This cut should hurt the cutters

In 2009, with a recession beating down on Canada, the Harper government plowed $1 million into the renowned Experimental Lakes Area research station to build a new lab. The lab, part of Canada's "economic action plan," has had one season of use. On Thursday, the federal government shocked the global water-research community by announcing it will be shutting down the ELA next year.

The budget-cutting decision is short-sighted and will cost us dearly in future dividends such research pays to the Canadian and global environment.

To save less than $3 million annually, the Fisheries and Oceans Department is shutting down the only place in the world where whole-ecosystem research is conducted on freshwater fish and fish habitat. It will end a spectacular run of groundbreaking science that held real-world payback, starting with celebrated findings such as that acid rain -- sulfuric acid -- was killing fish at lower concentrations than believed, and that phosphorus is the real culprit behind eutrophication of lakes receiving the discharge from man-made sources.

Out of the work on a collection of lakes near Kenora, ELA scientists and research staff are now adding to the body of evidence on the risk of endocrine disrupters. Artificial estrogen, making its way into our waterways and lakes, has been proven capable of decimating fish populations by feminizing male fish. Recently, experiments in the ELA led to proof that brominated flame retardants, widely used in clothing, upholstery, cars, textiles and electronics, disrupt the thyroid function in fish, which interferes with growth and development. That fed into the more recent decision by the UN's Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants to list the toxic chemical for elimination from industrial production. Flame retardants are now being suspected as playing a role in obesity.

Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield's decision puts a number of new experiments on the chopping block. Silver nanoparticles, increasingly being applied to clothing, bandages, food storage containers, washing machines, air fresheners and the like, destroy bacteria and odour. They are suspected of causing fish deaths and posing a risk to human health. The department is shutting down its national centre for pesticide research, which feeds evidence for regulation of pesticide use to Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency. This is a perplexing decision, as the research, conducted across Canada, was funded by Health Canada and there is no other federal government body doing such investigations.

The Experimental Lakes Area research group has had to weather similar threats of closure by past governments. But the axe was repeatedly withheld after lobbying within those governments revealed the folly of short-sighted budget decisions.

Mr. Ashfield justifies the cuts to the ELA and the pesticide research centre on the basis it is not central to the core mandate of the department, which has always focused on cod and salmon as its priority. The federal government has long sought to have provinces take over responsibility for freshwater lakes and streams. No government is going to do that in times of restraint.

That leaves a lot of waterways in Canada, crossing provincial boundaries and eventually entering oceans, open to degradation in the absence of monitoring for pollutants, toxins, chemicals and the effects of climate change.

There is a better way of subjecting publicly funded environmental research to budget review. The United States has similar national research bodies, the work of which is routinely reviewed for relevance and efficiencies, but on the advice of senior scientists respected in the fields. The Harper government may have a case to put to provincial counterparts for joint funding of freshwater research, but simply shutting it all down effectively says that research is pointless. And that, the evidence has shown time and again, is toxic thinking.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 19, 2012 A16