Background
Shortly after the creation of the Red Dot Association, a few of our members attended an AGM of the Shediac Bay Watershed Association. At the meeting we were given a brochure titled “Status of the Shediac Bay and its Watershed’. In the History section of the document, it states ” In 1997, the New Brunswick Department of Health reported, for the third year in a row, that the water contamination in Shediac Bay exceeded acceptable levels. The quality was so poor, in fact, that authorities considered closing Shediac Bay, including Parlee Beach, to human activity out of a concern for public health.
Some time after this, a journalist featured a story that included a letter from the local government of the day suggesting they create an inhouse water testing program, and they did, so they could better keep the test results away from the public to protect the beach and local businesses from damage to tourism in the area.
Activities
The Red Dot Association have become involved in water quality issues in the Parlee Beach wetlands, beach area, and the tidal creek. Our activities have included the following:
- Monitor daily water sample test results and maintain a database of all “No Swimming Advisory” events since 2020.
- Contact government about excessive days of advisories and extremely high test results and question what is being done to determine the source.
- Encourage government to adopt qPCR testing to eliminate the 24 hour interval between sample collection and test results.
- Contact Swim Guide (Swim Drink Fish) to ensure their yearly Pass / Failed water quality graph is accurate before publication.
- Involved in the development of the Water Quality Strategy of New Brunswick 2018-2028
- hosted the Shediac Conference on Coastal Protection and Community Transition attended by scientists, government, public and conservation group.
- Involved in the development of the Parlee Beach Water Quality Report in 2018.
- Promoted the implementation of the Canadian Recreational Water Quality protocol for Parlee Beach.
- Interacts with other community and environmental groups including CCNB, NBEN, Eco Vision 2025,CLIMAtlantic, Shediac Bay Watershed Association.