Mississauga and Brampton get failing grades for watershed and forest quality

Mississauga | Brampton | Community | Health |

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Published March 22, 2023 at 4:05 pm

water report mississauga
Photo by Joe deSousa

Credit Valley Conservation released its 2023 Watershed Report Card and some areas in Mississauga and Brampton are getting a failing grade.

The report card was issued today (March 22), World Water Day, and it evaluates the watersheds, an area of land drained by a creek or stream into a river which then drains into a body of water such as a lake or pond.

Everything in a watershed is connected, notes the report.

The conservation authority measured concentrations of phosphorus and a type of bacteria known as Escherichia coli, and assessed communities of benthic macroinvertebrates, which are small aquatic animals living in stream sediment. The results are based on data from 2017 to 2021.

Overall, the Credit Valley watershed surface water quality got a C grade but smaller sections of the watershed have different grades.

The area around the Credit River got a C while the areas to the west and east in Mississauga got Ds and Fs.

water report mississauga

Credit Valley Conservation report card for surface water quality.

Highly urbanized areas with streams get a lower score because of the pollutants that get in the waterbody, Jon Nodwell, Credit Valley Conservation program manager for watershed monitoring tells insauga.com.

“All of the land in that area drains directly to the stream and because that entire area is highly urbanized,  it gets a lot of runoff of contaminants from roadways, and parking lots and things along that nature,” Nodwell says.

Whereas the Credit River, a much larger water body, gets better water quality from the rural areas it runs through from south of the Orangeville area, he says.

“So the better water quality kind of raises the score of the main Credit River in the lower watershed,” he says.

Brampton, as it is closer to Orangeville, gets a better water quality score. But fails in one area for forest cover. The east area of Brampton gets an F for forest conditions.

water report mississauga

Credit Valley Conservation report card for forest conditions.

Nodwell says they look at three factors when evaluating forest conditions — the amount of forest cover, forest buffers around streams and the amount of large, interior forest.

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