Turning the tide on Lake Winnipeg and our health
“Lake Winnipeg appears to be a repository or sink for a number of man-made chemicals.”
Dr. Gregg T. Tomy, Research Scientist and Section Head
Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Thousands of contaminants are now circulating in our rivers and lakes at unprecedented levels, and one of our greatest assets, Lake Winnipeg, is the ultimate recipient of our wastes. The needs are enormous for comprehensive, immediate action in the areas of baseline data acquisition, monitoring, legislation, and enforcement. All citizens of Manitoba, as well as government and industry, need to take action to reduce their use of toxic products.”
Dr. Eva Pip
Professor - University of Winnipeg.
Specialist in Water Quality and Toxicology.
Lake Winnipeg is a crown jewel amongst Manitoba’s natural areas. The lake covers 25,000 square kilometers (an area about ½ the size of Nova Scotia) and is an ecosystem in itself. Like a giant heart lying in the center of the continent, the tenth-largest lake in the world pumps water from four provinces and four US states into Hudson Bay.
The declining health of Lake Winnipeg is no secret to Manitobans. Disturbing and frequent reports in the media tell of excess nutrients flowing into the lake, creating colossal algae blooms that suffocate other aquatic life. But Lake Winnipeg is under attack from another, unseen threat—toxins.
In North America there are over 85,000 chemicals in use, many of them found in common household products. The chemicals contained in these products include known carcinogens (cancer-causing substances), reproductive toxins and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, most of which are unlabeled and untested.
Astoundingly, over 90% of chemicals used in North America have never been evaluated for their impact on human health and even fewer for their environmental impacts. While toxic chemicals such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), disodium EDTA and methyl paraben may sound foreign and unfamiliar, these common and highly toxic chemicals can be found in places like your mattress, shampoo and shaving cream.
Over the past 60 years, tens of thousands of synthetic chemicals have found their way into our water, air and food supply, and the results are sobering:
• In the 1930s, 1 in 10 Canadians could expect to develop cancer over their lifetime. Today, that number has risen to 1 in 2.4 Canadian men and 1 in 2.7 Canadian women.1
• Early puberty in girls and increased risk of breast cancer in women are increasingly being linked to xenoestrogens (chemicals that mimic female hormones). Phthalates in cosmetics and bisphenol-A (found in hard plastic water bottles) are among the suspects.
• In the last half-century sperm counts for men in industrialized countries have dropped by almost 50%, and in heavily industrialized Scotland a recent study showed men’s sperm counts decreased by 27% 2 in just 12 years.
Toxins are being found in the water, soil and aquatic life of Lake Winnipeg, and the detrimental effects of chemical pollutants in nature are easy to see.
