Protecting Your Water
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VOL 7, ISSUEVOL 7, 2 SPRING 2016 Protecting your water. WATER LEVELS, WATER QUALITY AND ECOSYSTEMS ARE WE NEXT? THE ASIAN CARP IN OUR BACKYARD ALSO INSIDE: STOPPING ASIAN UPDATE ON NATIVE DONOR PROFILE: GBF USES DNA CARP IN THE FISH: WALLEYE, GEORGIAN BAY — PROFILING — GREAT LAKES LAKE STURGEON, & MAKING LASTING WHO’S WHO IN THE PAGE 4 SUCKER FISH MEMORIES WATER? PAGE 8 PAGE 9 PAGE 10 WAUKESHA, WISCONSIN'S Georgian Bay Forever is a community response to WATER DIVERSION APPLICATION the growing need for major research and education to sustain the Georgian Bay aquatic ecosystem and the quality of life its communities and visitors enjoy. We help monitor the Bay’s well being, throughout the seasons, year after year. We fund the research needed to protect the environmental health of Georgian Bay and the surrounding bodies of wa- ter. Using our research findings, we inform and educate the general public and governments about threats to environmental health and propose possible solutions. Lake Michigan Through workshops and seminars we Waukesha are educating the Georgian Bay community. By teaming up with reputable institutions, we enhance the credibility of our research and we strengthen our ability to protect what’s at stake. Georgian Bay Forever, formerly the GBA Foundation, is a registered Canadian charity (#89531 1066 RR0001). We work with the Great Lakes Basin Conservancy in ow do you balance people's expand- encouraging local communities to request the United States, as well as other stakeholder groups ing needs for safe drinking water water from the Great Lakes, instead of caring all around the Great Lakes. while protecting the Great Lakes? The for and sustaining their local water supply? HCity Of Waukesha is looking for an answer as The Ontario government, which does not Deeply rooted and broadly drawn, Georgian Bay Forever is steered by lifelong devotees of the Bay. We are committed they await a decision on their Lake Michigan have voting authority under the Agreement4 advocates, educators, environmentalists, realists, ideal- Water Diversion application. but whose views will be considered, is particu- ists, and of course, residents. larly concerned about the way in which the Some background wast water will be returned and the standards DIRECTORS Waukesha is a community of 71,000 whose Derek Bowen Neil Hutchinson of water quality discharge. The government Janet Burt Rod Jones deep groundwater supply is contaminated also noted that it is not apparent that some Adam Chamberlain Anne Randell with increasing levels of radium which will, communities included in the Waukesha diver- Terry Clark Peter Singer, Chair Jennifer Ferguson Erwin Stuart eventually, make it unsafe for drinking. The sion currently have the same supply issues as town sits on the border of the Great Lakes Waukesha does. Futhermore, the government Executive Director watershed making it a straddling community, acknowledged that this application is prec- David Sweetnam which, by provision of the Great Lakes Agree- edent setting and is likely to spur many other ment1 allows it to apply to divert Lake Michigan diversion applications for similar reasons that OUR CONTACT DETAILS water. Of course, their application must meet could affect water quantity.5 Georgian Bay Forever strict criteria. PO Box 163, Caledon, ON At GBF, we believe this application is an L7E 5T2 opportunity to discuss limits on what percent- tel: 905-880-4945 The application age of the renewable waters of the Great Lakes Waukesha is working to comply with all the should be made available sustainably to humans, You can reach David Sweetnam, our Executive Director, requirements for maintaining environmental while ensuring the ecosystems of the Great at [email protected] or at 905-880-4945, ext 1. integrity through the extensive application Lakes are protected. Canadian citizens may send their donations process, painstakingly arrived at by the Great to the Caledon address above. Lakes Compact.2 The proposed diversion rep- Stay tuned … resents only about 0.0118%3 of the renewable An official decision is expected in May, follow- U.S. citizens wishing to make a donation Lake Michigan Huron resource, i.e., the 1% ing the publication of this article. Please check to support our work can do so by giving to: Great Lakes Basin Conservancy annual renewed water; its impact to the Lake our website at GBF.org for an update. PO Box 504, Gates Mills, OH levels is negligible. In addition, Waukesha 44040-0504, USA plans to return 100% of the volume of the wa- ter diverted, back to Lake Michigan. 1Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement, signed 2005. This newsletter is just a snapshot of our work. For the most 2The Great Lakes compact, effective 2008 up-to-date information on our projects, longer versions of Opening the floodgates? 