin, leaving us kind of high and dry," said King. "What it did end up with the marsh is now just virtually a bay of Lake Erie."
The same winter storm created catastrophic issues for the area in the eastern basin, particularly around Buffalo, New York, which experienced crippling snowfall. King estimated that the storm lowered water levels in the Hillman Marsh area by two or three feet, though there is no official measurement taken in the Point Pelee area.
King said he spotted the issue with the fish while on a walk in the area.
"There was an extensive kill, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them," said King. "I've talked to other people that experienced the same thing along the Road 1 berm, they saw huge pockets of dead fish, and I suspect that happened throughout the entire marsh."
King said the Municipality of Leamington has already started a mitigation project for the marsh, which includes strengthening the berm and hardening the shoreline. However, he has called on support from all three levels of government to protect the marsh from further disaster.
Climate change and changing geological conditions have taken their toll on the Hillman Marsh area for decades, with the more recent high water levels cutting into shoreline that was once home to wetland vegetation. This past summer, the Municipality applied for an $18-million help package, asking for support from both the federal and provincial governments.