Water bodies across the globe continue to decline from nutrient loading as a result of agricultural activities, wastewater, raw sewage, chemicals and other hazardous materials.
RM of Gimli resident Jeff Smith
And the central question raised at the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission’s public hearing on the evening of April 22 was why risk potentially polluting Lake Winnipeg – the 10th largest freshwater lake on the planet – even more with a new sewage lagoon?
Residents from the municipalities of Armstrong and Gimli, environmental organizations and municipal leaders shared their views of the lagoon that the Harbour Hutterite colony (formerly the Crystal Spring colony) wants to build in the RM of Armstrong on the border of the RM of Gimli.
If approved by the Manitoba government, lagoon effluent will be treated in cells, discharged to a ditch, flow into Willow Creek then flow into Lake Winnipeg at the residential subdivisions of Husavik and Siglavik in the RM of Gimli.
About 100 people attended the hearing at the Fraserwood Hall. Eighteen people registered to speak.
Armstrong resident Tanya Mishtak and her family live across the road from the proposed lagoon. In an impassioned speech, she said the lagoon would expose them to noisome waste and result in contaminants leaching into groundwater they rely on for drinking.
“My primary concern is the health and safety of my children and family. The proposed lagoon introduces ongoing risks related to odour, insects, potential groundwater contamination, flooding and exposure to effluent,” she said. “These risks did not exist prior to approvals and land-use changes permitted or enabled by municipal or provincial authorities.”
She provided the panel with numerous photos of overland flooding in the spot along Road 106N where the colony wants to build its lagoon.
“The proposed lagoon is located in an area prone to seasonal and heavy rainfall flooding. Clay-lined lagoons are known to leak over time,” said Mishtak. “The risk of overflow or leaching during spring melt or extreme rainfall events presents a serious threat to nearby wells, drainage systems, Willow Creek and downstream waters leading to Lake Winnipeg.”
It’s the threat to water quality in Lake Winnipeg that 92-year-old commercial fisher Robert T. Kristjanson addressed, and the stupidity of humans for continuing to pollute the very element they rely on for survival.
“When are we going to wake up and decide what is our fate in Manitoba?” said Kristjanson. “Is it clean water or do we build something else to pollute the water we’ve got? “People here, you have to stand up and … decide on what you want … it’s time we took control of our water.”
His son Chris Kristjanson told the CEC panel that fishers and residents can’t control what’s “coming into the lake” from rivers and creeks because “we don’t have control of the land.”
After the hearing, he said the health of Lake Winnipeg is on the line, and it felt as though the lake “was on trial” before the panel.
He questioned why no provincial and federal politicians bothered to show up to the hearings, and where the federal government was as it’s responsible for Lake Winnipeg.
“It’s getting a little tiring that they don’t care about Lake Winnipeg,” he said, referring to the local MLA and MP. “And I think it’s high time the (federal) department of fisheries and oceans, which represents Canada, gets involved in making decisions.”
In his presentation to the panel, Siglavik resident Chris Milne also questioned why “DFO is not involved since Willow Creek is a navigable waterway [and] there’s a current problem with the [Manitoba] government’s permitting and licensing process.”
Milne pointed out that there were no estimates provided by the colony’s engineer of what the effluent concentration levels could be in Willow Creek and in the Lake Winnipeg wetland at Miklavik and Siglavik, which combined, have 120 families, as well as no mention about possible impacts on aquatic species and wildlife.
RM of Gimli resident Jeff Smith, who did not present at the hearing but spoke to the Tribune, said that in addition to the colony’s lagoon effluent entering Lake Winnipeg, the manure of 140,000 chickens the colony proposes to raise will be spread on fields in the RM of Gimli. Heavy rain or overland flooding could wash that manure into the lake.
