Can a government ever do too much to reduce pollution? David Schindler thinks so.
I spoke to the University of Alberta ecology professor a few months ago for a sidebar to a magazine story on water. He told me phosphorus reduction is the key to tackling the problem of eutrophication in Lake Winnipeg.
Eutrophication is the process of a lake becoming so rich in nutrients that it has an overgrowth of algae. In Manitoba's largest lake, algae growth is choking the life out of fish.
Some of Schindler's colleagues disagree with his cut-the-phosphorus prescription and say nitrogen pollutants have to be trimmed too. Manitoba's Clean Environment Commission has decided to err on the side of caution and order the City of Winnipeg cut both in the sewage treatment process.
Schindler comes out swinging today in Winnipeg's daily broadsheet to say the commission is making a mistake as "there is not a single documented case anywhere where reducing inputs of nitrogen has decreased eutrophication of a lake."
The commission is ignoring volumes of "good science," he writes. "Only removing phosphorus at point sources, such as sewage treatment plants, and reducing non-point sources (feedlots and fertilized fields) will improve Lake Winnipeg water quality ..."
What's more, says Schindler, it's an expensive mistake. "I have never hesitated to advocate spending taxpayers' money when it would restore the health of a major ecosystem, but I also feel strongly that taxpayers should be spared when expenditures will achieve no environmental gain. For $48 million [the cost of nitrogen reduction], there are many worthy environmental problems that could be addressed in Manitoba. Removal of nitrogen from Winnipeg's sewage is not one of them."
So, this is a debate not over the scientific "controversy" of whether phosphorus reduction alone will stop eutrophication. This is also about when (or whether) governments go too far in some measures they say are for the good of our ecosystem.
Is the commission forcing Winnipeg to do too much, at too high a cost to taxpayers? I'm not sure, but Schindler makes a good case that it is.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
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3 comments:
I know the province has asked the Clean Environment Commission to issue a recommendation on whether to include nitrogen or not, in light of the arguments that have come out against removing it.
This article (http://www.mbeconetwork.org/newsitem.php?news=110) suggests that, by now, the recommendation should be imminent.
Hi, PT.
I suppose I should have written that the CEC has decided to include nitrogen-cutting *so far*. Maybe we've yet to hear the last from them on this subject. But on 27 March 2009 the Free Press reported the CEC "reaffirming its decision to remove both nitrogen and phosphorus from Winnipeg's waste water."
It's an interesting issue. Not sure who I agree with.
Wow, I completely missed the CEC announcement.
I don't have the scientific background to say for sure whether removing nitrogen is a good or bad idea, but my impression based on the debate I've heard thus far is that removing nitrogen will have little effect.
I'd be interested in reading a counter-argument to Schindler's on this issue.
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