Lake Winnipeg, the world’s tenth-biggest lake, isolated, ringed by pristine Boreal forest, tucked far away from industry and major population centres, has become the sickest big lake in Canada. A putrid green mat or “algal bloom”, twice the size of P.E.I. and clearly visible from space, is jaw-dropping evidence of an ecosystem in deep trouble – and the culprit is … [insert maniacal organ solo here] …come on take a guess … it’s the pigs, stupid (they were everywhere in 2009). Manitoba’s so-called “hog boom,” has seen the number of hogs in the Red River Valley watershed swill to 8.2 million. Those not so little piggies are dumping an annual shitload that would equal the excrement from at least 30 million humans. The Red River Valley, contributes 66 per cent of Lake Winnipeg’s phosphorus load. Meanwhile, Alberta, the western limit of the lake’s catchment area, has another eight million head of hogs and cattle. It gets worse – Lake Winnipeg is considered “just the tip of the iceberg.” This condition called “Eutrophication” is the No. 1 water quality issue on the planet (some of you may remember when a toxic bloom in the Yellow Sea at Qingdao nearly halted the sailing events at the previous year’s Beijing Summer Olympics).
Source: Canada’s Sickest Lake, MacLeans magazine August 20, 2009