Experimental Lakes Area
[6][7] During the 1970s and 1980s, David Schindler, who was at that time 'Canada's leading ecologist', conducted a series of innovative, landmark large-scale experiments in ELA on eutrophication that led to the banning of phosphates in detergents.
[11][12][13][14][15][16] The facility is now managed and operated by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and has a mandate to investigate the aquatic effects of a wide variety of stresses on lakes and their catchments.
[3] Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear, argued that "our government has been working hard to ensure that the Experimental Lakes Area facility is transferred to a non-governmental operator better suited to conducting the type of world-class research that can be undertaken at this facility" and that "[t]he federal government has been leading negotiations in order to secure an operator with an international track record."
[7] The ELA project originated as a Canadian governmental response to the International Joint Commission (IJC)'s recommendation (1965) to Canada and the United States for additional support for studies on transboundary pollution in the lower Great Lakes.
Dr. W. E. Johnson of the Freshwater Institute of Winnipeg convinced the Canadian government that unimpeachable evidence could be obtained by experimental pollution of pristine lakes through controlled overfertilization of specified elements.
[24][25][26][27][28][29] ELA was earlier co-sponsored by the Canadian Departments of Environment and Fisheries and Oceans, with a mandate to investigate the aquatic effects of a wide variety of stresses on lakes and their catchments [30][31] and is now managed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
"Work at the ELA has produced important evidence on the effects of acid rain and led to the discovery that phosphates from household detergents cause algal blooms.
"[11] In the years leading up to the 2001 Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering award, Schindler's research "demonstrated the cumulative impacts on boreal lake life of global warming, acidification and ozone depletion.
Using long-term reference data collected at the ELA, he has shown that climate warming and drought have severe and previously unrecognized effects on the physics, chemistry, and biology of lakes.
[42] In 2012, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced that it planned to discontinue supporting the site at the end of the financial year, March 31, 2013, at a cost of $50 million.
The new provisions create an incentive to drain a lake and kill all the fish, if not in a fishery, in order to fill a dry hole with mining tailings.In March 2013, with no advance notification to scientists whose personal belongings remained at the site or to the IISD, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans began dismantling cabins that had been used by the Experimental Lakes Project scientists.
[45] Scientist Roberto Quinlan of the Society of Canadian Limnologists said that this move "brings into serious doubt the government’s sincerity to actually transfer the facility over to another operator.
The experience gained at ELA by many scientists has resulted in the dissemination of environmental expertise and problem solving throughout the world, improving human conditions, protecting the environment, and saving millions of dollars for citizens and government agencies.
[48] NDP MP Philip Toone argued that the "internationally recognized program with huge spin-offs for Canada will cost more to close and move than the $2 million that the government hopes to save.
[19] Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has committed support to keep the ELA "operating in the long term after the federal Conservative government walks away from the world-class freshwater research station at the end of August 2013.
"[36][35] Elizabeth May, who served on the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development for nine years prior to entering politics, argues that the "IISD, a think tank, is not necessarily the right organization to take on this mandate.
In 2017, IISD-ELA launched a three-part study to determine the impacts of diluted bitumen on boreal freshwater systems and shoreline clean-up methods.
