Ottawa tabs $1.6M for Lake Winnipeg support

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This article was published 17/01/2023 (1224 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government is chipping in to help restore the health of the Lake Winnipeg watershed, providing nearly $1.6 million to support projects aimed at reducing nutrient loads in the lake basin.

The funding announcement Tuesday from Environment and Climate Change Canada parliamentary secretary Terry Duguid was sandwiched into a week of international collaboration on the health of the Red River water basin, as stakeholders from three American states joined with Manitoba’s waterway leaders for the 40th annual conference of the Red River Basin Commission (an international non-profit supporting collaborative water management).

“Healthier lakes mean economic growth, more recreational opportunities and a healthier, sustainable ecosystem that protects biodiversity,” Duguid said.

“Lake Winnipeg has been under strain for some time, and there are additional challenges that are being piled on with a changing climate.”

Canada’s sixth largest lake has seen a decline in health over the years as levels of phosphorus and nitrogen climb. Those nutrients, which drain into the waterway from agricultural practices and municipal wastewater systems, cause algae blooms that reduce oxygen levels in the water and have devastating effects on animal life.

“Lake Winnipeg is one of our most endangered lakes. It’s not critical, but its health is in danger,” Duguid said in an interview after the announcement.

“Climate change alters the water cycle, floods bring large slugs of nutrients into our lakes, droughts concentrate water and concentrate that pollution.”

Lake Winnipeg’s drainage area spans nearly one million square kilometres, and is home to nearly seven million people across four provinces and four U.S. states.

Tuesday’s funding announcement — totalling $1.59 million — will go towards supporting 25 projects aimed at reducing nutrient levels, collaborative governance of the watershed and Indigenous engagement.

One project, spearheaded by Winnipeg-based InnoVantage Inc., has developed technology to capture, remove and recycle phosphorus sludge from municipal wastewater systems. The current prototype has been capturing phosphorus from the wastewater lagoon in Altona and transforming that sludge into compost.

Duguid said the government is looking to take its freshwater protections to “the next level,” acknowledging the federal government hasn’t been “as present as it could be” on freshwater management in the past.

The Canadian government has poured millions into studying algae blooms and phosphorous levels on the lake over the years, to varying degrees of success. A five-year initiative (2012-17) had $18 million invested in the basin, but reduced the amount of phosphorus entering the lake by less than one per cent.

More recently, the federal government announced a five-year commitment to the basin, promising to spend $25.7 million between 2017 and 2022.

The Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which represents 34 Manitoba First Nations, will receive $50,000 of the new funds to help strengthen First Nations capacity to test and monitor water sources, while collecting and using Indigenous knowledge and community decision-making in water protection.

“The health of the lake and the river is a reflection of our health as a society. We have to see it that way. The health of our families and our communities is all connected to the lake, the future is connected to the lake,” SCO Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said.

Daniels said First Nations communities had been testing the water out of their own pockets prior to receiving federal funds. The organization received nearly $130,000 over two years for water testing beginning in 2019. With the new funds, Daniels said, First Nations will be able to share information and best practices among communities and with both national and international stakeholders.

“We wanted to add our voices to the table, we wanted to look globally at best practices to understand the lake and the basin as something that is part of who we are.”

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca