Admit mistake, save $350 million

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/06/2011 (5590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new report led by University of Regina scientists concludes that immediately reducing the phosphorus bleeding into streams, creeks and rivers is the fastest way to return Lake Winnipeg to a healthier state. The lake has three times the phosphorus found in lakes Erie and Ontario when they were pronounced “dead” in the 1970s.

The culprit, says limnologist Peter Leavitt, is agriculture — the increased production of crops, the explosion of cattle and pig production and modern tillage practices that increase the rate of runoff of nutrients from manure used as fertilizer, into the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

There is broad agreement between what Prof. Leavitt has found and the evidence of decades of good science (see commentary below on this page) locally on the lake. That work showed a 50 per cent rise in phosphorus and the resulting growth of pernicious, toxic blue-green algae since the 1990s. That science has spurred dozens of scientists to call for cuts to phosphorus.

Where this paper, commissioned by the NDP government, parts company with the bulk of scientific opinion is in its conclusion that the lake is at a “tipping” point where two nastier types of blue-green algae begin to spread. Those types use nitrogen in the lake to grow, hence Prof. Leavitt’s call to cut nitrogen.

Prof. David Schindler, of the University of Alberta, says there is no evidence that Lake Winnipeg is under imminent threat from those types of algae, one of which has been there for years.

Prof. Schindler and the many other scientists assert that cutting nitrogen can make the problem worse. Also, focusing on nitrogen increases the cost dramatically, causing friction among policy-makers and making less money available to get as much phosphorus as possible out of the effluent from agricultural and municipal sectors. The provincial order that Winnipeg remove nitrogen from its waste water will force the city to spend $400 million, rather than $50 million, to upgrade its north-end sewage treatment plant.

The Leavitt paper gives the Manitoba government ammunition to press farmers and livestock producers to cut the phosphorus their businesses send into the rivers.

What the government has not yet said is whether, finally, it will let Winnipeg focus on phosphorus, alone. Forcing Winnipeggers to pay $350 million for unnecessary technology in a sewage plant when so many other infrastructure needs go unmet is simply wrong.