Cleaning up future of Muskrat Lake
Article content
At long last, the township of Whitewater Region has received the report on the future of Muskrat Lake commissioned in the spring of 2012 from environmental consultant Michael Michalski.
Michalski himself was overseas at the time of the meeting of Whitewater Region's official plan steering committee, but a draft policy report based on his findings, conclusions and recommendations was delivered to the committee and a standing-room-only crowd in the council chambers by Jp2g director of planning Brian Whitehead.
Originally, Michalski's chief mandate from the township was to examine ways for Muskrat Lake to be taken off of the province's list of highly sensitive lakes so that it would no longer be bound by a provincial regulation requiring new septic systems to abide by a 300-metre setback from the water's edge.
Although Whitehead reports that that remained part of his efforts, most of Michalski's recommendations ended up assuming the designation would still be in place, but arguing that development should be able to go ahead despite it, and that there were other ways to protect and even improve the water quality in the highly polluted lake that didn't require prohibitively stringent setbacks.
In fact, Michalski's report, as interpreted by Whitehead for committee, recommends cutting the required setback by a factor of 10, requiring new septic systems to be a mere 30 metres from the waterfront, and having a 20-metre setback for dwellings.
No-one is arguing that the lake's water quality is not in dire need of attention, however; despite the fact that Michalski's mandate had nothing to do with the pollution in the lake, but rather the development around it, Whitehead was quick to identify the environmental concerns as being valid.
"Muskrat Lake is one of the most highly eutrophic lakes in Ontario," he said bluntly. "There are some serious water quality issues."
A 'eutrophic' lake is one that, due to the addition of natural or artificial chemicals and elements, often phosphorous or nitrogen, is highly biologically productive, which leads to cloudy water, high concentrations of bacteria and algae blooms and often 'dead zones' where oxygen is low or near-depleted at lower depths.
"Muskrat Lake," says Whitehead, "is a sensitive lake because of phosphorus loading," which can have several causes, including runoff from agricultural lands, side effects from sewage treatment plants nearby or runoff from septic systems.
But, argue Whitehead and Michalski, the technology does exist to mitigate the impact of septic systems without removing them from the immediate area altogether.
The solution proposed in Michalski's report, Whitehead explains, lies in a certain type of soil, rich in iron and sometimes aluminum, that naturally absorbs phosphorus, thereby cleansing any runoff water before it reaches the lake.
To monitor the effectiveness of this solution, Michalski has proposed a system involving the installation of very small well-like contraptions - essentially pieces of pipe buried vertically to collect water - from which water samples could be taken and analysed over the course of a year, in
May, July, August, September and October, with one additional sample taken between November and April for sites that are occupied year-round. At the end of a three-year monitoring cycle, it should become clear if the mitigating solutions have been effective in lessening the amount of phosphorus entering the lake.
Although Michalski and Whitehead will be pushing for a blanket policy to be established implementing these and other mitigating suggestions, the province is more likely to insist, at the very least, on development occurring in phases, allowing for a three-year monitoring cycle to prove the efficacy of the environmental safeguards. If levels of phosphorus are down after three years, presumably further development would be allowed. If not, further discussions would be had to decide what else could be done.
At the end of Whitehead's "Reader's Digest" version of Michalski's report, councillor Joseph Trimm responded with guarded optimism.
"It seems," he ventured, "that the good news is that it's possible for us to develop a policy that's part of our official plan and comprehensive zoning bylaw that will allow development on Muskrat Lake with the same setback as all other lakes, 30m, but with just a few more hoops to jump through."
Whitehead, however, was quick to caution against any assumption that Ontario would simply accept Michalski's proposed policy changes.
"There's a very high probability that the municipality would have to defend the policies if the province challenges them," he told committee, adding that once the report was officially filed in its final form, Michalski's obligations to the township were over, and any further legal battles over the plan between Whitewater Region and the province would be the responsibility of the township.
After a brief lull in the discussion where the possible implications of that statement seemed to linger in the room, the committee's attention turned to the second half of the problem with the lake: the pollution.
For Trimm, the issue is not just environmental, but also one of civic pride and the broader development of the brand of Whitewater Region.
"Whenever there's an algae bloom," he says, "it's not the best advertising to have stories out in the newspaper and having to send out notices to stay away from the water. It's terrible, so I really, really think it's important for this council to support a mitigation program to try and do whatever we can to help the water quality of muskrat lake."
To that end, the committee announced its intention to examine the possibility of establishing a group made up of both elected leaders and members of the community to make a concerted effort to clean up the lake as much as possible.
One likely member of that group is Donald Deer, who has already expressed an interest in contributing to any clean-up efforts.
"I moved to Whitewater Region six years ago," he told committee after being invited to speak by steering committee chairman and Deputy Mayor Izett McBride, "and built on the lake because I had a house on a lake in northern Ontario and thought I was building on a pristine waterway.
"When I learned what the lake was like," he continued, "I was disappointed, quite frankly." He then reiterated his interest in doing whatever he could to help.
The new community group will be one topic addressed further at a pair of public meetings, chiefly aimed at giving the people of Whitewater Region a chance to get more information on, and to contribute their thoughts to, the development of the municipality's official plan as a whole, which, as Mayor Jim Labow pointed out to those in attendance Wednesday night, contains a great deal more than just discussion on the future of Muskrat Lake.
The first public meeting will be held on Thursday, May 30 at the Cobden Agricultural Hall, and the second will take place at the Westmeath Community Centre on Tuesday, June 4. Both meetings will feature an open house portion from 3-6 p.m., where representatives from Renfrew County will also be in attendance with maps and documentation on the county's official plan, and a public meeting portion from 7-9 p.m.
Ryan Paulsen is a Daily Observer multimedia journalist
Twitter: @PRyanPaulsen