Wetlands key to Tory plan for lake

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/09/2011 (5123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hugh McFadyen stood by a pond full of Canada geese in south Winnipeg on Thursday and said it and its reeds and bulrushes is one way a Progressive Conservative government would clean up Lake Winnipeg.

The tall grass that rings the retention pond, in the competitive Southdale riding, is an example of how more wetlands would help a Tory government reduce phosphorus levels in Lake Winnipeg by 20 per cent by 2020, McFadyen said.

What wouldn’t help is the NDP’s plan to reduce the amount of phosphorus by 50 per cent by what McFadyen said was an attack on farmers.

“What we have under the NDP today is a lose-lose situation,” McFadyen said. “We’re losing jobs in agriculture and Lake Winnipeg is in worse shape than it’s ever been.

“What we’re saying is we want to replace that lose-lose approach with a win-win approach that allows for investments and jobs to be in the province while we focus on the real issues. Our plan is a practical and measured way of reducing phosphates.”

The NDP says the Tory plan for Lake Winnipeg means that party would kill the Save Lake Winnipeg Act, which was passed in June with support from the Tories.

“It’s a bill they just voted for a few months ago,” the NDP’s Jennifer Howard said. “For me, it’s the height of cynicism. It will reverse any progress we’ve made over the past few years.”

McFadyen said he would not repeal the act.

“We’ll keep the bill because we believe it fits with our approach,” he said.

The NDP’s Save Lake Winnipeg Act is aimed at agriculture runoff from hog manure spread on fields. It would ban hog-industry expansion that does not use advanced water-protection practices and the winter spreading of manure for 2013.

The bill also calls for a new tax credit for livestock farmers who use advanced technologies to treat manure “responsibly.”

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

The lowdown

reduce phosphorus flows into Lake Winnipeg from Manitoba sources by 20 per cent from current levels by 2020;

bring in an Environmental Goods and Services program to conserve wetland and riparian areas;

put $5 million a year toward water-retention projects through Manitoba’s conservation districts;

create a Watershed Centre of Excellence to provide expertise to conservation districts in their watershed planning;

work with the City of Winnipeg to upgrade its waste-water sewage system to remove phosphorus;

create a Lake Winnipeg watershed roundtable with neighbouring states and provinces to discuss ways to lower phosphorus flows into rivers that enter Manitoba.