Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition Update

A satellite view of Lake Simcoe. Photo courtesy the Province of Ontario

From the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition
By Claire Malcolmson, Executive Director

We would like to start off by orienting  you to what threatens Lake Simcoe’s health, what we’re doing about it, and what you can do to help.

We are a registered charity, and have been active since 2003. We now have 29 member groups, an Executive Director (Claire), a book keeper (Janis), a communications consultant (Jenn), three summer interns, and many active Board members. We work with volunteers all around the watershed because “we’re better together”!

Our budget this year is $115,000 and we typically earn ⅓ – ⅔  of our revenue via individual donations and community-led fundraisers. The rest comes from grants from charitable foundations. Most of our budget is to pay staff to research, do outreach, communicate with governments, host events, and for basic administration. We have no office, so our overhead is low.

Lake Simcoe’s Challenges

Climate Change 
Climate Change is warming the water and reducing the amount of time that ice covers the lake. The impacts on the ecosystem have started, but the real impacts are yet to come.

Nutrient loading

Way too much nutrient loading leads to excess weed growth, low oxygen levels, and contributes to creating conditions for algae blooms. Phosphorus is our main problem, and it goes into the lake on average at about double the target rate suggested by scientists.

Land Use Change / Development  
What happens on land affects the lake because everything rolls downhill within the watershed. Dirt itself contains phosphorus, so when fields are stripped bare for farming or development, soil erosion moves phosphorus into the air and into the streams. More development also means more roads, causing habitat fragmentation for wildlife.

Salt
Highways produce salt hotspots in our waters, as evidenced by the impacts of Highway 404 on the Maskinonge River in Georgina. In general though, parking lots and roads both contribute to salt pollution, which is virtually impossible to remediate once it’s in freshwater. Lake Simcoe is on a trajectory to achieve the chronic chloride (salt) level in 37 years, which would completely change the ecosystem. This is one of the reasons we are fighting the Bradford Bypass.

Invasive Species 
Invaders change the lake’s species mix, which leads to less ecosystem diversity and resilience, and sometimes, things change a LOT and fast, so keeping new invasive species out is critical.

Why Are These Things Happening?

Poor land use planning decisions are at the heart of Lake Simcoe’s challenges. At one time, people blamed agriculture for Lake Simcoe’s pollution, and it is true that farming does add nutrient pollution to the lake. But the agricultural sources of pollution are better controlled these days, and there’s just less farming in the watershed than there used to be. It’s new development and stormwater pollution that are the serious and growing threats to lake water quality.

How Does Development Harm Lake Simcoe?

What Are We Doing About it?

We advocate at all levels of government for sensible, forward looking decision-making, and we engage heavily in planning and public consultation. We share information and opportunities for engagement with our members, host meetings and webinars, and work with volunteers and larger Environmental Non Governmental Organizations to make change and get more bang for our buck. We want you to get involved too!

The projects we are working on are: Stop the Bradford Bypass, Stop Sprawl York Region, and commenting on the development of Official Plans in Durham and Simcoe County. We also have a curriculum-linked education project that our retired educator volunteers developed, and is being used by teachers in the watershed.

We always try to fundraise in fun, innovative ways too. We are so grateful to our musician friends raising funds on our behalf, our individual donors, and our hard working volunteers!

I’m proud to say we pack a punch for such a small organization. We are the only advocacy organization dedicated exclusively to Lake Simcoe. Working with our members and partners, we advocate for Lake Simcoe on your behalf.

Learn more about what we are doing, and our accomplishments on our website.

Please stay tuned, and follow us on social media to get the latest:
Facebook: @RescueLakeSimcoeCoalition
Instagram: @rescuelakesimcoe
Twitter: @RescueLakeSimc1