Alan Ernst and his wife Madeline were world travellers for most of their adult lives. So when they decided to settle down, they gravitated back to one of the most beautiful places they’d ever seen: the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta.

There, the sharp slopes of one of the world’s most dramatic mountain ranges make a sprawling dive to the foothills, which settle into the continent’s vast prairies.

When the Ernsts saw the eastern slopes for the first time, they knew it was going to be their new home.

“We just wanted to do something different,” Alan said. “We had office jobs before and we decided we wanted to live in a more pleasant surrounding than the suburbs of a major city. We wanted to live in the mountains.”

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The Ernsts found one of the last undeveloped natural areas in the eastern slopes, in between Jasper and Banff, and built the first eco-tourism lodge in Alberta. The Aurum Lodge was constructed in 1999 and opened to the public in the year 2000.  To this day it is the only dedicated, low-impact eco-tourism lodge in the province.

“I sometimes joke and say we are the antidote to Banff,” Alan laughed.

Their lodge, located along the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan river basin, overlooks Abraham Lake, which glows electric blue with the region’s signature glacial water.

But all is not serene in Alberta’s foothills. The Ernsts say a “free for all” attitude is allowing industry to encroach more and more into the wilderness each year.

“There is very little understanding for conservation here,” Alan said. “It’s all about promoting industry and letting industry do whatever they want. Unfortunately that is resulting in the loss of natural areas. We see industry coming closer every year.”

But this year there’s a rare opportunity to protect the North Saskatchewan river basin while the Alberta government develops a regional plan, called the North Saskatchewan Land Use Framework.

The big question is how the plan balances the needs of people and the environment with industrial development and motorized recreation.

The region, despite being popular for recreation, is relatively undisturbed, says Sean Nichols, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“It tends to be low-impact recreation,” he said. “And we’re really trying to get those people, who live in and use the area, involved in the land use framework planning process.”

Abraham Lake in fall. "This image shows the beauty of an area which deserves to be protected in its current state," Alan Ernst said. Photo by Alan Ernst.

The Alberta Wilderness Association has partnered with Mountain Equipment Co-op to help bring the voices of outdoor enthusiasts into the process.

A camper, hiker or kayaker might be “one of the strongest voices that can be a part of the planning process,” Nichols said.

Previous land use planning processes have been dominated by municipal, industrial or agricultural voices.

“We wanted people who actually recreate and live in these areas to get involved in the process,” Nichols said.

“For a long time, Alberta has been of a Wild West mentality: few people and lots of land and resources,” Nichols said. But as populations in the province grow and competition over resources increases, that’s beginning to change.

“We’ve got more people, fewer resources and land to support those people,” he said.

“We’re at a stage where the wild frontier mentality isn’t working.”

With a variety of demands on the land base, officials are now moving into a new mindset of developing integrated land use frameworks that take into account not just residential, recreational or industrial needs, but also the needs and limits of the ecosystem itself.

“We’re in a place where Alberta, maybe for the first time, is ready to make those tradeoffs,” Nichols said. “At this stage, we’re cautiously optimistic.”

Four Decades of Attempts to Protect the North Saskatchewan's Headwaters

Nichols’ colleague Vivian Pharis, a director of the Alberta Wilderness Association, has been involved in efforts to protect the eastern slopes region since the 1970s.

“It’s the most beautiful example of pristine eastern slopes Rockies out into the foothills,” Pharis said. “Our national parks don’t take in much foothill land so Alberta has protected almost nothing within its two foothills regions.”

Abraham Lake is Alberta's longest man-made lake at 33 kilometres. It formed after the Bighorn Dam was constructed on the North Saskatchewan in 1972. The area "would be an ideal candidate for a Provincial Park which would provide permanent protection," Alan Ernst said. Photo by Alan Ernst.

The region has nearly achieved permanent protection twice, before the opportunity slipped away.

“What most people don’t know is that in 1986 the government almost had this whole headwaters area protected,” Pharis said. “Prior to that most of these lands in the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan were part of the national parks system.”

A lack of public concern and an absence of government initiative allowed the region’s protected status to remain unlegislated, Pharis explained, and eventually vast areas were removed from within park borders, as boundaries designating Banff and Jasper National Parks were constricted.

