Growing concern over Canada's lakes: Study

By Mark Iype, Canwest News Service
March 17, 2010

As the weather warms and beaches beckon, an overwhelming number of Canadians worry that contaminated lakes will threaten their favourite summer swimming spots, results of a study released Wednesday suggest.

The Canadian Water Attitudes Study, conducted by the Royal Bank and Unilever, found that 83 per cent of Canadians are concerned about the quality of water in lakes where they swim, and more than two-thirds thinks the water is getting worse.

"We have thousands of lakes that are starting to be a concern," said Bob Sandford, the chairman of Canadian Partnership Initiative of the UN Water for Life Decade, which backed the study.

Sandford said lake pollution has plagued every province for years, but he said the issue appears to be gaining traction because of the blue-green algal blooms that are choking lakes across the country and making them unsuitable for swimming.

"When people see the water turning green in front of their cottages, they tend to sit up and take notice," he said.

Blue-green algal blooms are the main culprit in poisoning many of the recreational lakes on which Canadians depend in the short summer months.

The technicolour growths, so brilliantly blue-green that they can be seen in satellite images, are caused by contaminants leaching into lakes in the form of fertilizers from urban lawns and farm fields, faulty septic systems and soil erosion.

Blue-green algae, which feeds on the phosphorous in fertilizer and raw sewage, then produces toxins that can kill aquatic life and other creatures that venture into lakes that have been overrun.

David Schindler, a professor at the University of Alberta with four decades' work on lake ecology, said every province is now dealing with the problem.

In Quebec, after blooms in dozens of lakes have been produced, the provincial government has set aside money to combat the plague.

Schindler said Ontario has done a decent job of dealing with growing encroachment of humans into cottage country, but he said the province needs to start limiting development.

In Manitoba, the yearly flooding of the Red River, which is set to happen again soon, causes run-off from farmers' fields to pollute the province's lakes to such an extent that many of the lakes are in dire straits, said Schindler.

A recent report from the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development highlighted Lake Winnipeg's problems, calling the more than 100,000 farms that surround the lake basin as the main culprits in the pollution.

The Lake Winnipeg basin is the second-largest in North America, covering nearly one million square kilometres.

Schindler said in Alberta, there is already a band of lakes that stretch across the province that are turning blue from algae.

He said a concerted effort needs to be made by all levels of government to protect Canada's freshwater lakes.

"Lakeshore development is everywhere in the country, and it is not likely to slow down, because everybody wants a piece of lakefront property," he said.

Schindler said he has been warning developers and municipalities for years about the problem of crowding Canada's lakes with farms, homes and cottages.

"Ten years later, they're back asking me, 'Now what do we do?' " he said.

Sandford said change is possible, but the public needs to "dispel the myth of limitless water resources in this country."

If there is one ray of hope, said Sandford, it is that the study's findings suggest that Canadians consider fresh water to be Canada's most valuable resource, even more valuable than oil.

The online survey of 2,022 adults from across the country was conducted by Ipsos Reid from Feb. 17 to 23. The results are considered accurate to within 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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