The lagoon itself will generate 27.05 kilograms per year of phosphorus alone, according to the colony’s engineer. That may be small in comparison to what agicultural activities produce, but Smith said it will, nevertheless, compound the nutrient problem in Lake Winnipeg. It already has a 4,000-tonne surplus thanks to nutrients flowing in from U.S. states, Ontario, Manitoba and western Canada.
Furthermore, Smith said he thinks the lagoon’s effluent will sit in the lake’s marsh – where Willow Creek empties – as the water level is only two to three inches deep there and it’s another 200 metres to the lake proper.
“They’ll have a two-cell lagoon, and I’m thinking there’s going to be a third cell created in or around Miklavik or Siglavik,” said Smith, who helped put pressure on environment minister Mike Moyes to order a CEC hearing. “The effluent will create a pool. It will sit and accumulate until there’s a big spring flood.”
Gimli mayor Kevin Chudd presented to the CEC on behalf of council earlier that day, and also attended the evening session.
Chudd said he wants to be clear that Gimli council is “not about opposing development.”
“Our concern … is not whether development should happen. It is whether development of this scale is being asked to proceed before the foundation of trust, planning and collaboration is in place,” said the mayor. “This hearing is not simply about technical compliance. It is about whether we are prepared to apply science and common sense together, before approval – not after downstream impacts occur.”
Armstrong reeve Garry Wasylowski, a former chair of the Manitoba Association of Watershed and the East Interlake Watershed District and former member of the Lake Winnipeg Stewardship board, presented on behalf of his council.
He said council examined the colony project and stands behind the lagoon.
“Wastewater lagoons are the accepted standard in the Province of Manitoba. I’m unaware of the province … introducing any new standards for wastewater lagoons. Wastewater lagoons have been approved by the province … without going through a CEC Hearing. In fact, I’m unaware of a CEC hearing ever being held on any other lagoon project in … Manitoba,” said Wasylowski.
There are numerous lagoons much closer to Lake Winnipeg, he added, including three in the RM of Gimli.
“I will go on to say that more harm is being done to the lake by shoreline development,” said Wasylowski. “The destruction of coastal wetlands is reducing the lake’s ability to clean itself. Do you know where the sewage from those developments are going? Into the lake.”
Armstrong council is unaware of any “design flaws” in the lagoon project, he said, and the hearing is “more about stopping a colony from developing and stopping agriculture.”
“These decisions have to be made on best practices and sound science, not rhetoric and innuendo,” said Wasylowski in closing.
Silver Harbour representative Fred Veldink was among a number of speakers – Tanya Mishtak, Vicki Burns from Save Lake Winnipeg Project, Alex MacKenzie from Siglavik and Rob Jantz from Prairie Sea Kayak Adventures – who said the colony should use the Gimli Wastewater Treatment Plant rather than build a lagoon.
“Lake Winnipeg is very sick…. We are way beyond the natural ability of the lake to heal and purify itself. The evidence is clear: blue-green [algal blooms] already are becoming worse,” said Veldink. “Instead of a lagoon, we propose … the effluent … be trucked to the Gimli treatment plant [or] pumped [to the plant] via a pipeline … or the construction of a small on-site treatment plant .. such as the [one] … currently being used in East St. Paul.”
Randy Webber, who worked in the enviroment industry, including 17 years with the Manitoba government as an environment officer, and taught enviromental science at the University of Manitoba, said he lives about two miles from the proposed lagoon.
He pointed out that the presentation from the colony’s engineer, Burns Maendel, had approvals for most other matters, but not for the lagoon licence.
“It struck me … that the Environment Act proposal [for the lagoon] comes after all that other stuff and my conclusion is … there’s limited opportunity for public participation [and] the enviroment is being considered after the development. The enviroment seems to come last,” said Webber.
He showed the panel photos from Google Earth of the colony having already constructed buildings “in advance” of the approval of the lagoon. And that puts the environment minister “in a really challenging position because millions of dollars have been spent … and how would the minister say, ‘No, you can’t go forward.’”