Each time a policy plan has made its way into document form, Pharis said, it fails to become law, leading to incremental changes that threaten the integrity of the entire ecosystem.

Although the mid-80s showed some promise, with a minister keen on conservation, things eventually “fell apart,” Pharis said, and within a few years “the oil and gas activity, forestry, etcetera were just putting so much pressure on the province, they left land use planning altogether.”

Now, through the regional land use planning process, there’s an opportunity to protect 90 per cent of the North Saskatchewan headwaters.

“It’s essentially a no-brainer to protect,” Pharis said. “It would be such a boon to Alberta and this river system if those headwater did get protection under this plan.”

An advisory council could make recommendations to the province for land use plans in the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan river basin as early as this fall.

North Saskatchewan Headwaters Crucial For Drinking Water, Wildlife Survival

For Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, the land use plan has the unique opportunity to not only protect one of the province’s most significant sources of drinking water, but to protect vast wildlife range from human disturbance, saving it for generations to come.

The North Saskatchewan River in the Kootenay Plains. Photo by Alan Ernst.

“First and foremost, the North Saskatchewan Regional Plan should protect the extensive headwaters that supply cities like Edmonton with drinking water,” she said. But it should also include the means to conserve “wildlife corridors that allow grizzly bears and other wide-ranging species to move freely from one protected area to another.”

Cox notes that the region has already lost its native herds of woodland caribou. “We don’t want to lose any more species,” she said.

According to the Alberta government’s own data, she said, there are 45 at-risk species in the North Saskatchewan planning region, including Canada lynx, bull trout and the trumpeter swan. 

The land use plan could protect the least disturbed parts of the area from motorized vehicles and forestry, she said.

“People who live in the region love to recreate in the mountains. They would like to see protective measures in place so that their children and grandchildren will be able to experience the wilderness and catch a glimpse of the remarkable wildlife that draws people from all over the world to this area.”  

Eco-Tourism Provides Economic Opportunity for Alberta

For the Ernsts, protecting the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan offers more than an ecological opportunity — it has the potential to provide a new vision for the Albertan economy.

Saskatchewan Glacier and Lake in Banff National Park. Photo by Alan Ernst.

“When you look around along the North Saskatchewan river where we live it is still pretty much the way it was 100 or 200 years ago,” Alan said. “It is still a very natural area.”

“We have high density of wildlife which is important for biodiversity and also for potential tourism development. I think keeping an area like this the way it is has as much economic importance and benefit as developing it,” he said.

Continuing to attract tourists from all over the world to the Rocky Mountain region “will require careful land use planning,” Alan said.

He thinks previous land use plans have favoured industry, rather than considering other low-impact uses of the land.

“I am hoping that this will be different,” he said, “but I fear it will be more of the same.”

For Sean Nichols from the Alberta Wilderness Association, this is the perfect time for Albertans to get involved with the North Saskatchewan land use plan.

Although the Alberta government won’t officially seek public comments until a first draft for the plan is put on the table, you can register your interest through Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Homewaters campaign today and be kept in the loop on chances to comment.

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image Credits: Top: Aurum Lodge overlooking Abraham Lake. All photos by Alan Ernst. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When Debbie and Allen Hall bought waterfront property on Lake Fanning in Nova Scotia, they looked forward to a relaxing semi-retirement with their six grandchildren swimming and playing in the lake.

But, a decade later, the Yarmouth-area lake is unusable because of scummy blue-green algae blooms, most likely caused by manure run-off from nearby mink farms. The Halls considered moving and taking a financial blow, but have now resorted to building a swimming pool in an effort to reclaim a fraction of the lifestyle they dreamt about.

“We used to think of the classic cliché of fun at the lake, running and jumping off the dock. Now there are massive blooms from late May until November and when they die off, the bacterial decomposition uses up all the oxygen and we end up with huge dead zones,” said Debbie Hall.

Nova Scotia lakes and rivers have been polluted by excess nutrients and phosphorus to the point that no one knows when — or if — they will recover and studies point the finger at fur farms.

There are now 150 mink farms in Nova Scotia and the industry generated $140 million last year with most of the pelts going to Russia, China and South Korea.

