Friends of Mill Creek Stewardship Rangers program is getting $10,000 from Nestlé Waters Canada.
On July 3, the company announced it is once again donating $10,000 to Friends of Mill Creek.
Since 2003, the company has donated $91,350 to the group through a fund administered by the Grand River Conservation Foundation.
The donation helps to support the Friends of Mill Creek in its efforts to undertake fisheries and stream rehabilitation works, including stream bank reconstruction, stream bed re-grading, tree planting, culvert replacement and farm fencing repair.
The work is performed by the Mill Creek Stewardship Rangers, four local high school students and crew leader hired over an eight-week period during each summer and allows educational opportunities to be combined with practical experience.
The rangers will complete their work effort for this year on August 24.
“Nestlé Waters Canada’s ongoing support of the Friends of Mill Creek is much appreciated,” said Robert Messier, a Grand River Conservation Authority ecologist who has been a technical advisor to the Mill Creek Rangers.
He said Nestlé has complemented this financial support in recent years with the donation of significant research work undertaken in the sub-watershed, access across its property to do work around Mill Creek and participation in the enrichment program for the students.
Don DeMarco, natural resources manager, Nestlé Waters Canada, also serves on the Friends of Mill Creek advisory board, providing access to local subject matter expertise in hydro-geology.
“The Mill Creek is an important natural feature of the Puslinch community and it’s terrific to see Nestlé Waters Canada provide a level of financial assistance that will help us to restore the creek for the use and enjoyment of future generations,” said Larry Halyk, co-chair, Friends of Mill Creek.
“The company’s recent donation of $3.2 million worth of hydrogeological and biological studies will also assist us greatly in terms of better understanding the natural make-up of the Mill Creek sub-watershed,” Halyk said.
“We continue to be impressed by the work the Friends of Mill Creek organization is doing in this sub-watershed,” said Nestlé Waters Canada president John Zupo.
“Beyond the environmental education and summer employment it affords four local young people is the continuing ecological improvement in the Mill Creek.”
Mill Creek, a spring-fed cold water stream bordered in many areas by forests and provincially-significant wetlands, begins in upland Puslinch Township and flows southward through the village of Aberfoyle, past extensive Class 1 wetlands, then south of Highway 401, through Shade’s Mills Conservation Area, joining the Grand River in downtown Cambridge, draining approximately 104 square kilometers.
Established in 1998, the Friends of Mill Creek is a coalition of provincial agencies, non-governmental organizations, corporations and individuals who work with landowners and other partners to develop, promote and implement projects that will maintain and enhance Mill Creek as a healthy cold water ecosystem.
