Eight years ago, when news came that Walkerton’s water supply had been tainted by E. coli bacteria, causing death and illness in the community, cottager Pat Moffat and many of her neighbours throughout the Kawarthas decided not to take any chances in their own neck of the woods. “Here we were at these lakes with our children swimming and swallowing water, not sure how safe it was. And sometimes filters don’t work perfectly,” she says. Like Walkerton, after all, the Kawartha lakes that are part of the Trent-Severn Waterway system are surrounded by agricultural land, sewage-treatment plants, septic systems, and housing development, all placing ever-greater pressure on the watershed.

In 2001, Moffat joined in efforts with the Ministry of the Environment’s Lake Partner Program and a private company, Lakefield Research, to test for E. coli and phosphorus contamination at various sites in 11 Kawartha lakes. She and her neighbours were relieved to learn that levels were generally very low. The group’s networking quickly coalesced, she says, and the Kawartha Lake Stewards’ Association (KLSA) was born, and which now includes members from about two dozen cottagers’ and residents’ associations in the region.

Back then, testing did identify a few E. coli hot spots, one in particular at Katchewanooka Lake near Lakefield College School. In that case, the KLSA testers were quickly able to pinpoint the problem: school children feeding their lunches to Canada geese, encouraging them to loiter and leave their droppings behind. “Don’t feed the geese!” became a KLSA slogan, and the title of the group’s first testing report in 2001. Today, thanks to the KLSA’s efforts, thousands of cottagers know not to feed geese and, instead of planting lawns, are creating “vegetative buffer zones” on their properties, where geese are less likely to congregate in large numbers. Today, says Moffat proudly, E. coli problems in the Kawarthas are “almost history.”

Testing lake-bacteria levels was just the beginning of the KLSA’s environmental-
protection and education activities. Another top concern for cottagers in the Kawarthas is the increased presence of troublesome water weeds, potentially interfering with swimming and boating activities. “This is serious,” says Moffat, who worries about cottagers using illegal pesticides to deal with the problem, without understanding the nature of the plants they’re killing or the possible human health effects. In collaboration with Trent University researcher Eric Sager, who monitors phosphorus levels in the area from the Oliver Ecological Centre on Pigeon Lake, cottagers are gaining a greater understanding of the role the element plays in the growth of weeds, and the fragile balance of the whole area’s ecosystem.

The KLSA hopes to determine through continued water testing what factors might contribute to unnatural levels of phosphorus. Sewage treatment, zebra mussels, and fertilizer use are all causes of concern and make the difference between lakes with submerged plants that are part of a naturally healthy habitat, and lakes compromised by species of invasive weeds (Eurasian milfoil, for instance). Of even greater concern is the effect of phosphorus on the dreaded, toxic blue-green algae—pond scum, in other words. “The Kawarthas are very different lakes from the Muskokas,” says Sager. “The question we want to answer through our own monitoring and other studies is what’s the tipping point between natural and excessive levels of phosphorus? We don’t really know.”

What Sager and the members of the KLSA, all volunteers, do know, however, is that their monitoring and educational efforts are key to maintaining the health of the Kawartha lakes. “The KLSA has filled a really important niche, as the provincial government has stepped away from long-term monitoring,” says Sager. “Now there is a community of residents interested in understanding the ecology of their lakes, and in finding out what are the best practices in weed management. It’s fascinating and exciting to watch.”

Moffat also finds it exciting to think about the numbers of people who have become engaged, through the KLSA, in local environmental issues. “Fifty people came to a meeting from Snug Harbour on Sturgeon Lake, just furious about what’s happening at the south end,” she says, referring to the Lindsay sewage-treatment plant. Seventy people are “active testers,” someone has volunteered to manage the group’s website, and the publisher of the Lakefield Herald is donating time and resources to publish the KLSA annual report.

Moffat has applied for an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to continue research on weed management. Though it’s “sometimes overwhelming to be called upon as an expert,” Moffat says she and the rest of the group’s members don’t plan to stop their work any time soon. The motivation, in the end, is pretty simple: “We love our lakes.”