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There were few regulations as mink farming expanded in Nova Scotia over the last decade and manure, extra feed and carcasses were thrown into wetlands while run-off from farms seeped into the Carleton, Meteghan and Sissiboo River watersheds.

“Now the wetlands are absolutely saturated with this crap so I don’t expect to see improvement in my lifetime,” Hall said.

Her fears are supported by the latest report prepared for Nova Scotia Environment by Michael Brylinsky of Acadia University.

Water quality surveys carried out between 2008 and 2012 showed lakes within the watersheds to be seriously degraded “primarily with respect to high nutrient over-enrichment resulting in the development of high algal concentrations,” says Brylinsky’s report, released in July.

Brylinsky identified mink farms as the likely culprits in a 2012 report and his latest report confirms that finding.

“These studies have also shown the degradation in water quality to be primarily a result of high phosphorus inputs resulting from releases emanating from mink farming operations,” it says.

Brylinsky found that, last year, water quality in monitored lakes did not change significantly.

New legislation and regulations governing fur farms have been introduced by the Nova Scotia government, but critics say they do not go far enough or set penalties. Those affected by mink farms are also angry that farmers have been given three years to comply.

The regulations include requirements for farms to have an engineer-approved management plan, surface water and soil monitoring programs, concrete pads for storing manure and compost and setbacks from property lines and water courses.

Jocelyne Rankin, water coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, does not believe the new rules will be sufficient.

One problem is that the Department of Agriculture, which is encouraging the booming industry, is responsible for enforcing regulations, Rankin said.

“The fox is guarding the henhouse,” she said.

The process will be complaint driven and, in small communities, residents are often reluctant to report on their neighbours, Rankin said.

Ecology Action Centre has teamed up with Mountain Equipment Co-op this summer to encourage outdoor enthusiasts to ask the Government of Nova Scotia to restore the province’s lakes and rivers.

Julia Bancroft of the Tricounty Watershed Protection Society questions why the regulations do not include consequences, such as making polluters pay.

“This is the third version (of the regulations) and they have watered them down,” she said, pointing out that mink farmers will still be able to compost on site.

“All the carcasses and manure and excess feed can be piled up and they call it composting,” she said, describing a stench and influx of seagulls at farms near her lakefront property.

Almost all the farms are in headwaters and tests show at least 10 lakes and 75 kilometres of the Tusket River have been affected, Bancroft said.

“They say it’s a green product and, yes, it is. All our lakes are green,” she said.

“You can’t bathe in the water, you can’t swim in it, you can’t boil it and you can’t cook with it. Nothing makes it OK.”

However, Dan Mullen, Nova Scotia Mink Breeders Association president, believes others have to take some responsibility for polluted waters instead of pointing the finger solely at mink farming.

“I don’t say we have zero impact, but there are many other impacts on the water system like old septic systems and run-offs from clearcuts,” said Mullen, who believes some of the opposition is coming from animal rights activists.

 Provincial regulations should help allay fears and set standards, Mullen said, adding he believes it is better to work with farmers, rather than setting penalties, as it will head off problems before they occur.

As the industry grows, there are also fledgling spinoff operations using mink manure, such a making pellets for organic fertilizer or burning it to generate electricity, he said.

“It is unprecedented in North America to have such a stringent set of rules about disposal of manure and carcasses,” Mullen said.

However, John Werring, David Suzuki Foundation senior science and policy advisor, who helped review Nova Scotia’s fur farm rules, said he believes the regulations are toothless.

“The initial regulations were sound and would have been effective, but, for some reason, government changed their whole opinion and went to results-based regulations, putting it in the hands of industry,” he said.

“They are not tough at all. They were originally, but they backed off,” said Werring, adding that it seems to be another case of corporate profit and government’s desire to create jobs winning out over environmental protection.

But for some, cleanup efforts and regulations have already come too late.

Barrie MacGregor is the former CEO of Yarmouth YMCA, which ran Camp Wapomeo on Lake Fanning from 1921 to 2009.

The lake was used for swimming and canoeing by the approximately 600 kids who attended the camp each year and lake water was treated and used for cooking, washing and drinking.

Blue-green algae first appeared in 2006/07 and, in 2009, the camp closed because the lake water was unusable, meaning water had to be trucked in while campers were taken to a different lake for recreation.

