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Concern for Lake Winnipeg

A group of scientists and others have formed the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium (LWRC). Their first task is to establish baseline information for the lake. Early findings are not encouraging. Examination of sediment cores has revealed a startling increase in accumulations of phosphorus, nitrogen and carbon since about 1965. This was particularly surprising given that phosphorous in detergents was banned about 30 years ago, and most people thought that the algae bloom problems in our lakes was beaten.

The lake whitefish population is exhibiting signs of serious stress. Whitefish will be particularly vulnerable to climate change because Lake Winnipeg is so shallow and therefore vulnerable to warming. Surveys have also identified two exotic species that have invaded Lake Winnipeg from the Laurentian Great Lakes: rainbow smelt and a small zooplankton species, eubosmina coregoni. These species have the potential to disrupt the foodweb. They and other species amplify and transfer contaminants to commercially important walleye and lake whitefish.

Wastewater, industrial effluent, and agricultural runoff from within Manitoba as well as from other provinces and states may also be factors contributing to deteriorating water conditions since they drain into Lake Winnipeg. The research results of the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium will be carefully watched by a number of jurisdictions.

Lessons learned, solutions shared

The flood of 1997 will long be remembered in the Red River basin of Canada and the United States. Over 100,000 people had their lives disrupted for several months and some still suffer the physical and emotional trauma of the flood. Many of those who were not harmed by the flood recognize that their safety was preserved by only a matter of centimeters. The International Joint Commission undertook to analyze the root causes of the flood and make recommendations. Some conclusions of their report are:

• Flooding in the Red River basin is a natural hydrometeorological event. Although the 1997 flood was a rare event, floods of the same or greater magnitude can be expected in the future.
• Wetland storage can provide an economically and environmentally beneficial method of reducing flood flows for smaller floods but would not, by itself, reduce the peaks of large floods.
• Under flow conditions similar to those experienced in 1997, the risk of a failure of Winnipeg's flood protection infrastructure is high. Public safety requires that the city, province and Canadian federal government focus immediate attention to designing and implementing measures to further protect Winnipeg.