Originally published in Lake of the Woods Area News, Volume 54, Number 5, Winter 2024
Put a plan in place. Ensure there’s enough science and management expertise.
Coordinate actions bi-nationally. That’s our mission.
The big story that is on the lips of all lake folk is the algae bloom that has hit the north end of Lake of the Woods and the Winnipeg River with a vengeance in late September. Environment and Climate Change Canada’s EOLakeWatch tool showed significant bloom activity in the Big Traverse (south basin) of Lake of the Woods from mid-August and the bloom tracked steadily northward throughout the month of September.
Twenty years ago, blooms like the one currently hitting Kenora shorelines used to happen about a month earlier, but in recent years, we are seeing a trend toward late summer to fall peaks, with activity typically increasing through October,
until cold weather arrives.
In the next issue of Area News, we will provide a summary of this year’s bloom conditions, once all the data are in. Readers are reminded that blooms like the ones in these photos often contain potent nerve and liver toxins. Do not let pets or humans drink or swim in water that looks like this!
The potent late September algae bloom is a good reminder of the Foundation’s work for our watershed. For years, we have been saying that we need international water quality objectives (WQO) for Lake of the Woods, just like we see on the Great Lakes, to address harmful and nuisance algae blooms, among other risks. Lake of the Woods is no less than a Great Lake and deserves just as much care and consideration.
A WQO is a specific and measurable parameter to which Canada and the U.S. have agreed. For Lake of the Woods, for many years, the Foundation has been working with Indigenous and non-Indigenous government agencies in Minnesota, Ontario, Manitoba, Canada and the United States to identify strategies to reduce nuisance and toxic algae blooms. Over the past year, the International Joint Commission funded a project through its International Watersheds Initiative that brought together water quality experts and government agencies to provide advice regarding establishing WQOs for Rainy – Lake of the Woods. This collaborative, international project was facilitated by our International Watershed Coordinator, Teika Newton. Project results were communicated to the International Rainy Lake of the Woods Watershed Board’s Aquatic Ecosystem Health Committee (AEHC) in August.
The AEHC then presented recommendations to the Board in September. Among the recommendations are limits to the amount of phosphorus (the key nutrient involved in algae growth) entering Lake of the Woods each year and goals for maximum phosphorus concentrations in different zones in the lake that would limit algae bloom formation. The research participants would like to see measurable declines in the severity, geographic and temporal extent of blooms in coming years, and recommended several tools and techniques that could be useful for such assessments, including the use of the EO LakeWatch tools. The Board accepted the recommendations for international WQOs and has requested that the IJC urges the governments of Canada and the United States to adopt them.
On the heels of the WQO project, we are gearing up for new multi-year work focused on nutrients and algae blooms, where we hope to engage people and organizations active in the Rainy River / south Lake of the Woods region. We will provide more information on this project in a future article.
As this issue reaches you, we will be in the midst of hosting this year’s Ask an Expert webinar series. These one-hour lunch-and-learn style webinars cover a variety of topics and air at different times and dates in November and December. Check out this year’s line up on our website: lowwsf.com/ask-an-expert
Finally, we have started organizing the 22nd annual Watershed Forum, which will take place March 12-13, 2025 at Minnesota North College in International Falls. If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, watch for a call for presentation abstracts this fall. Submissions will be due by the end of the year. Information about registration, logistics, and other concurrent meetings and events will be posted to our website, lowwsf.com/watershed-forum, where you can also subscribe to our newsletter.
