The Lake Simcoe Protection Act
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Description
Aside from the Great Lakes, Lake Simcoe is southern Ontario’s largest inland lake. Since European colonization began in the early 19th century, the Lake Simcoe watershed has experienced a decline in water quality. Increases in phosphorus and decreases in dissolved oxygen led to the collapse of Lake Simcoe’s cold water fisheries from the 1960s through the 1980s. The Lake Simcoe Environment Management Strategy (LSEMS), a multi-stakeholder environmental initiative, was launched in 1990 with the aim of reducing phosphorus loadings into the watershed. Despite the success of this initiative, it was determined that long-term efforts are needed to protect and restore the watershed, especially in light of ongoing development pressures, population growth and the effects of climate change.
In March 2008, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) began consultations on a discussion paper, Protecting Lake Simcoe: Creating Ontario’s Strategy for Action. MOE’s strategy to protect Lake Simcoe included the creation of legislation and a watershed protection plan. The ministry also created two advisory committees to aid in the development of the strategy: a Science Advisory Committee and a Stakeholder Advisory Committee. Proposed legislation to support the strategy was posted to the Environmental Registry for public comment in June 2008.
On December 2, 2008, the Ontario government passed the Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008 (LSPA). The purpose of the Act is to “protect and restore the ecological health of the Lake Simcoe watershed.” The Act requires the creation of the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan (the “Plan”) and the establishment of two Minister’s advisory committees: the Lake Simcoe Science Committee and the Lake Simcoe Coordinating Committee.
The Minister of the Environment must prepare an annual report that describes the measures taken to implement the Plan and summarizes the advice received from the two advisory committees. In addition, the Act requires the Minister to prepare a five-year report, detailing monitoring program results and how the objectives of the Plan are being achieved. The Act specifies that both the annual and five-year reports will be posted on the Environmental Registry.
The LSPA allows MOE to create regulations for activities that may adversely affect the ecological health of the watershed. For example, a shoreline protection regulation could regulate or prohibit activities in or around the shoreline, tributaries and wetlands of the watershed, and establish new shoreline permits to govern activities that may adversely affect the ecological health of the Lake Simcoe watershed.
Additional regulations could be created to require municipalities to pass tree cutting or site alteration by-laws under the Municipal Act, 2001 and for transitional matters related to the implementation of the Plan. To curb phosphorus or other nutrient inputs into the lake, the Act enables the government to make a regulation to establish a water quality trading system by amending the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA). Water quality trading is a mechanism for achieving water quality targets or objectives whereby dischargers can offset their pollution emissions by purchasing pollutant reduction credits generated by others within the watershed. However, the Minister of the Environment must prepare and place on the Environmental Registry a water quality trading feasibility report, followed by a response statement before such a regulation can be made.
| Lake Simcoe Protection Plan |
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| On June 2, 2009, MOE released the final Lake Simcoe Protection Plan, established under the Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008. The Plan consists of targets, indicators, and policies organized into categories,
including: aquatic life, water quality, water quantity, shorelines and natural heritage, other threats and activities (e.g., invasive species, climate change and recreational activities), and implementation. The policies in the plan are grouped into four categories:
The Plan includes a commitment to water quality targets, such as a long-term reduction of phosphorus loading to 44 tonnes per year to achieve dissolved oxygen levels of 7 mg/L in the lake. However, the Plan lacks any targets for water quantity, such as targets for water conservation or efficiency. The Plan does include a non-binding strategic action policy that commits specific municipalities to establish targets as part of their water conservation or efficiency plans within the next five years. The absence of any clear watershed level targets for water quantity may render the efforts largely ineffective. The ECO will review this decision in our 2009/2010 Annual Report and will continue to monitor the implementation of the Plan. |
A Watershed in Trouble
Located about an hour north of Toronto, the Lake Simcoe watershed is home to approximately 350,000 permanent residents and an additional 50,000 seasonal residents. The watershed crosses 23 municipal boundaries, including those that make up York and Durham Regions. It also contains a portion of the Oak Ridges Moraine, regulated under the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2001, and the provincially designated Greenbelt, regulated under the Greenbelt Act, 2005.
Over the last few decades, extensive development pressure has been evident in the watershed. Communities grew rapidly with a population expansion of 30 per cent from 1991 to 2001. The population within the watershed is anticipated to further increase as a direct result of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe under the Places to Grow Act, 2005. For example, the County of Simcoe, City of Barrie and City of Orillia must plan to accommodate an additional 275,000 residents by 2031, a 70 per cent increase compared to the 2001 population level of 392,000.
Development and intensive agricultural activities have caused extensive soil erosion and a staggering increase in phosphorus loading. Some scientists estimated that the annual phosphorus loading in Lake Simcoe increased threefold compared to pre-settlement rates. Anthropogenic sources of phosphorus flowing into Lake Simcoe come from sewage treatment plant discharges, erosion and runoff from agriculture lands, septic systems, storm-water run off from urban areas, and atmospheric deposition from the combustion of fossil fuels and forest fires.
