Simcoe's health issues run deep

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http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3383899

 

Lake's health issues run deep

By Miranda Minassian, QMI Agency

Posted 1:00am Nov 26, 2011

 

ORILLIA — A research team at Lakehead University's Orillia campus is working to paint a complete picture of the health of Lake Simcoe's water in hopes of restoring the ailing body back to its natural state.

 

Centred around the monitoring of phosphorous, nutrient levels and oxygen and identifying human inputs, professors Nandakumar Kanavillil and Sreekumari Kurissery presented the research to the public, Thursday.

 

"Everything that we do is to protect and conserve," Kanavillil said.

 

"With proper monitoring, we will be in a clear position to come up with an adequate monitoring system."

 

Issues regarding the lake's water quality became severe in the 1970s when it was discovered that lake trout and whitefish populations were declining.

 

At the time, it was determined that the most likely cause of the water's poor health was caused by an excess of nutrients entering the lake, mostly phosphorus, creating an oxygen shortage.

 

Using caffeine as a marker, Kurissery and her team are one step closer to being able to separate the runoff related to human activity from agricultural or animal waste that finds its way into the lake.

 

Present in everything from coffee and cola to medications, caffeine ends up in the watershed both through septic systems and down the drain.

 

"We know that caffeine is associated with humans. We know that other animals do not have this in their excrement," Kurissery said.

 

"Our objective was to try to use caffeine as a tool to monitor the water quality. Can we use this as a marker for human originated waste in the system?"

 

Daily sampling revealed a positive correlation between caffeine and phosphorous, meaning whatever phosphorous present when samples were taken was associated with human waste, she said.

 

Caffeine does not lead to more phosphorous but that it's present indicates human activity is nearby, Kurissery noted.

 

"The ultimate objective is that we are able to measure caffeine and if you get a really high concentration of caffeine somewhere there will be a septic tank leak or faulty system nearby," she said.

 

The next step in her research is a detailed analysis of the ratio of caffeine to phosphorous in human-related runoff, allowing manmade source spots to be more easily identified.

 

According to the province's most recent reports on Lake Simcoe, phosphorous levels have decreased since the '70s, with the most substantial drop in concentrations occurring in the 1980s and early '90s. Over the last decade, levels have remained relatively constant or have increased slightly.

 

While a decrease in phosphorus is improving oxygen conditions in the lake, the improvements are not yet sufficient for the fish to sustain themselves naturally — with trout stocking programs running since 1966 and whitefish since 1982.