This slide is trying to show you again population growth. If you look at the graph on the left, it shows the growth in Ontario. This shows population growth from 1950 to 2000 around the Great Lakes, with the Great Lakes states, and you can see Ontario identified by the purple line and the rate of growth there.
What I really wanted to stress, though, is the density of population. The blue dots represent the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. If you look down here you can see where the growth is occurring, the red and orange areas, in the western end of Lake Ontario. In order to mitigate the impact of rapid growth on the ecosystem health of the western end of Lake Ontario, we need to look beyond the two areas of concern. Areas of concern were never developed to address broad-scale population growth. We need to take a more regional perspective.
Efforts to plan and implement a strategy to address population growth in this area need to be started sooner rather than later. Lake Ontario is already showing signs of stress. Cladophora, which is a long filamentous green algae that looks like long green hair growing on hardened surfaces on the bottom, has proliferated as a result of the invasion of zebra and quagga mussels.
These invasive species of mussels have also altered the cycling of nutrients in the lake. They concentrate nutrients in the lake-bed and the nearshore, resulting in increased productivity and excessive cladophora growth. The excessive cladophora growth threatens water quality, clogs water intakes at power plants, potentially resulting in unscheduled shutdowns, and when this algae breaks off from the bottom, it washes up onto shore and forms unsightly and very foul-smelling piles. We have too many mussels in Lake Ontario, too much algae in the nearshore, too little fish food, and too few fish in the offshore.
Some interesting findings from 2008 intensive binational monitoring of Lake Ontario show that we have an estimated 9.7 trillion dreissenid mussels in the nearshore area of Lake Ontario. They have the ability to filter the volume of the nearshore water in roughly one to seven days. However, the phosphorus generated by these mussels was not sufficient to sustain the populations of cladophora. Tributary phosphorus load to the lake was 234% higher than that of waste water treatment plants, and the tributary phosphorus is the driver of nearshore conditions and localized patterns of cladophora abundance, that along with the zebra mussels.
Land use patterns influence nearshore water quality, with urbanized areas having the greatest impact. Again, we need to look at urban growth and start addressing it in a more sustainable matter.
Finally, to address the last area of focus of your study in terms of recommending best management practices that will facilitate further remediation of areas of environmental concern within the Great Lakes, I have a few points.
My first point is that we need to focus on maintaining the partnerships and completing the efforts within areas of concern. We can see the horizon for many of these areas of concern to get the job done and to delist them. We are now at that point, but we also need to stay alert and aware of new threats.
One of the best management practices that has come out of the 43-plus years of Great Lakes protection and restoration is partnership. No one government, no one agency, no single group has the capacity and all the know-how to take on the task of keeping “our Lakes Great”. That's stealing a quote from someone Chris and I both know.
There are many willing and able partners to assist with this. We need to engage them, and we need to engage them in a strategic manner.
We know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Let's get smarter and address predictable threats, such as population growth in the southern Great Lakes, or the expansion of the resource extraction industry that is currently occurring in Lake Superior, and develop preventative measures before the stresses to the Great Lakes manifest. On some fronts, we need to be proactive rather than reactive regarding Great Lakes protection and restoration. It makes sense; it's less expensive.
The final best management practice is eternal vigilance. We need to keep it up. We need to keep the safeguards to ensure that we're not backsliding on the amount of investment we've made over the years. We need to be aware that the lakes are changing. The climate is changing. There are new threats. We need to deal with them and adapt.