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LETTER: Conservatives' Lake Simcoe plan missing the mark

'Why is Doug Shipley’s main environmental program one which must target farming when he is running in a largely urban riding?'
USED 2019-05-30 Good Morn RB 19
Kempenfelt Bay from the south shore in Barrie. Raymond Bowe/BarrieToday

OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor. Send your letter to [email protected]. This letter is in response to our recent story about the Conservatives' pledge to clean up Lake Simcoe. You can read that story here.

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I have had a long-standing passion for “the environment." 

Nearly 30 years ago, I joined with others to create Environmental Action Barrie (now Living Green Barrie). I was appointed to the City of Barrie’s Environmental Advisory Committee in 2010 and served on it for eight years, the last four as chair.

So, I was interested in Doug Shipley’s (my Conservative candidate) “door hanger” entitled A Real Plan to Protect our Environment. It turned out to be a promise to “restore the (Lake Simcoe) Clean Up Fund," and accusing Justin Trudeau for scrapping an existing Lake Simcoe clean-up fund.

Trudeau didn’t “scrap” the fund. This money was made available for a limited time, and the time period had run out without being renewed.

Oddly, the money was originally aimed at reducing the amount of phosphate entering Lake Simcoe. This program, coupled with several earlier phosphate-control programs, have been "fairly” effective.

Fairly because they largely addressed sewage treatment plants. Twenty years ago, treated sewage was responsible for six per cent of Lake Simcoe’s phosphate load. Now this has dropped to three per cent and that’s for all the sewage treatment plants around our shared lake.

Barrie’s treatment plant is one of Canada’s best-performing sewage facilities. The provincial target is a maximum phosphate concentration of 0.1 milligrams per litre; our sewage plant averaged 0.03 mg/litre during the year 2017.

But, where does the 97 per cent come from? Twenty per cent comes from agriculture – water draining from crops and grazing land. Another 20 per cent is brought in by rain draining from urban areas, five per cent from rural septic fields, and the rest drops from the sky as dust blowing off fields, roads, etc. Since wind and dryness conditions vary widely, this last item is hard to quantify.

I wonder if Mr. Shipley could explain how he would improve (reduce) phosphate entering Lake Simcoe. Specifically, since he is running in Barrie, why would this be a campaign issue for residents like me whose taxes have already paid to build one of the best-performing sewage treatment plants in Canada?

Also, Barrie has spent a lot of money building various structures to temporarily trap storm water, giving phosphates a chance to settle or be absorbed in city soil before the water enters storm sewers.

As Shipley’s brochure suggests, tree planting could be a part of the phosphorous reduction strategy. However, this year, Ford’s Progressive Conservative administration cancelled the provincial tree-planting program. Fortunately, the Trudeau Liberals stepped in to fund it for this year.

It appears that progress on the phosphorous issue must now look at reducing loads from agriculture. So why is Doug Shipley’s main environmental program one which must target farming when he is running in a largely urban riding?

Meanwhile, the environmental topic dominating recent headlines is climate change, a far more immediate threat to our lifestyle (and that of the whole planet) than the continued reduction of phosphate into Lake Simcoe.

I have yet to hear anything even remotely encouraging from Mr. Scheer on that score.

Peter Bursztyn
Barrie

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