He said the government’s enviromental process is flawed.
“It seems to me that it isn’t the [lagoon] proposal that’s the problem, but the process,” said Webber. “The Environment Act is not working.”
Commercial fisher Bill Buckels began his presentation by describing how he’s been covered in feces swirling around in the waters of Lake Winnipeg during harvesting seasons. The lake is a “convenient disposal site” for high risk industrial activities such as large-scale farming operations and wastewater disposal.
“To continue permitting intensive agricultural operations, specifically industrial-scale poultry and livestock facilities, within the sensitive Interlake watershed is to ignore the fundamental physics of our landscape,” said Buckels.
That landscape is one of flat topography and poor drainage. And during “high flow” events, water moves laterally across the landscape, carrying phosphorus and nitrogen off ag fields straight into Lake Winnipeg.
“The accumulation of phosphorus from intensive livestock operations fuels the growth of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). These blooms deplete oxygen levels, leading to massive fish kills,” he said. “They also facilitate the growth of algae that coat the rocky substrates required for spawning, effectively suffocating fish eggs and altering the benthic community.”
Buckels asked the province for a 30-kilometre buffer zone for new ag operations: “Specifically, I am demanding that your office implement a total moratorium on all new and expanding intensive livestock operations … specifically industrial poultry and livestock facilities located within 30 kilometres of the Lake Winnipeg watershed boundary. The ‘mitigation’ strategies currently relied upon are failing.”
He questioned why the province had not sought out Indigenous representation on the colony project.
Former Gimli councillor and RM of Gimli resident Andy Damm, who attended the hearing, said the issue of protecting our water resources comes down to the provincial government, which needs to set rigorous environmental standards and prevent causing friction between groups with different goals.
“It’s quite evident that the issue does not in itself lie with Crystal Spring/Harbour colony: it lies with the inadequate environmental regulations within the province. It’s a systemic government failure on all levels from lack of communication between the municipalities right up to not taking into account cumulative nutrient loading throughout the province,” said Damm.
“It pits neighbour against neighbour, municipality against municipality. How do we, in the end, have the larger conversation about cleaning up our environment with the agricultural sector and our neighbours to the south of the border if we can’t clean up our own back yard? Do we have to wait until our watershed is destroyed before we act? In the future, wars will be fought over water and we as a people can’t take the steps forward to protect our precious water resources.”
Willow Island resident Norma Bailey, who attended the hearing, said she was unhappy with one of the speakers who implied that residents are opposed to the Hutterites.
“I jumped up at the very end of the hearing to comment on one of the speakers who insinuated we were against Hutterites,” said Bailey “I said I was offended by the suggestion that just because we wanted to save our lake, didn’t mean that we didn’t want Hutterites in our community.”
She said she turned to the Hutterites sitting at the back of the room and told them they were “welcome in our community, but don’t hurt our lake.”
“I [didn’t want] this very important issue to get framed as a fight by locals against newcomers,” she said. “The issue is controlling what’s going into the lake – and that’s the government’s responsibility. It’s the fault of the government that the colony was given a green light, not the colony’s.”
The CEC will forward its recommendations to the provincial government, which will make the final decision on the proposed wastewater lagoon.
The Tribune asked the provincial department of environment and climate change about why there was no Indigenous consultation with regard to the lagoon and whether it will consider implementing a buffer zone.
“We always want to hear from Manitobans, which is why there are public comment periods for all environment act proposals and why, in this case, we requested a Clean Environment Commission hearing to better understand the concerns of those affected,” said minister Moyes. “These processes are open to all affected Manitobans. I look forward to receiving the CEC’s report that will include recommendations and other issues brought up at the hearing, with an eye to make a decision that ensures the long-term health of Lake Winnipeg.”
The federal departments of fisheries and oceans and environment and climate change Canada were asked about why they haven’t been a participant in the lagoon proposal to ensure Lake Winnipeg won’t be further polluted.
