Causeway Project update

By Rick Levick

Plans to install up to nine more wildlife
culverts under the Long Point Causeway are
moving ahead now that the Environment
Assessment has been completed without
any comments or objections from the public.
The project will move forward to final design,
permitting and tendering over the next
couple of months. Construction of up to six
of the nine proposed culverts is planned for
October or November this year.

Stephen Burnett and Associates (SBA), the
consulting engineers for the first three
culverts installed in 2012, prepared the EA
report for Norfolk County. The entire cost of
the EA report and related studies has been
paid for by the Long Point World Biosphere
Reserve Foundation with funding received
from Environment Canada’s Habitat
Stewardship Program (HSP) and Ontario’s
Species at Risk Stewardship Fund (SARSF).

As well, the annual monitoring of reptile and amphibian road
mortality on the Causeway began at the beginning of May.
For the past three years, Long Point Waterfowl has hired a
student to carry out the monitoring program on behalf of the
Long Point Causeway Improvement Project. Last year’s
monitoring results found the second lowest amount of reptile
road kill recorded since monitoring began in 2008. This
represented a reduction of more than 50 per cent. The 2013
monitoring program also found that many species of
animals, including turtles, snake and frogs, were using the
wildlife culverts.