A drive to encourage ice fishers to pull their huts of the lake before it’s too late has netted an award for the Sylvan Lake Management Committee.
The award recognizes the “Take It Off — Respect Sylvan Lake” campaign that was launched last winter to deal with a persistent problem of abandoned ice huts.
As the ice melts, debris left behind sinks to the bottom or floats about the lake, posing environmental and safety risks.
The program included education, voluntary ice hut registration, and a joint municipal and provincial effort to haul ice huts away at the end of the season.
In 2011, nearly two dozen huts were left out on the lake when the ice started to melt. The new program was largely credited with reducing the numbers to a handful this past spring.
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association recognized the committee’s campaign with a Municipal Sustainability Award for Leadership at its annual convention on Sept. 25.
So successful was the ice hut program that the AUMA voted in favour of a resolution calling on the province to undertake a mandatory ice fishing hut registration program.
The Sylvan Lake Management Committee is a partnership between the Town of Sylvan Lake, Red Deer and Lacombe Counties and five summer villages around the lake.