“The blue-green algae was the tipping point for the camp,” MacGregor said.

Others, such as Debbie Hall, would like to see Nova Scotians question the need for a mink farming industry.

“It’s fur. It’s a cosmetic industry. It’s not as if it’s for food,” she said.

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image Credit: Lake Fanning by Debbie Hall

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Never swim in the Ottawa River if it has rained during the previous 48 hours, recommends Meredith Brown, the executive director of Ottawa Riverkeeper.

The non-profit group is raising public awareness about raw sewage pouring into the popular recreational river after rainstorms or snow melts. Making matters worse, on the Quebec side of the river, there is a lack of adequate testing for fecal coliform bacteria levels at beaches, Brown said.

The problem is combined sewer overflows — pipes that carry both storm water and untreated sewage. These systems were built in many Canadian cities between 1880 and 1960.

Usually the liquid goes to treatment plants, but, when volumes threaten to swamp plants, the untreated mixture is diverted into the river to prevent flooding and sewer backups.

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“Some combined sewers rarely overflow, while others overflow every time it rains, “ says a City of Ottawa information sheet.

It is a problem that is gaining increasing attention from those who kayak, swim, sail or paddleboard in the river, Brown said.

“Once people find out, they are disgusted,” she said. “People are starting to think of this as a moral issue.”

Ottawa Riverkeeper has teamed up with Mountain Equipment Co-op this summer to raise awareness of the issue and encourage outdoor enthusiasts to join them in calling on the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau to report every time untreated sewage is released into the river.

Many people do not realize that recreational fun in the river has made them sick, Brown said, but swimming in polluted waters can cause numerous health problems, from ear infections to gastrointestinal illnesses.

Gatineau lags behind Ottawa in replacing combined sewer system

An added complication is that the Ottawa River separates Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec, and the two municipalities are replacing their combined sewers at different paces.

Ottawa is in the fifth year of an Ottawa River Action Plan and a recent report to council said the sewer separation program is about 90 per cent complete, with an 80 per cent reduction in sewage spills from combined sewers. The city is also looking for matching funding from the federal and provincial governments for a $195-million plan for a combined sewage storage tunnel.

Progress has not kept up on the Gatineau side of the border, Brown said.

“They still release millions of litres of sewage into the river,” she said. “In Gatineau it happens almost every time it rains. It doesn’t even have to be heavy rain.”

Gatineau spokesperson Alain d’Entremont said the number of overflow events decreased to 992 last year from 1,500 in 2006. There are now 92 points where sewage can enter the river from combined pipes, down from 110 in 2009.

“We are replacing and redoing (pipes) in some of the old neighbourhoods and the new neighbourhoods don’t have combined sewage,” d’Entremont said.

Gatineau is proactive in ensuring it gets matching funds from other levels of government for infrastructure replacement, but they are expensive projects, he said.

For her part, Brown understands that money-squeezed municipalities are forced to chip away slowly at infrastructure replacement, but, especially as the contamination is ongoing, recreational river users need up-to-date information on beach pollution, she said.

SwimGuide app tracks beach pollution levels

Ottawa Riverkeeper, with sister riverkeeper organizations from across Canada and the U.S, have created the free SwimGuide app, which tells people about beach pollution levels — but information about Gatineau’s three city beaches is not always current.

Water at Ottawa’s five beaches is tested daily by the city’s public health department, but, in Quebec, provincial rules require water testing only three to five times during the summer.

Gatineau was already exceeding provincial rules by testing every second week and is now moving to weekly testing for the three beaches, d’Entremont said.

“This summer it seems to be a very sensitive issue and we are going over and above the regulations,” he said.

Unlike Ottawa, the Gatineau beaches are not downstream from a large sewage plant, he said.

Based on the test results, Quebec gives each beach a letter grade. An A grade means there are between zero and 20 coliform units per 100 ml of water. When water deteriorates to a D grade, meaning there are more than 200 coliform units in 100 ml of water, swimming or other recreational activities are not recommended and warning signs are erected at beaches.

In 2012, when Gatineau beaches were tested 12 times, the Parc Moussette beach received a D rating three times. In 2013, with eight test dates through the summer, the same beach was posted as unsafe for swimming once and this year, with seven tests completed so far, there have been no beach closures.

