A recent University of Regina report about south Saskatchewan’s toxicity levels in its lakes is prompting the chief of the Pasqua First Nation to review his community’s water quality.
Depending what he finds, Todd Peigan says he’ll ask the provincial government to improve the water quality of the First Nation’s adjacent Pasqua Lake.
“It confirms what we've been telling the (Water Security Agency) on the state of the Qu'Appelle water,” Peigan said of the 11-year, six-lake study that covered 52,000 square kilometres in the Qu’Appelle River drainage basin.
Designed by the U of R’s Peter Leavitt and conducted by three other water researchers, the study concludes global warming, pollution from urban waste and farmers’ spring run-off are all causing larger algae blooms to produce more microcystin in six lakes: Buffalo Pound, Last Mountain, Pasqua, Katepwa, Crooked and Wascana.
Microcystin is a chemical that can destroy an organism’s liver and cause cancer, Leavitt said; he told the Regina Leader-Post it’s more toxic than a “dose of cyanide” in a human’s system.
The Pasqua First Nation, which has 2,471 registered members, sits about 65 kilometres northeast of Regina. It borders Pasqua Lake on the lake’s south side, as does the Muscowpetung Saulteux Nation.
Peigan said Pasqua draws its drinking water from the Hatfield Valley Aquifer, underneath the community’s land. He said he and the First Nation’s council can’t conclude anything yet, but the U of R study makes it incumbent to find out if the lake’s toxic microcystin is impacting the underground aquifer.
Studying such impacts “would be some of the next steps we would have to look at, because those studies take financial resources and we would have to seek those (finances),” Peigan said.
For now, he’s in the “review stage,” comparing Leavitt and team’s results with those of a 2013-16 water quality study conducted by Pasqua First Nation, Muscowpetung First Nation and the Water Security Agency (WSA).
Peigan called it a “baseline study.” He wants to determine if the U of R study calls for lower toxin levels in Pasqua Lake than what the WSA-study did.
Called the Qu’Appelle Mass Balance Report, part of the WSA-study examined “phosphorus and nitrogen loads entering Pasqua Lake.” It concluded phosphorus and nitrogen contribute in part to the growth of algae blooms in the Qu’Appelle River watershed.
For example, the report found before Regina upgraded its wastewater treatment facility in 2017, the city contributed “9.3 per cent of the phosphorus and 52 per cent of the nitrogen load entering Pasqua Lake.” The report estimates those values have dropped to six per cent and 15 percent, respectively, after the upgrade.
The U of R researchers say in their report, too, phosphorus and nitrogen promote the growth of algae. But they conclude, “contrary to our hypothesis, temperature but not nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) had a positive effect on microcystin concentration beyond the seasonal pattern,” attributing temperature changes to global warming.
The U of R team also concluded an increased probability that “microcystin concentration exceeded (World Health Organization) and (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) drinking and recreational water limits” in four of the six lakes.
A graph mapping the team’s data shows that to be true for Pasqua Lake.
Depending on what he finds, Peigan said the WSA “has to do proper maintenance in regards to bringing the water quality back to the minimum of the baseline study.”
In such a scenario, “Our concerns would be identified to the provincial government through the WSA. And we would see what action plan, what best practices, they are going to incorporate to improve the water quality,” he said.
The WSA said it's aware of the U or R team's study, but it hasn't yet reviewed it. The agency intends to do so, saying it's "looking forward to working with all stakeholders in the Qu’Appelle region to improve water quality as we move forward."
