Manitoba has joined with its neighbours in Ontario and Minnesota and is contributing $75,000 to conduct joint studies on water quality in Lake of the Woods, Water Stewardship Minister Christine Melnick announced today.  "Improving water quality within our shared basin will be of great benefit to Lake of the Woods and, ultimately, will benefit Lake Winnipeg," Melnick said.  "We are most thankful for the vision of our strong partners in Ontario and Minnesota and are pleased to work together to make a difference in our environment."

Eighty scientists and resource managers battled their way through a winter blizzard to attend the 6th Annual International Lake of the Woods Water Quality forum in March. The Forum featured a day and a half of research presentations and a half day of "working group sessions" focused on plans for inter-agency collaboration on water quality monitoring and work to prevent introductions and expansion of aquatic invasive species like the spiny water flea.

Main themes of the research presentations focused on: nutrients and algae, impacts of water level regulation, aquatic invasive species, and updates on research and monitoring initiated in 2008 by Environment Canada, Ontario Ministry of Environment, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Lake of the Woods is in good shape.  The State of the Basin report, a compilation of results from all previous studies of Lake of the Woods, released Wednesday at the 6th annual International Lake of the Woods Water Quality Forum, gathered data going back more than 50 years and will offer future researchers a base line to start from.  The report took two years to put together and is the first output of the Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation's collaborations with the governments of Ontario, Manitoba and Minnesota. 

In addition to compiling existing data, the report shows gaps where more research is needed, including the effect of three-weeks less ice cover and the cause of blue-green algae.  Download (normal resolution 9 mb)   Download (max. resolution 54 mb) 

Scientists and researchers from both Canada and the United States are attending the sixth International Lake of the Woods Water Quality Forum taking place today and tomorrow (March 11-12) at Rainy River Community College over in International Falls.

“It’s primarily a technical forum . . . for networking [and an] information exchange amongst the scientists and resource managers,” explained Todd Sellers, executive director of the Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation.

“But at the end of the day, the information that they’re learning about the lake will help guide the development of the plans and actions of all of our natural resource management agencies around the lake.