'Nice area for families': P.E.I.'s newest park 4 years in the making

Prince Edward Islanders have a new public park to visit off Route 13 near Crapaud.

The South Shore Watershed Association and the Westmoreland River Watershed Group spent the last four years fixing up the area around Stewart's Pond.

The new 4-hectare park received about $200,000 in upgrades with help from the provincial and federal governments, and the World Wildlife Fund.

The work included a fish ladder that allows fish passage from the pond to the river. Before the fish ladder, any fish that left the river for the estuary had no way of returning, according to the watershed group. That resulted in poor genetic diversity in the fish and limited population growth, because without other species of fish, the only available fish food source for the trout were their own young or the young of other trout.

The park will be called the Westmoreland River Nature Park, said Kellie Lockhart, manager of the South Shore Watershed Association.

It will include pollinator gardens, picnic and walking area and a fishing platform around the pond.

"We'd like to have it as a nice area for families to go," Lockhart said.

Most of the work has been completed, but Lockhart said the official opening likely won't be until early summer 2017.

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