Scientists and students have long used the area in northwestern Ontario to study how watersheds work, the effects of sewage and human waste on ecosystems, and models for reducing acid rain and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Schindler was a founding director of the facility in 1968 and stayed there through the late 1980s.
Scientists from across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom sent an open letter Tuesday to “strongly urge” the federal government to reconsider its decision, calling it just one more example of “many recent cuts to federal environmental programming ... (that) undermine our capacity to protect and manage Canada’s freshwater and marine resources.”
“Only the government really has the mandate to do the kind of science that’s in the public good that’s needed here,” Schindler said Tuesday at the University of Alberta, where he spoke to about 40 staff and students who gathered in support.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent recently indicated slashing the Experimental Lakes Area budget marks a shift of government funding from Eastern to Western Canada and an increase in funding to research effects of the oilsands.
It costs about $2 million a year to operate the Experimental Lakes Area and pay salaries. Research done on the lakes helped lead to the ban on phosphorus in detergents and stop acid rain. Continuing international experiments are exploring how the heavy metal, mercury, moves through ecosystems, and what happens in a lake polluted by nanosilver, the increasingly popular antimicrobial agent found in everything from household cleaning sponges to socks and children’s teddy bears.
Closing the facility “defies reason,” said Bill Donahue, the science and policy director for the Alberta-based environmental think-tank Water Matters.
“For one, there is no comparable place that I can think of in the West, unless they’re actually going to fund and recreate an experimental lakes area. Second, it suggests that freshwater issues in the West are somehow more important.”
Both Donahue and Schindler lauded the Experimental Lakes Area as an outdoor laboratory with the capability to take on wide-ranging research not necessarily specific to any one regional, industrial or ecological issue.
The fight is just the latest in an ongoing war between the Harper government and scientists and students who say cuts to facilities and moves to reposition environmental legislation are limiting the scope and capabilities of national research projects and threatening the ability to protect Canada’s ecosystems. Recent budget cuts in Ottawa have resulted in a moratorium on the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s $38-million major resources support program,— which could kill operations at the Arctic Kluane Research Station, the Centre for Northern Studies in Laval, Que., the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory on Ellesmere Island, and other northern research bases — and a phasing out of the $32-million research tools and instruments grants program.
In a separate move, Steve Perry, the dean of science at the University of Ottawa, fired off a letter to Harper and several cabinet ministers decrying recent cuts to discovery-based science programs. Perry urged the government to rescind “drastic” reductions in student scholarships, the cancellation of a program that provides scientists with research equipment, and a moratorium on unique Canadian research facilities.
He warned the cuts are a “perfect storm” that will jeopardize the country’s international reputation and competitive edge.
There was no sign Tuesday of the government changing course on the Experimental Lakes Area, comprised of 58 small lakes and their drainage basins, which have been set aside and are managed through a joint agreement between the federal and Ontario governments.
Only research activities or activities compatible with that research are permitted within or next to these watersheds. Record-keeping began in 1967. Experimental studies began two years later. The area is operated by the Central and Arctic Region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada from its Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg.
“The minister understands that science is the backbone of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the freshwater research conducted at other sites across the country will satisfy the current needs of the department,” Erin Filliter, director of communications for Ashfield, said by email. “We look forward to transferring the facility to a third party that will benefit from this unique location.”
But scientists do not see any obvious third party that could take over. Schindler said Canadian universities are in no position to take over the station because money for research is increasingly scarce.
NDP MP Pat Martin said at a news conference on Parliament Hill the decision to eliminate federal funding for the experimental lakes is a “stupid” affront to the international scientific community’s efforts to preserve the world’s most precious resource.
“I think the government is probably surprised at the amount of international push back because they very carefully muzzled these scientists (at the station) so that they couldn’t complain about having their throat cut and the rug pulled out from underneath them,” Martin said.
Original Article
Source: edmonton journal
Author: Trish Audette and Margaret Munro
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