The Red Zone Conference, The Lake Winnipeg Basin Summit - and the international environmental catastrophe that is Lake Winnipeg

Yesterday and Today Winnipeg has been the site of the Lake Winnipeg Basin Summit organized by Hank Venema and others at the Water Innovation Centre at our International Institute for Sustainable Development . Last night the Lake Winnipeg Foundation held the Red Zone II Conference featuring videos of Lake Winnipeg's situation and a Panel Discussion on the Lake.

I was particularly struck by the comments of Bob Sandford EPCOR Chair of the UN Water For Life Decade program and director of the Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative of Canmore Alberta. Bob Sandford has a broad perspective on water quality issues. He did not waste any time in calling Lake Winnipeg an international environmental catastrophe, and in saying that it is getting worse. Those of us who live in Manitoba and know of the algal blooms in the north basis of Lake Winnipeg already recognize the severity of the problem on Lake Winnipeg. The north basin algal blooms may be up to 160 kilometers long! This last summer, severe algal blooms near Victoria Beach and at other locations in the south basin of Lake Winnipeg brought home the severity and the extent of the problems Lake Winnipeg is facing.

The sheer size and scale of this environmental catastrophe on Lake Winnipeg - at 23,750 kms, the 10th largest lake in the world - makes it one of the largest environmental disasters on the planet. It is sad that our lake, Lake Winnipeg, is now becoming a symbol of the large scale ecological catastrophe which will occur when a government, in this case the NDP provincial government, abrogates its responsibility and mismanages the environment in its jurisdiction.

In question period today, I asked the Premier when he is going to set the targets for reduction of phosphorous and reduction of algal blooms. The interim target of a 10% reduction in phosphorous has not been met, and it was known as early as 2007 that this target was hopelessly and irresponsibly inadequate to achieve the reduction in algal blooms needed. I raised this in the fall of 2007, and it has taken three years for the NDP to acknowledge the inadequacy of their initial target. We need the real target and we need it soon so that we can all pull together on an effective plan to reduce the phosphorous in Lake Winnipeg and to reduce the algal blooms on our wonderful lake and to return Lake Winnipeg to health.

As Bob Sandford indicated Lake Winnipeg is becoming known as a global symbol of a very badly managed lake. It is very disturbing for me as a Manitoban to hear this, as I am sure it upsetting for other Manitobans. The fact is that under the poor management of the current NDP government action has been too little and too slow and the result has been worsening algal blooms and algal toxins in Lake Winnipeg. Indeed, so far there is no evidence that the situation of Lake Winnipeg has improved.