The health of Treaty 4 waterways is being closely monitored
by michela sisti, contributor
The fate of Saskatchewan’s Prairie Pothole ecosystem is relevant to both urban and rural residents. Take an annual musty smell and taste occurring in tap water during what the Leader Post explains is “peak season for blue-green algae blooms,” for example.
In July, Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency informed residents that the mustiness came from algae – more specifically, cyanobacteria – in the water supply. According to the Leader Post, the musty scent and taste of tap water was more noticeable this summer because of renovations being done to Buffalo Pound’s water treatment plant.
The cyanobacteria exists in levels too low to be harmful, but high enough to be recognized. Canada is a country with bountiful freshwater resources, yet, according to Frances Pick, who published an article titled “Blooming algae” in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, cyanobacteria blooms in Canadian waters are increasing in frequency, intensity, and duration.
At their least harmful, these blooms make water taste bad. At their most dangerous, the neuro and liver toxins produced by high cyanobacteria levels can be life-threatening. Algae blooms are the reason why so many beaches and lakes, such as Stoney Beach at Humboldt Lake, have had health advisories issued by the SHA warning about cyanobacteria toxins.
The Lands Resources Environment and Stewardship (LRES) department of the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council is monitoring the health of Treaty 4 waterways closely.
Leonard Keshane coordinates a team of youth intern scientists that tests water quality and tracks the bigmouth buffalo fish in the Qu’Appelle River System, a species that has declined dramatically. “Some of the water that we sample is basically like wastewater,” Leonard said in an interview with the Carillon, going on to explain that his team “did some sampling from some fish caught in the Qu’Appelle Chain of Lakes, and the meat that we took compared to some of the other lakes, was pretty well just straight green… It felt so terrible to see that.”
Dr. Kerri Finlay is a professor of aquatic ecology and biogeochemistry at the University of Regina. Much of her work focuses on the effects of human activities on water quality in the prairies.
“Normally the way I think about wetlands is that they’re small, they don’t have outflow, […] and they grow a lot of vegetation,” Dr. Finlay explained. “They pick up all the nutrients and other potential contaminants and they sequester them into plant biomass. When the plants die [their bodies] get buried in the sediments… If you have millions of these wetlands, they’re each taking up a bit of [the pollutants] versus just funneling it all to Lake Winnipeg,” Finlay stated, describing the role of Saskatchewan wetlands.
“One lake can [absorb pollutants], but there’s going to be a certain capacity to it, right?” Dr. Finlay pointed out.
Despite the water quality issues we already face, the provincial government is now developing a policy that will facilitate the drainage of a significant proportion of our province’s remaining wetlands.
The Saskatchewan government’s new Ag Water Stewardship Policy does not have a provision for wetland conservation, and a letter written to the Star Phoenix says that the policy is “a drainage policy that will promote the drainage of two million acres of wetlands.”
The plan has alarmed many experts including Dr. Peter Leavitt, a limnologist at the University of Regina and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change and Society.
“My estimate, as somebody who has worked in the area for nearly 40 years, is that this will degrade all the surface water in southern Saskatchewan,” Dr. Leavitt told me. “And it will do so in a way that will be very difficult to recover.”
Dr. Colin Whitfield is an associate professor of environmental science at the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability. In response to a strong demand to understand which wetlands are most vital, Whitfield classified watersheds across the prairies and developed a modelling approach to predict the typical behaviour of watersheds at different levels of drainage.
“At moderate drainage levels of 50 or 60 per cent, we’ll see approximately a doubling of the amount of phosphorus export, and that’s going to end up in our streams and downstream lakes,” Dr. Whitfield explained. “There are important concerns around that for the health of our aquatic ecosystems. These are nutrient-rich systems to begin with, and augmenting the nutrient export to these systems raises the risk of additional events like harmful algal blooms occurring. There’s also risks associated with the difficulty in treating water for drinking water when we have high solute loads, high nutrient loads.”
When it comes to First Nations Inherent and Treaty Rights, the damage from drainage practices on water quality is already present. Almost all Treaty 4 Nations border bodies of water. Clean water and clean fish should be abundant and accessible. Yet many Nations live with boil water advisories, and to exercise fishing rights, Indigenous people have to make the long journey elsewhere.
“We used to be able to drink the water right from the lake […] back in the day. That’s what we were told by our elders,” Birdie Thomson-Bear from Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation explained. “And now it doesn’t even seem like it’s even possible, even if you filter it a hundred times, it’s just so sketchy.”
Birdie is a biology student at the University of Saskatchewan and one of the coordinators of the LRES Youth scientists. The contrast she’s witnessed between the waters of the Qu’Appelle and those further north, beyond the influence of drainage projects, has been eye-opening.
“It’s so different when you go up north. When we fish on the Churchill River […] the water is just so nice […] It’s like we’re catching fish in abundance. We are catching really good quality fish. We’re able to eat the fish up there. And it’s like something’s happening in between there and where our people live. Now it’s like there’s good fish [up north]. There’s just something happening to our fish.”
In other words, a different reality is possible. While the waters of the south are naturally more prone to algal blooms, it is Dr. Leavitt’s appraisal that, “They’ve never been as green as they are now and they’re not anywhere as green as they will be when climate change kicks in with increased fertilizer applications.”
Given the pressures currently faced by Saskatchewan water systems, it’s imperative for residents to do what we can to keep them clean, and preserving Saskatchewan’s wetlands is one way to do that.
