The Lake Huron Coastal Centre (LHCC) has been protecting the shores of Lake Huron for 25 years. In this interview, we sit down with Alyssa Bourassa, the Interim Executive Director of the Lake Huron Coastal Centre. With a lifelong passion for water and the environment, Alyssa shares her journey from a high school co-op student to leading an organization dedicated to protecting one of our most precious natural resources.
Join us as Alyssa discusses LHCC programs, including the Coast Watchers Community Science Program, along with her hopeful perspective on combating climate change.
Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII): What is the Lake Huron Coastal Centre?
Alyssa: The Lake Huron Coastal Center is an environmental charity. We've been a charity since 1998, which makes this our 25th year as an organization. And we protect the Lake Huron coastal environment through education, restoration and research projects.
NII: How did you first get involved with LHCC?
Alyssa: My journey with the Lake Huron Coastal Center started back in high school. One of their staff members came and did a presentation to my class. I was in grade ten and thought, “wow, this is really something I like to do. This looks like a really cool job.” So that led me to be their co-op student in grade 12. I really had a great experience there.
After that, I went off to Dalhousie University and completed a four year bachelor's degree in environmental science. Then I came back home to Goderich and started my career in the environmental field with Lake Huron Coastal Center.
NII: What is the earliest memory you can recall about wanting to study the water and the environment?
Alyssa: I've always loved the water. I was always obsessed with the ocean. That was part of the reason why I chose to go to Dalhousie.
I grew up just five minutes away from Goderich and I didn't really understand how special and novel it is to live on a great lake. But as I started to learn more about freshwater ecosystems, I started to realize that we're the lucky ones.
Of all the water on Earth, only 3% is freshwater. And of that 3%, 1.5% is water that we can actually access and use. It made me think that this is the place to be.
I also grew up on a farm, so there was a lot of digging in the dirt, a lot of playing outside. I learned a valuable lesson growing up that way: that if you steward the land, if you protect the land, then you get the most out of it.
NII: What makes you passionate about the health of Lake Huron?
Alyssa: I think about helping the environment as my way of having a positive impact on really everyone and everything, including wildlife.
Through our green ribbon champion beach restoration program, we create habitat for species at risk. Through our Coastal Conservation Youth Corps program, we're teaching lessons to potential environmental stewards who might be decision makers some day. And we hope they carry those lessons throughout their life.
With our shoreline cleanup, we're protecting water quality by removing that garbage from the shoreline, which helps people that depend on Lake Huron for drinking water.
And through our Coast Watchers program, we collect a lot of valuable information, which helps us be better informed of how to protect the lake in the future.
NII: Can you tell us more about the program?
Alyssa: The Coast Watchers Community Science Program is a group of people who volunteer their time to collect data about Lake Huron once a week from May to October. They collect information on things like atmospheric conditions, wildlife, plastic pollution, human activity, algae blooms.
People are really just at the beach that they love. They choose the location. They choose the time of day. Then they're just observing and reporting on what they see.
Anyone can become a coast watcher. We have high school student coast watchers (you can also use it toward your volunteer hours!). We have families with young kids, we have retired folks, and everyone in between.
You can sign up at lakehuron.ca/coastwatchers.
NII: What trends have you noticed in the data that you collect?
Alyssa: When we're talking about data collection programs, we usually like to have about 30 years of data to be able to precisely say that there is a trend. We're at about 18 years now—so I would call our program a teenager.
But we do see trends through the 18 years. One big one that I've noticed is microplastics. Which is a huge buzzword, everyone's learning about it now. We are seeing more nurdles, more microfibers, more fragments out in the environment.
NII: Where does that plastic come from?
Alyssa: Nurdles are pre-production plastic. They're little pellets that almost look like lentils. They could be any color, but they're usually clear, and they are melted down into our larger plastic products. There are spills that happen. There was a big one on Lake Superior a few years ago that it's made its way down the Great Lakes system to Lake Huron.
Microfibers are the most common microplastic we find, and they come from washing our clothing that’s made of things like polyester, not natural products. And they're so, so small—100 times finer than a human hair. That means that it doesn't get trapped in our wastewater treatment plants, most of the time. And it ends up in our environment and even in our drinking water and in our foods.
Then we have fragments, which are our plastic products that have broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, because as we know, plastic doesn't really decompose.
NII: What areas of the lake, shoreline, or ecosystem are you most concerned about with respect to climate change?
Alyssa: I worry about beach dune ecosystems. That's a big area that we work on at LHCC.
I don't think most people understand just how rare beach dune ecosystems are. They only make up about 2 to 3% of our shoreline types. And they’re so fragile. They host so many species at risk.
That habitat is also susceptible to erosion, because of the more turbulent atmosphere and more frequent weather events. We really need to try to keep the sand on the beach and keep these systems healthy by promoting native vegetation, by stewarding the beach.
NII: What makes you hopeful when you think about climate change?
Alyssa: I think you need to be hopeful. I don't think there's another way to be. It's happening, and we just need to take the steps that we can take in our lives to try to combat this issue.
I find taking small steps eases some of that stress and anxiety that we all have when talking about such a major issue, to know that your small actions are part of a large movement to help with this problem. Try not to get lost in it. Do what you can do.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
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