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The Qu’Appelle Valley lakes are Getting Sicker
By Alan Hustak
Grasslands News
The growing number of people who live along the Calling Lakes combined with largescale agricultural projects and global warming continues to threaten the quality of water in the lower Qu’Appelle River watershed.
“The more people we put around the lakes the worse the water quality will be,” warns Dr. Peter Leavitt, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change and Society at the University of Regina. “While the level of nutrient pollution in the lakes from the City of Regina has improved, that’s been offset by the degree of lakeshore development that has increased nutrient inputs.” Leavitt has been monitoring the Calling Lakes for decades. He suggests that hydrocarbon spills from the Consumer Co-operative Upgrader in Regina and agro chemicals seep-
ing into the watershed continue to be a problem. The City of Regina has filed a $4.5-million lawsuit against the Co-op refinery for leaking hydrocarbons into the septic system which may have elevated pollution levels in the four lakes around Fort Qu’Appelle. But so far, the refinery has not responded to the lawsuit.
While toxin levels are diluted as they work their way downstream, toxic algae levels in Pasqua, Echo, Mission, and Katepwa lakes have increased. Rick Vigrass, a member of the Calling Lakes Echo Museum, has witnessed first-hand the effects of pollution in the water. “We have to do better,” says Vigrass, “the history of the refinery dumping is unacceptable.” Vigrass who has been collecting garbage in his kayak from the waters of Lake Katepwa for the past two years says soundings suggest there could be as many as 5,000 tires at the bottom of Lake Katepwa alone. “Studies show that the runoff from tire
residue is killing fish. Tires are a big part of the petroleum industry. Tires are not good for lakes. It might be a good Public Relations project for the petroleum industry to help with a clean up of tires from the bottom of the lakes.”
“I’m concerned that the Saskatchewan government doesn’t see how important this issue is. It has been promising a wetlands conservation policy for five years.”
- Aura Lee MacPherson
Exploratory studies conducted two years ago indicate significant toxic algae levels in the lakes. Alice Davis, a manager for the lower Qu’Appelle watershed stewards, says it is hard to get the Saskatchewan Government to acknowledge that the lakes are getting sicker. “The Moe government may
have done its own research, but it is not sharing much of it with us. Much of our information is based on assumptions. It is frustrating. It is a battle.”
Davis points out that many lakefront properties along the six recreational lakes in her jurisdiction have green, green lawns that use fertilizers and pesticides which drain into the lake, but nothing is done to protect the water. “You can use as much pesticides as you like,” she said.
Aura Lee MacPherson, Chair of the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum, a United Nations sanctioned grassroots environmental group, says the government’s failure to introduce a wetlands policy “is putting us behind the game. We cannot find any records of anyone being held accountable for spilling cancer causing hydrocarbons into the lakes. I’m concerned that the Saskatchewan government doesn’t see how important this issue is. It has been promising a wetlands Conservation policy for five years.”
Saskatchewan’s Environment Minister, Dana Skoropad did not respond to a request for from Grasslands News for an interview, but referred the paper to the independent Saskatchewan Water Security Agency where a source has said the WSA “is working on it.”
Research over the past two decades has shown that nutrients from the agriculture industry have degraded the water quality not only in the Qu’Appelle chain of lakes, but in other prairie lake systems. “Pretending otherwise helps no one,” says Leavitt. The provincial government’s opposition to a 30 per cent reduction to synthetic fertilizer emission targets and federal dugout testing is, he says, both “inconsistent and contradictory.”
Scientists and environmental activists insist they are not anti-development but want to see sustainable development.
Farmers have to give the use of synthetic fertilizers a re-think. The best management practices encourages the right amount at the right time,
especially if we are going to hold our global temperatures to 1.5C. We all have to work together if we are going to save humanity,” MacPherson told Grasslands News.
“You can’t build something for today that leads to diminishing returns for the future,” adds Dr. Levitt. “It’s a balancing act. Building for short term political gain today invariably never works.”
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