3David Sweetnam, comment submitted to the City of Waukesha Diver- newsletter articles and breaking news about Georgian Bay, The Great Lakes Compact was created to sion application, http://www.waukeshadiversion.org/media/1691/ please become a regular visitor to our website comment-form-submissions.pdf, (March 14, 2016) and Facebook page. prevent large-scale water diversions from 4Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources GBF.ORG consumers like California or Asia. It is difficult Agreement, signed 2005. 5Mehta, Diana. (2016, April 1). Ontario takes issue with Wisconsin to know where to draw the line as water needs Design by Key Gordon (keygordon.com) city’s Great Lakes water diversion plan. Thestar.com. Retrieved from Editor: Helen Bryce become more challenging in the future. Could http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/01/ontario-takes- this application, in effect open the floodgates, issue-with-wisconsin-citys-great-lakes-water-diversion-plan.html Follow us on CHAIR’S MESSAGE HELP US IDENTIFY THE TOP 10 THREATS TO THE BAY By Peter Singer How do you tune out the irritations and still more intense focus of resources while attaining focus on what’s important in order to complete broader comprehension in the Georgian Bay the task? It would be much easier to escape community for potential remedial research and inside to more comfortable distractions … project work. The top 10 list will be widely To cut through the tsunami of information, distributed when the process is complete. Georgian Bay Forever is working on the develop- ment of a top 10 list of threats to the Bay. This How can you participate? list will be developed in consultation with: the As a valued stakeholder to GBF, your opinion Science Advisory Group and Science Commit- is important to us. To ensure that the Top 10 tee, other experts and organizations and people reflects your thoughts on the Bay, please like you, who care about Georgian Bay. participate by visiting our website at http:// georgianbayforever.org/survey. ur information sources, whether they A critical mass of 10 We also encourage you to sign up for our are digital devices or printed articles, We think it is important to have a process that email and other social media outlets, as GBF is seem to be filled with thousands of bad accumulates as much input as possible on the always considering more environmental and Onews stories — so much to worry about. threats to Georgian Bay, digests that information efficient ways of communicating with you. It can be overwhelming — like attempting meaningfully and refines those threats down to Enjoy summer 2016 from all of us at outdoor cottage work in a tsunami of black flies! a critical mass of 10. This process will allow for a Georgian Bay Forever! OUR DONORS AND OUR PARTNERSHIPS ARE CRITICAL TO OUR WORK AT GBF By David Sweetnam THERE ARE MANY ISSUES 6 Availability of basic information such Our partnerships THAT CONFRONT US DAILY as high-resolution coastal bathymetry GBF is one of a handful of groups hard at work images. around the Bay and one of hundreds of groups HERE AT GEORGIAN BAY working to protect the Great Lakes. Working There is a long list of priorities that must be FOREVER: with other groups that all have a specific focus reviewed so we can identify the most critical may sometimes be confusing to the public, but challenges that need to be addressed, efficiently these partnerships allow all of us to share 1 Thirsty communities with an eye on the and effectively. expertise, equipment and staff to get the many Great Lakes; jobs done. 2 Asian carp knocking at our door and Our donors These partnerships are critical to threatening our ecosystems in swarms Thankfully, we have donors like you who protecting our water and bringing Georgian you have seen in countless internet support our unique role working in partner- Bay Forever’s voice to the table. Whether we’re videos leaping 10 feet out of the water; ships with others around the Bay, initiating working with NASA, the University of Guelph, 3 Eurasian water milfoil and Phragmites research and other special projects and often the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, choking out native biodiversity in our providing the critical funding needed to gain the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve or others, coastal wetlands; matching support from other sources. GBF’s focus on water is important to every Without your support, we would not be project and person around the Bay. 4 Nutrients in effluent from agriculture and able to focus on issues that include education sewage treatment continuing to flow into about threats to the Bay, community-based Our work the Lakes resulting in toxic algae blooms, invasive Phragmites control to protect coastal We are proud to share the results of our work, degraded water quality and ecosystems wetlands, DNA barcording to help gage human here, in our newsletters, on our website, and in in closed embayments that threaten our impacts on the Bay’s ecosystems, supporting person at GBF events.