The following article originally appeared in the Kenora Miner
& News. It is reproduced here with the permission of
the Kenora Miner & News.
Kenora Miner & News
Sept. 28, 2001
Elsie Neufeld
How is the quality of Lake of the Woods water?
By Elsie Neufeld
Miner and News Staff
Editor's Note: This is the third in a continuing look at
water quality questions and testing which will be published in
the Daily Miner and News.
When you go looking for answers about the water quality of
Lake of the Woods all queries lead to the Lake Partner
Program.
The Lake Partner Program is sponsored by the Ontario
Ministry of Environment and, in the Kenora area, it partners
with Lake of the Woods District Property Owners Association.
The two joined forces in 1996.
In the program, volunteers measure water clarity and
collect water samples. The results are put into a database
which reveals water quality trends.
"We're a volunteer project. Anyone can take
part," said Pam Griffith, co-ordinator of the program in
a telephone interview from her office in Etobicoke. This year,
so far, 63 samples have come in, and more are expected. The
partnership has 164 registered volunteers taking samples in
the Lake of the Woods watershed. In the first summer of the
program, 1997, 14 volunteers signed up.
"It's great to see this many people testing as a
whole, because we can keep track of what is happening."
The Lake Partner Program is the largest program of its kind in
North America, said Griffith.
"Without these partnerships we would never have this
information," she said. Ontario has over 250,000 lakes.
Through the partnership program, 600 lakes are being sampled.
"We want awareness. We want people to understand that
water quality is important."
The program tests for phosphorus and clarity which can
indicate nutrient enrichment. When water is nutrient enriched,
algae blooms develop, clarity decreases and other water
quality issues emerge. Phosphorus gets into a lake through
faulty septic systems, runoff carrying fertilizer from lawns,
gardens and farms, and sewage discharge.
Since the program relies on volunteers to take samples the
whole lake is not represented. No samples come from the
southern end of the lake and few from the remote areas of the
lake.
But any samples are welcome and more are encouraged.
Without the volunteers, the data base of information would be
much smaller and less useful. The program needs more
information that comes in year after year.
What is the diagnosis for Lake of the Woods? There is no
neat answer. Some places are good; some are bad; other areas
are completely unknown because no volunteers sample the area.
Griffith pulls up some results to demonstrate the tracking.
"Whitefish Bay is pretty good," she said. Good is
when clarity is over five metres (m) and phosphorus analyzed
from a water test is below 10 micrograms per litre (ug/L).
Some of the bays within Whitefish Bay are in the next category
with clarity at 3 - 4 m and phosphorus at 11 - 20 ug/L.
One area that is bad on Lake of the Woods is a location on
Coney Island. The readings for the past two years has
visibility below 3 m and the phosphorus at 28 ug/L.
"I'll give it one more year and then I'll pass it on
to the district office," said Griffith. The district
office will go out to take more tests to determine what is
happening. Perhaps it is due to faulty sampling, perhaps it is
an unusual weather or water effect, perhaps development and
other pollution is ruining the water quality.
Gerry Wilson, executive director of Lake of the Woods
Property Owners, is the one who turned in those water samples.
She finds the whole question about water quality in Lake of
the Woods very frustrating.
"People don't want to look at water quality in Lake of
the Woods," she said. The government agencies, the
Ministry of Natural Resources and now the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans, are only interested in fish habitat, she
said. Fish may act like canaries in mine shafts and reveal
problems with water quality, but there should be more studies
looking at water quality in human terms and from an aesthetic
point of view. She is frustrated by the lack of concern shown
by the people and the municipal government considering how
much Kenora's economic and social well-being depends on the
lake.
"This lake is too important to this city to be
ignored," Wilson stressed. "People take the lake for
granted."
The Lake of the Woods District Property Owners Association
is the moving force on any water quality issues on Lake of the
Woods. It formed the partnership with the Lake Partner Program
and liaises with other agencies trying to piece together the
information. The picture is far from complete.
"We're trying to learn what data is available and then
figure out where the holes are and what isn't being tested
for.
"It's a big and complex lake. There are many different
basins and each basin has a different type of ecology,"
Wilson explained. It will take everyone sharing information to
get the pieces to fall into place .
"There is really not enough being done," she
said.
The Lake Partner Program does well for what it can do, but
it is loosely organized and relies on volunteers. More effort
by all levels of government is needed.
"We're trying to work with different levels and
different departments to come up with a sharing of
information."
Given that Lake of the Woods is an international body of
water this is not easy and the local will on the issue is
weak.
"Everybody takes it for granted," said Wilson,
who believes algae blooms are getting more plentiful. In
August, she stops swimming in the lake in front of her
property on Coney Island because of the algae. She believes it
comes from the southern end of the lake, where run-off carries
fertilizer from the farms into the lake.
"When we have a south wind for three or four days, we
inevitably have a big algae bloom."
Algae is naturally occurring, but how much is normal? Is
the unusually high phosphorus reading at Wilson's sample site
for the past two years due to natural or manmade forces?
What is happening on the southern reaches of the lake?
"It's all falling
through the cracks," said Wilson. For people like Wilson,
concerned about the water quality of the lake, there are too
many questions and too few answers. And too little being done
to find the answers.
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