Federal government commits $76 million to Great Lakes environmental projects

The federal government has pledged $76 million to support 50 projectsthat will restore waterways and coastal areas around the Great Lakesthat have been impacted by pollution.The projectswill also prevent toxic and nuisance algae blooms, reduce the release of harmful chemicals and support community-based science.

More than $18 million will go toinitiativesin the Windsor-Essex area, specifically:

• The Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) is receiving $15,988,715 for four projects.
• The University of Windsor is receiving $1,590,000 for two projects.
• Flowers Canada is receiving $887,000 for one project.

It is one of the largest grants ever received from the federal government, said Tim Byrne, the CAO of ERCA.

One of the conservation authority'sprojectsinvolvesrestoringand protecting wetland habitats in the Detroit River Area of Concern and re-creatinga historic open-water wetland at the south end of Fighting Island, according to a news release issued Friday by the federal government.

"That feature on the Detroit River is significant breeding habitat," Byrne said.

"The impact on it from aquatics and fish is immeasurable. So that's a significant undertaking."

The Great Lakes Institute of Environmental Research will be investigatingwhat professor Christopher Weisener called "nutrient anomalies" around the Leamington Watershed in Essex County.

Researchers aren't sure where the nutrients are coming from, Weisener said, though it could be related to greenhouse operations or crop run-off.

"The idea is to [do] some selective sampling campaigns and trace back over the year over four years," he said, "and start to fill in the gaps of where these nutrients are coming from and identify sources and then identify, provide best management practice to address them."

Some members of Essex County's rural and agricultural community are craving information about how their actions impact the environment,said Byrne, whose organization will also do work to reduce nutrient loads entering Lake Erie.

"We have to help with some of those things," he said.

"We have to help people with information on how to best hold fertilizer and soil on the fields, how to best disrupt wind movement of soils across and then prevent sheet erosion from occurring."

The conservation authority can also intervene by providing best management practices such as encouraging additional cover crops and promoting the use of check dams or small dams across drainage ditches, swales or waterways to fight erosion by slowing water flow, he added.

"We can convert old-fashioned drainage systems actually into irrigation systems," Byrne said, "thereby lessening the impact of runoff and encouraging the retention of water in those drainage systems to facilitate the dry down periods that we're seeing now with the impact of climate change."

"The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater ecosystem in the world," said Terry Duguid, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister and special advisor for water.

"One in four Canadians take their drinking water from the Great Lakes. So we need to protect this very, very important ecosystem for all of the benefits that that we enjoy."

The agricultural and manufacturing footprint of the Windsor-Essex area puts incredible stress on the Great Lakes, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczykadded.

"This is about helping Mother Nature," he said.

"It's about balancing the environment and the economy."