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St. Lawrence River Walleye Association to use $20,000 grant to increase number of fingerlings in Seaway

Posted 5/8/13

By JIMMY LAWTON The St. Lawrence River Walleye Association’s will use a $20,000 grant from the St. Lawrence River Valley Redevelopment Agency to increase the number of walleye fingerlings in the …

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St. Lawrence River Walleye Association to use $20,000 grant to increase number of fingerlings in Seaway

Posted

By JIMMY LAWTON

The St. Lawrence River Walleye Association’s will use a $20,000 grant from the St. Lawrence River Valley Redevelopment Agency to increase the number of walleye fingerlings in the St. Lawrence River.

The group also hopes to raise awareness regarding the benefit of the fisheries to strengthen grassroots fishing assets and lay the foundation for further growth of the region’s fishing economy.

Organizers say a proposed $40,000 project will improve the existing portable hatchery and maturation ponds.

"The improvements identified are based on three years of operating the hatchery, and address the key things needed to create better pond conditions, monitoring activities, and public access," a project summary from St. Lawrence County IDA Director Patrick Kelly said.

The project entails site improvements and the initiation of youth education programs and will include:

• Installation of a catch basin roof to maintain the coolest water temperature.

• Construction of two docks (one dock for each pond) to monitor algae growth and food supply, as well as to provide easier access to fish for testing, feeding and monitoring.

• Purchase and installation of new pumps, thermometers, aeration equipment, and water quality measuring devices, these improvements are needed to improve pond conditions for fingerling growth and focus on the areas where corrective action and better monitoring is needed to stabilize the pond environments.

• Complete landscaping, grading and seeding to correct the seepage and improve appearance/access.

• Spread gravel and level out existing dirt access road to ponds to better accommodate the public, and to improve conditions for transporting sensitive supplies/equipment to and from the maturation ponds.

• Add a movable storage building to the site to provide a way to securely maintain supplies near the ponds, as well as offer education programs and host visitors.

• Plan, develop and pilot a youth education program, working with Cornell Cooperative Extension and initially focused on Massena and Madrid-Waddington School Districts.

The Community Development and Environmental Improvement Program was established by the River Agency as way to give back to local communities that were impacted by the St. Lawrence FDR Power Project. The New York Power Authority granted the agency $16 million to spur economic growth in the county. Each year, the river agency grants up to 5 percent of that funding to community projects.