‘We’re nowhere near the end of that impact. We’re just at the beginning,’ says official of impact of climate change \n<\/p>\n
Georgian Bay and Simcoe County’s groundwater have been named among Ontario’s watersheds at risk, with local environmental advocates warning that climate change, development and gaps in groundwater knowledge are putting increasing pressure on both.<\/p>\n
Released Sept. 8 by the Ontario Watershed Guardian Network, the list of at-risk watersheds raises questions about whether aging infrastructure and existing environmental protections are keeping pace with changing conditions \u2014 and whether enough is known about the groundwater supporting much of Simcoe County’s growth.<\/p>\n
For David Sweetnam, executive director of Georgian Bay Forever, climate change is the overarching concern because its effects ripple through so many other problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re nowhere near the end of that impact,\u201d Sweetnam said. \u201cWe’re just at the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most immediate challenges, he says, is rainfall. More intense storms can dump volumes of water that some older wastewater and stormwater infrastructure was never engineered to handle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think we can point a finger back in time and say they didn’t know what they were doing when they were designing wastewater treatment plants,\u201d he said. \u201cGiven the engineering standards and conditions at the time, those sewage treatment plants were appropriately designed for what they were expected to handle, but the conditions have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some wastewater infrastructure is now 40 or 50 years old, he says, while some underground pipes are considerably older.<\/p>\n
In older combined systems, heavy rainfall can overwhelm capacity, allowing stormwater to mix with sewage and potentially resulting in untreated sewage being discharged into surrounding waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpdating those systems means significant costs and disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
A different food web<\/p>\n
Climate and infrastructure aren’t the only things changing Georgian Bay.<\/p>\n
Zebra mussels were once the highly visible invader \u2014 coating rocks and leaving swimmers reaching for water shoes to protect their feet. Then, they seemed to disappear.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople thought, \u2018Oh, great, the problem’s solved,\u2019\u201d Sweetnam said.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t. Quagga mussels were taking over. Unlike zebra mussels, quaggas don’t require a hard surface. They can colonize soft lake bottoms and live at greater depths, moving much of the invasion offshore and largely out of public view.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re stripping all the phytoplankton, all of that lower food web,\u201d Sweetnam said, explaining\u00a0 the mussels\u2019 sheer numbers and ability to filter water are redirecting nutrients toward the lake bottom.<\/p>\n
The round goby, a small bottom-feeding fish, is another invasive species originating from the Black and Caspian Sea region that eat quagga mussels and are themselves now being eaten by native predators, including bass, lake trout and pike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re starting to establish some type of different equilibrium,” he said.\u00a0\u201cThat makes it difficult to figure out what’s going on out there and what to do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweetnam also points to road salt, pharmaceuticals, personal-care products and microplastics adding to the pressures on the bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything you put down the drain is going out there, including synthetic clothing that can shed microfibres during washing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost 90 per cent of Simcoe County municipalities rely on groundwater to some degree, while about half depend on it exclusively, according to the Watersheds at Risk report.<\/p>\n
For Margaret Prophet, executive director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, that raises an important question: \u201cWe don’t have enough data to know where everything is, how everything connects, how much we actually have and how quickly everything refills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Groundwater also doesn’t follow municipal boundaries. Prophet says water moves beneath forests, wetlands, farmland and communities, connecting areas that may be governed and developed separately.<\/p>\n
Changes in one place can therefore have consequences elsewhere. Development and the loss of wetlands, for example, can alter how water moves through the landscape and how groundwater is replenished.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re so highly reliant on groundwater here,” she said. “Without the proper amount of data and evidence, we’re kind of making decisions rather blind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prophet points to New Tecumseth and Bradford West Gwillimbury as examples of communities that have had to look beyond existing groundwater sources as they grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to have housing to live,\u201d she said. \u201cI’m not going to be anti-growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her concern is that long-term growth decisions should be based on a clearer understanding of how much groundwater is available and how reliably it can be replenished.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t just assume how it was 50 years ago is how it’s going to be for the upcoming 50 years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Water quality presents another challenge. Unlike surface water, groundwater contamination can be particularly difficult to address because pollutants may be moving through aquifers deep below ground, where they are harder to locate, monitor and remove.<\/p>\n
Extreme weather and environmental degradation can carry their own economic costs, from damaged infrastructure and cleanup to lost productivity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to move beyond this false binary and really think about how do we make decisions that factor in more than just the dollar figure,” Prophet said.<\/p>\n
Her organization is taking that message to candidates in this fall’s municipal elections through Community Leaders for a Sustainable Simcoe (CLASS), a non-partisan initiative focused on sustainability in municipal decision-making.<\/p>\n
Network takes aim at provincial policy<\/p>\n
The Ontario Watershed Guardian Network, launched in August, argues that a series of provincial decisions have weakened watershed and environmental protections.<\/p>\n
Its Sept. 8 release points to changes involving conservation authorities, wetlands, aggregate extraction, endangered species and watershed planning, among other issues.<\/p>\n
The network also argues there is no co-ordinated provincial response to the pressures facing Ontario’s watersheds, and warns that continued development and a changing climate could intensify those pressures.<\/p>\n
It is calling for greater provincial and municipal action, even as it\u00a0plans to expand the Watersheds at Risk list and develop recommendations in the coming months.<\/p>\n
MidlandToday contacted the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks on Sept. 8 and followed up ahead of publication. Despite acknowledging the inquiry, the ministry provided no response.<\/p>\n
Learn more: Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition<\/a> | Georgian Bay Forever<\/a> | Aquatic Invasive Species | GBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘We’re nowhere near the end of that impact. We’re just at the beginning,’ says official of impact of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,315570,295,315569,66],"class_list":["post-914556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-conservation-and-parksmargaret-prophetgeorgian-bay-foreverdavid-sweetnamontario-watershed-guardian-networkwatersheds-at-risk","tag-environment","tag-georgian-baysimcoe-county-greenbelt-coalitionministry-of-the-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}