Can our lakes handle population growth?

Recently, columnist Bob Blakely reported the threat of phosphorus loading on Lake Erie and the attendant impact on the fishery.

Other lakes are pressured as well.

In fact, the first order of business as the Ontario Legislature returned last week was to debate the Lake Simcoe Protection Act – legislation modelled on a Private Member’s Bill put forward by my colleague Garfield Dunlop, MPP for Simcoe North.

Aside from the Great Lakes, Lake Simcoe is Southern Ontario’s largest lake. It provides safe drinking water for six municipalities and the watershed receives waste from 14 sewage treatment plants. The health of Lake Simcoe has been at risk for quite some time.

We know that as the population in a lake watershed rises, so do the phosphorus levels, and as phosphorus rises, so does the growth of algae and water plants which ultimately decay and reduce oxygen levels. Increased levels of phosphorus from both urban and rural sources have disrupted the lake ecosystems in the past and threaten the future.

The health of Lake Simcoe, for example, has been on the table for quite some time and I find it passing strange that given the challenges facing the lake, there was no mention of it in this year’s provincial budget. The Federal Government has already come to the table with the Lake Simcoe Clean-Up Fund which will provide $30 million over five years.

The Lake Simcoe watershed is home to 350,000 people, and is expected to grow by another quarter million people by 2021. The question is can the environment in this watershed support 600,000 people?

It's a given that more people are coming -- meaning more phosphorus, more traffic, more air pollution, more noise and more demand for recreational resources.

Many of the decisions around population growth are dependent on future municipal decisions and obviously federal government decisions based on immigration.

Much of the Lake Simcoe bill draws on the good work of the Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority; the Lake Simcoe Environment Management Strategy; and an eight-point plan presented by the Official Opposition.

Lake Simcoe will not recover on its own. It needs specific action steps and provincial funding. Last year the Opposition proposed Ontario should:

• Invest $12 million over the next two years
• Develop a new governance structure for the Lake, working with the stakeholders.
• Create a Lake Simcoe Charter.
• Increase and streamline funding for water and wastewater infrastructure projects
• End the dumping of primary sewage into our water.
• Hire more Conservation Officers to protect the Lake and rebuild the Ministry of Natural Resources so it can better maintain the Lake’s health.
• Conserve more green space with a Land Conservation Challenge Fund in areas like Lake Simcoe.
• Invest in better GO Train service through the Lake Simcoe area to reduce pollution, smog and the impacts of climate change which all threaten the health of the Lake.

Whether we're from the area or not, visit the area or have a cottage there, many of us have an interest in Lake Simcoe. At the end of this debate, I would hope there will be public consultation so that a concrete action plan will ensue but I can’t help but be wary that this government will layer the plan with more plans, more bureaucracy, and more red tape.