Summary of CEWF Annual Communications Meeting
September 6, 2025 in Minden
On Saturday September 6, 2025, CEWF held its Annual Communications Meeting at the Highland Hills United Church in Minden. The meeting was open for any association members to attend either in person or online via Zoom.
The Agenda can be accessed by clicking [here].
Attendance
Members of the CEWF Executive were in attendance along with the TSW Water Management Manager and the Acting Dam Asset Manager. The CEWF Chair, Ted Spence, welcomed all participants.
Presentation #1
The first presentation was online from Colin Clarke, the Acting Dam Asset Manager from Parks Canada. Colin has been in that position for 3 years as part of his 11 years with the TSW Team. He gave a brief overview of TSW management plan progress. That was followed by an in depth discussion of his work supervising dam inspections, and making decisions regarding maintenance, and major refurbishment or replacement dam projects covering the 140 dams in the TSW system. He reviewed the age and condition of dams with commentary on recent and planned projects.
Colin’s presentation slides can be accessed by clicking [here].
The meeting then turned to Water Management and the extreme low water condition we are now experiencing.
Presentation #2
CEWF Chair Ted Spence presented an overview of the TSW geography and the CEWF perspective on the exceptional circumstances that TSW has been facing with extreme weather patterns this year.
The year began with dry conditions and limited snowpack, but from February through May we saw well above average precipitation amounts. By the end of February we had well above normal snowpack which continued to build through March. But then March saw several heavy rainfall on snow events and periods of very warm temperatures, followed by the ice storm and more significant rainfall in early April.
The melt occurred quickly and lake levels rose, peaking by mid April. From that point on TSW was actively managing levels to bring the system to full for navigation opening by May 24. But right after opening, Canal navigation was closed on a large section of the waterway because there was too much water after heavy rainfall events. Then there was way less rainfall than normal through June, July and August.
Reservoir drawdown began in June and continued throughout the summer resulting in low lake levels from 2 to 4 weeks ahead of normal by the end of August.
CEWF recognizes the exceptional way TSW Water Management Team conserved water and worked to keep as much water as possible in the reservoirs.
Ted’s presentation slides can be accessed by clicking [here].
Presentation #3
The next presentation was from Anna Ciorap, the Water Management Manager, from Parks Canada who is responsible for both the TSW and the Rideau Canal system.
Anna provided an overview of the continuous data collection, monitoring and analysis work she supervises leading to daily decisions on water management strategies. She then reviewed data demonstrating how every effort has been made to conserve water this summer while meeting the minimum flow requirements for connecting rivers and downstream communities like water supply in Peterborough, and offsetting the very high evaporation rates throughout the system.
She showed how Otonabee River flow has been at minimum since late June and how the reservoir flows from the Gull and Burnt system have been minimized.
Anna’s presentation slides can be accessed by clicking [here].
The meeting then turned to CEWF administrative reviews.
Presentation #4
The CEWF Vice-Chair, Bruce McClennan, presented an overview of CEWF’s activities in the past year. He noted the excellent communications CEWF maintains with the TSW team. He reviewed our efforts to provide our Lake Association representatives with regular updates and post current TSW reports like Water Management Updates and Drawdown Forecasts to our website.
CEWF Executive members gave presentations to 9 Lake Association meetings this year. We maintained communications with Municipalities; we established a new newsletter; and we communicated with the media when needed.
CEWF has also engaged with the County of Haliburton on their ongoing flood risk mapping project, with MNRF on Fisheries questions and with TSW regarding their website reports.
Roger Cunningham, the CEWF Secretary/Treasurer, presented an overview of the CEWF Financial Status.
Bruce’s presentation can be accessed by clicking [here].
In Closing
The meeting then closed with comments from Ted Spence thanking the TSW representatives and all other attendees for their participation.
Below is a video of the meeting if you want to view any or all of the presentations.