Sickness-spreading algal mats our just desserts
The problem is greater than just Lake Winnipeg
Dean Jensen
Unless you live in a hole (and more power to you if you do), then you’ve undoubtedly heard of the growing problem with algal blooms on Lake Winnipeg. For those of you who haven’t heard, the deal is this: algae, particularly the blue-green variety, are spreading like mad across the lake’s surface, effectively choking the life out of the lake, which is a major source of fresh water.
The cause of this problem is simple — human activity. Among our improper land uses implicit in this creeping death is our penchant for adding phosphate-heavy fertilizers to lawns and agriculture lands, not to mention our density-intensive livestock-rearing methods; all of which only go to feed our constantly craving bellies and our odd compulsion for immaculately well-trimmed green lawns. As well, our use of phosphate-loaded cleaning products to clean up after our disgustingly lazy selves contributes nicely to the problem, as does our failure to adequately filter our sewage to remove the nutrients our excremental waste is ripe with.
Why should we care? Because these algal blooms are killing the lake, and a lake is something much, much bigger than ourselves. Good ol’ Gary Doer himself pledged recently to eliminate phosphates from cleaning products sold in Manitoba, and a few new initiatives, including reconstruction of wetlands around the city, are aimed at limiting the amount of run-off entering our river systems and ultimately Lake Winnipeg. Too little too late? Maybe, but a (baby) step in the right direction, nonetheless.
Algae, like our lawns and farm fields, devour these phosphates and grow like crazy, which lead to the out-of-control blooms now appearing on our otherwise fresh waters. Blue-green algae, the breed currently choking Lake Winnipeg, also acts as a nitrogen fixer. The blue-green algae takes inactive nitrogen from the atmosphere and makes it available for consumption, which then leads to further reproduction and to the rising tide of green, stinking sludge along shorelines. Not only does this stuff spread across the surface, sucking up our filtered-yet-nutrient-rich effluent and run-off at a gluttonous pace; but it then, after a sick shit-fueled orgy of consumption, kicks the bucket and sits, rotting on the surface until it decomposes. This, however, is not the end of the nightmare. The bacteria that aid in the decomposition of this crap then reproduce themselves at an alarming rate, subsequently sucking up all the available dissolved oxygen in the water, starving fish and other marine populations of the life-giving gas. This then causes a mass die-off (hypoxia), which further exacerbates the problem as the bacterial carcasses are then subject to decomposition. And on and on we go.
Egad, eh? What a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into with this one. But surely, something can be done, right? Well, I should hope so! The government is currently dropping millions of dollars to fund studies of the grim case of Lake Winnipeg, and with luck, something will come up soon, otherwise, we are all doomed, not just the poor lake.
Really, this should not come as a surprise. After all, what has fueled the out-of-control spread of blue-green algae in the first place? Human activity, and namely, our desire for more. More food, mostly. Our own exponential growth is fuelling the unrelenting and unsustainable growth of algal blooms in our rapidly dwindling freshwater supplies, which, if not treated, will eventually lead to Lake Winnipeg’s ultimate demise.
I was thinking the other night, and I found our (human) situation to have many parallels with the case of Lake Winnipeg and its much-maligned algae problem. We (humans) are rapidly spreading ourselves across a finite space (the Earth), sucking up all the nutrients in front of us like so many bottom-feeding parasites, not looking forward, or backward, or anywhere except to the next delicious mouthful until we are gorged full to bursting. Then we die, leaving our bloated rotting corpse behind for someone else (and then, the Earth, again) to deal with.
Put your own life into hyper-mode for a moment. Imagine that your 80 years on Earth fly by at the rate of which our singular algal bloom exists. A disgustingly similar pattern of consuming, swelling, dying, and rotting is observed, choking space and life out around you as you go. Bleak, eh? Well, not really. This is the way things go, essentially. However, wanton consumption need not play a part in it. If we humans wish to pass our genetic codes onward and have our children exist in a world no more (if not much less) terrifyingly doom-ridden and bleak than the growing chemical wasteland we inhabit presently, then a change is needed. Plain and simple.
It is time for us to manage our shit better, folks, or pay the price.
