01-05 Water Quality - John Bulloch

Living on Lake Simcoe over a period of 60 years was an exercise in watching water quality deteriorate. Water that was drinkable, then polluted with agricultural run off. Then algae blooms, then infestation from zebra mussels. Warmer climates mean more precipitation and run-offs everywhere and a decline in water quality.

Here is a fun story from 1943, and the family moving into a small summer cottage on Lake Simcoe north of Toronto. The water was tested as drinkable, but when mother saw a beaver swim by, she said “If a beaver can poo in this water we are not drinking it”. So we boiled it for two years.
Nothing was more magical than the ice fishing on Lake Simcoe when the large walleye and lake trout came close to shore to feed on the smelt that gathered in shallow water for breeding.
How sad years later when these fish were deemed uneatable because of the mercury that had polluted the water from industrial run-offs.
The big questions people have about water quality everywhere are as follows: Can we drink it? Can we swim in it? Can we catch fish? Can we eat the fish?
During this period of global warming, what is so difficult is determining if water quality is impacted by human activity, climate change or both.
On Lake Simcoe I remember the water becoming slightly clouded by plankton. This seemed to help support the growth of cray fish, which drew in the big bass in the late afternoons. Fishing magic right off our dock.
Then we had an infestation of zebra mussels which feed on the plankton and suddenly the lake was crystal clear. Oops. No more crayfish and big bass. Then a cold spell killed them off and we were clearing up their sharp shells that washed up on the shore.
The curse of Lake Simcoe for a decade was algae, which seemed to bloom in the southern parts of the Lake. It impacted the taste of the lake water and the fishing. It took major investments in water treatment to restore the quality of the water.
The curse globally is untreated human sewage being pumped into lakes and streams. But this again is human activity not climate change.
What seems to be clear is that the additional evaporation and rainfall linked to global warming is sending more pollutants into our water systems from the run-offs.
And the pure evidence of warmer winters on Lake Simcoe is that the bloody lake does not freeze anymore. And ice-fishing which was a magical part of my childhood is gone forever.