WC142 MayJune 2025 - Magazine - Page 21
Challenges past, present and future
The water quality of the Great Lakes was essentially taken for
granted until the early 1900s, when the International Joint
Commission conducted its first assessment, finding that a deadly
combination of industrial pollution, agricultural runoff, and
untreated sewage made water in numerous locations unfit for
human consumption unless purified.
Despite those findings, it wasn’t until a half-century later in
1972 that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed
between Canada and the U.S., whereby both signatories committed to restoring and protecting the largest group of freshwater
lakes on Earth, accounting for 21 per cent of the world’s fresh
water. Now there are reports that the future of that agreement is
also under threat from the new White House administration.
That said, one can’t lose sight of the fact that the Great Lakes
are a bi-national waterway, with threats originating from both
sides of the border. Hence the need for everything from a water
quality agreement to bi-national organizations such as the Great
Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative (GLCI), backed by cities
large and small on both sides of the border, from Cleveland to
Chatham-Kent.
GLCI’s Chief Development Officer, Phillipe Murphy-Rheume, is comfortable drawing attention to challenges
both north and south — ranging from a mix of manure and
synthetic fertilizers from Ontario farms polluting the waters, to a
decision by the Illinois government to pause a program designed
to prevent the spread of invasive carp.
With respect to the runoff, Murphy-Rheume — who is based
in Montreal — observes, “What the OFA (Ontario Federation
of Agriculture) was looking at doing was trying to identify novel
technologies to capture nutrients at the source [but] from my
understanding, there was no silver bullet identified through that
project. And nutrient uptake in our lakes and rivers… certainly
needs ongoing attention from all levels of government.”
To OFA’s credit, they openly acknowledge the ongoing challenges associated with “ag runoff” on their website and the fact
that the adoption rate of agricultural practices focused on “protecting water quality… and addressing the rise of toxic blooms…
rarely exceeds 50 per cent, especially when the perceived financial
benefits are minimal.”
As for the invasive carp threat, Murphy-Rheume says, “We’ve
seen a pause from the Illinois government when it comes to
the implementation of [what’s known as] the Brandon Road
Interbasin Project, given the uncertainty when it comes to federal
funding on the U.S. side.” The cost of this has been pegged at
US$1.15 billion.
Clearing the water
When it comes to funding challenges, historically, Murphy-Rheume notes there has been “a bit of a mismatch” between
the U.S. and Canada, in part due to differences in population
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
along the Great Lakes as well as industrial footprint.
So GLCI is understandably encouraged by the establishment
of the Canada Water Agency last year, along with a $650 million
investment over the next 10 years “to protect and restore water
quality and ecosystem health in major watersheds across the
country,” including the Great Lakes.
One potentially transformative project being considered by
the Canada Water Agency that Murphy-Rheume pinpoints is a
project called For Our Waters, which would produce satellite data
for participating Lake Ontario municipalities, and help groundtruth or ground-test the results of that remote satellite-based data
to better pinpoint sources of pollution.
“What we’re hoping for is that the pilot project would assist
municipalities and conservation authorities… working with targeted points of pollution so that we can eventually get to cleaner
waters,” Murphy-Rheume shares.
Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lynda McCartney certainly
didn’t have any difficulty identifying as a kid living in the GTA.
“I grew up with dead fish washing up on the Toronto shoreline
because of massive algal blooms,” she recalls — blooms primarily
caused by excess phosphorus from detergents, ag runoff, and
inadequate wastewater facilities.
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