Health Canada estimates that, at the D-grade level, one or two per cent of swimmers will become ill from contamination. That means about 100,000 Canadians a year get sick from swimming in polluted waters.

Brown is hoping that the growing awareness of sewage contamination in the river will mean more public pressure, both for daily testing and for measures to stop the contamination.

“You can’t fix what you haven’t measured. That’s the first step,” she said.

Even if the health concerns don’t push governments to action, there is also a strong economic argument for cleaning up the river and ensuring people are kept informed about pollution levels, she said.

“The Ottawa River is the economic engine of the region. It’s a fantastic recreational river,” she said. Water quality also affects the tourism business in small communities around the Ottawa River, Brown said.

“People spend a lot of money to go places where they can swim in the water. If that is jeopardised, they start to lose business.”

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image Credit: Ottawa Riverkeeper

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Toronto residents should be alerted when sewage is being dumped into public waters, argues a legal request filed with the Ontario government  by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

The request was filed July 9, on the anniversary of last year’s widespread flooding, which resulted in 1.3 billion litres of sewage flowing into the Humber River and Lake Ontario over the course of 28 hours without residents being informed.

“We see it as a slam dunk,” Waterkeeper president Mark Mattson told DeSmog Canada. “We’ve never met anyone who thought it shouldn’t happen. If there’s a heat alert, you publish it. If there’s a smog alert, you publish it. It should be the same for sewage.”

The Ministry of the Environment has two months to respond to Waterkeeper’s request.

*Update on July 24: The Minister of the Environment Glen Murray accepted Waterkeepers application and now has until September 13 to decide whether or not to conduct a review. Murray told the Toronto Sun: “I feel that the public has the right to know when bypasses occur. Every city or town has a responsibility to notify the public when a bypass occurs. Municipalities have standards in law as well as their own plans in place that they need to follow.”

In 2013, 4.2 billion litres of sewage bypassed treatment plants and went straight into Toronto’s waterways.

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“There are 10 beaches in Toronto, 55 kilometres of waterfront. People have their dogs running around, people are paddling on the water,” Mattson said.

It took the Waterkeeper group four months and a Freedom of Information request to get information from the city on how much sewage was released during the flood.

“What’s the point of having the information in October when the information needs to be known when it happens?” Mattson said. 

Sewage is dumped directly into Toronto’s waterways about three times a month when the sewer system can’t handle the volume of liquids. Toronto residents paddle, sail and fish in areas where sewage bypasses are taking place, generally unaware that the water could make them sick.

Contaminated water can make people sick

Human contact with sewage-contaminated water can result in serious health concerns including eye, ear, nose and throat infections. If any contaminated water is consumed, it can cause stomach disorders and rashes, and even result in typhoid fever, hepatitis or dysentery.

“We feel like there’s a real disconnect between people and their water these days. They don’t have all the facts. There’s this tendency to think everything’s being taken care of,” Mattson said.  

The city of Kingston, Ont., has been alerting citizens when sewage overflows into waterways since 2006. That has brought a lot of pressure to deal with the antiquated sewage system, Mattson said.

“Here in Toronto, everyone just assumes it’s not that big a problem because they don’t have the information,” Mattson added.

And yet, every time there’s more than 25 millimetres of rain (last year’s storm saw 120 mm fall in just a few hours), the city’s aging pipes can’t handle the volume and sewage is flushed into waterways.

“It’s always best not to go swimming anywhere after it rains,” Mattson said.

Climate change, population growth exacerbating problem

The problem is only getting worse as the city grows and storms hit with higher frequency.

“We are having changes to our climate here, so we’re seeing more and more intensive rain than we have in the past,” Mattson said.

With safety in mind, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper created the SwimGuide app, which has been downloaded over 200,000 times and helps people find clean beaches.

The group is also part of Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Homewaters campaign, which is urging outdoor enthusiasts to sign up to bolster Waterkeeper’s legal push for public alerts every time sewage is spilled into local waters.

“I see this as a building block toward rebuilding swimmable, drinkable, fishable water in Canada,” Mattson said.  

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image: Lake Ontario Waterkeeper

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.