A few years ago, I wrote a post (recently highlighted by Mark in the WCC retrospective), about the prairies, their massive scale, and how the challenges facing them mirror their size. Much of the same could be said about the other geographical feature that defines my home province of Manitoba—Lake Winnipeg. “The Lake,” as it is simply referred to, is a home to many thousands, and a totem for thousands more: it represents summer, good times, history and adventure, as well as jobs, industry, and tourism. Its waters, shorelines, and sunsets provide the background of many Manitoban’s family photos—it is a part of our shared mythology, as it has been a part of the First Nations mythology for millennia.
But: the Lake is not without its troubles. The product of glaciation, Lake Winnipeg represents all that remains of the once ocean-sized Lake Agassiz. The slow shrinking since the last ice age has resulted in a lake that is still vast (the fifth largest lake in North America, behind the Great Lakes), but one which has an even vaster watershed. Lake Winnipeg's watershed stretches west to the Rockies, East to the shield along the Manitoba/Ontario border, and south into the Dakotas and Minnesota. It drains almost a million square kilometers of North America. Water flows into the lake through several key rivers (the Saskatchewan, Red, and Winnipeg among them), and out of the lake through only one, in the far north: the Nelson, which flows into Hudson’s Bay.
The problem, of course, lies in what flows in with the water—and the “eutrophication” that results. Eutrophication is the addition of nutrients to an area (a body of water, in this case) that causes an increase in biological activity and resulting secondary effects. In the case of Lake Winnipeg, the nutrients are phosphorous and nitrogen, and the “biological activity” is provided by a host of cyanobacteria (algae) that thrive on them. The algae blooms that result are exacerbated by the lake’s depth: averaging only twelve meters deep, the lake hits bathtub-like temperatures annually, providing an ideal bacterial breeding ground. The secondary effects from the over-population include oxygen depletion and “dead zones,” mephitic, toxic, un-swimmable waters, and shorelines covered in a knee-deep, pulsating, quivering masses of jellied algae.
In many ways, what’s happening to Lake Winnipeg is not different from what is perhaps the most famous victim of eutrophication, Lake Erie. The “death” of Lake Erie in the 1960s, and its subsequent resurrection in the 1970s, was a huge environmental victory, spurred the passing of the Clean Water Act, and validated of the ability of business, governments, and citizens to work together to achieve environmental goals. While a similar process of phosphorous/nitrogen eutrophication is now at work in Lake Winnipeg, the solutions will be very different. Lake Erie was the victim of pollution from a number of controllable “point sources”—factories and municipal waste water. The sources impacting Lake Winnipeg, in contrast, are diverse and distributed. These sources include run-off from millions of acres of prairie, containing all manner of industry. They span multiple provinces and states, as well as waste water from hundreds of cities and towns.
So—the solution to Lake Winnipeg’s issues is of enormous scope, involving changes across provinces, regions, and countries, as well as industries and homes. Grassroots organizations, businesses, and government are already working together to find solutions. Organizations like the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium coordinate research between government, corporate, and university labs, and operate a research vessel on the lake. The Lake Winnipeg Foundation, with which I am involved, represents grassroots citizen interests. It organizes awareness raising events, as well as sponsoring research and projects such as the construction of experimental bioremediation sewage lagoons. And, the Manitoba Water Stewardship Department represents the provincial government, conducting research, monitoring, and reporting activities, as well as making policy and enforcing regulations.
From all of these organizations and their members, consensus as to underlying causes is beginning to emerge and solutions are beginning to take shape. There are no simple questions, or answers: Where does the phosphorous come from, for example? Agriculture? Industry? Homes? The Devil’s Lake Diversion? How do phosphorous, nitrogen, and the lake interact to give rise to algae blooms? Can one remove either phosphorous or nitrogen, or is the ratio of the each to the other the key? The answer to each of these questions depends on complex interactions between chemistry, geology, climate, hydrology, industry, and species behaviors that are not yet fully understood. But research is proceeding, and thanks to events like the Lake Winnipeg Foundation and University of Winnipeg’s “Red Zone” conference, the right people are talking to each other. And as that conversation takes place, progress continues to be made: regulations are keeping phosphates out of detergents, sewage treatment plants are being upgraded, and basic research into everything from algae bloom behavior to fertilizer spraying techniques and soil tillage continues.
In this case, a "bright green future" would suggest an algae-choked lake. Instead, I’ll close by saying that thanks to the combined efforts of government, researchers, businesses, and citizens, the future of The Lake is looking brown—the lovely, dull brown of healthy Lake Winnipeg.
Images: Lake Winnipeg Foundation