Excessive phosphorus is considered the main threat to water quality in the Lake Simcoe watershed. An increase in phosphorus leads to an increase in aquatic plant and algae biomass, which contributes to the depletion of dissolved oxygen in the bottom layer (hypolimnion) of the lake and degradation of the critical habitat of coldwater species. Studies found that as hypolimnetic water quality declined in Lake Simcoe, recruitment failure of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), lake whitefsh ('Coregonus clupeaformis), and lake herring (Corgonus artedii) occurred during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, respectively. Currently, the lake trout and lake whitefsh populations are maintained or supplemented through hatchery stocking programs.
The Lake Simcoe Science Advisory Committee identified additional stressors that affect the Lake Simcoe ecosystem. These stressors include invasive species, pollutants (including pharmaceuticals and other organics, metals and contaminated sediments), bacteria and other pathogens, climate change, water extraction, and other human pressures, such as fishing, fish stocking, and boating.
MOE is taking an innovative approach in addressing phosphorus control by setting the stage for the development of a water quality trading strategy. On March 26, 2008, MOE filed Ontario Regulation 60/08 (Lake Simcoe Protection) under the OWRA to set interim limits on phosphorus loading into Lake Simcoe. The ECO reviewed this regulation in the Supplement to our 2007/2008 Annual Report (pages 137-141). In March 2009, MOE posted an exception notice on the Environmental Registry to extend the regulation for an additional year (Environmental Registry Number 010-6308) to allow for the development of a phosphorus reduction strategy (for more information please see Part 7.4 of this Annual Report).
Public Participation & EBR Process
On March 27, 2008, MOE posted a proposal notice on the Registry to invite public input on the proposed strategy to protect Lake Simcoe for a 36-day comment period. On June 17, 2008, MOE posted a proposal notice on the Registry to invite public input on Bill 99, the Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008. MOE provided a 60-day public review and comment period on the Registry. On January 13, 2009, the draft Lake Simcoe Protection Plan was posted on the Registry for a 62-day public review and comment period.
On June 18, 2009, MOE posted three decision notices: the first for the Lake Simcoe protection strategy; the second for the LSPA, which was passed and received Royal Assent December 10, 2008; and a third establishing the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan pursuant to section 3 of the Act. The Plan and sections 7 and 8 of the LSPA came into effect June 2, 2009.
During the comment periods for the strategy and LSPA, MOE held three community partner workshops and several focused stakeholder meetings (i.e., with the agriculture sector, Town of Georgina, Simcoe Chapter of Building Industry and Land Development, and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority). MOE began an Aboriginal Engagement Strategy in December 2007 that focused on early engagement and outreach activities to support the draft legislation. In addition, the ministry created two advisory committees, a Science Advisory Committee and a Stakeholder Advisory Committee.
MOE did an adequate job on public consultation for this strategy and legislation through the use of the Environmental Registry, public consultation sessions and workshops. The ECO commends MOE for establishing a Minister’s Science Advisory Committee and a Stakeholder Advisory Committee in the development of the strategy, legislation and Plan.
ECO Comment
The ECO commends MOE for undertaking a strategy, enacting legislation, and developing its Plan to provide increased protection to the Lake Simcoe watershed. The ECO acknowledges past efforts taken under the LSEMS to reduce phosphorus concentrations in the lake and re-establish some naturally reproducing cold water fisheries (such as lake trout). However, concern for Lake Simcoe’s watershed remains; uncertainty still surrounds the lake’s response to ongoing and future environmental stressors in the watershed, such as increased development and population growth, land use changes, climate change, and new invasive species.
The ECO supports MOE’s use of a landscape-level approach based on watershed planning in its strategy to protect and enhance Lake Simcoe. The ECO is especially encouraged that MOE has legislated a watershed management plan in Ontario’s land use planning system to address environmental concerns. Over the past decade, the Ontario government has enacted site or landscape-specific legislation to enhance environmental protection, such as the Greenbelt Act, 2005, the Oak Ridges Moraine Protection Act, 2001 and now the LSPA. Although the ECO is generally supportive of these environmental statutes, this trend in landscape-specific law, policies and land use plans clearly point to inadequate protection for ecosystem features and functions in southern Ontario’s overall land use planning system (i.e., guided by the Planning Act and the Provincial Policy Statement). While MOE’s approach to address environmental issues in Lake Simcoe is commendable, the ECO questions the use of this model for other watersheds in the province. The ECO wonders if resources used to develop the Lake Simcoe strategy would have been better allocated to examine and enhance current legislation, policies and activities to protect and restore the ecological health of all watersheds in Ontario.
Although the ECO is pleased that the overall goal of the LSPA does not focus exclusively on phosphorus loading, the ECO encourages MOE to maintain long-term phosphorus loading targets to reduce and limit further phosphorus inputs. Since Lake Simcoe has received excessive amounts of phosphorus that has accumulated in sediments over so many decades, its resilience to future land use changes and stresses such as climate change and invasive species may have been severely compromised. Hence, the success of the LSPA, the Plan, and the phosphorus reduction strategy is of paramount importance. The ECO will continue to monitor and review MOE’s progress and implementation of the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan. For a more detailed review of this decision, see Section 4.5 of the Supplement to this Annual Report.
| This is an article from the 2008/09 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2009. "Lake Simcoe: The Province Steps In." Building Resilience, ECO Annual Report, 2008-09. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 25-29.
