There is no silver bullet to keep algae blooms out of our Great Lakes.
Now, local farmers are taking on a larger role to protect their watersheds.
When a wind storm blew into southwestern Ontario in March, it created a soil plume across Chatham-Kent.
That plume landed in the dauphin drain.
“We did see a big spike in phosphorus,” said Austin Pratt, water quality specialist.
Pratt knows this because of a machine that pumps water from the ditch into the carrousel where it takes a sample.
It’s part of a phosphorus tracking program by the Lower Thames Valley River Conservation Authority.
“We're trying to get a hold of the concentrations in terms of nutrients that’s coming off the landscape, being pumped into Jeannettes Creek,” says Pratt.
With the hopes of preventing algae blooms further downstream, in the Great Lakes.
“We want to get a better understanding of where its coming from, how it’s coming, in what forms,” says Pratt.
It’s a three-year program, with the Chippewas of the Thames First Nations, as well as local farmers.
Louis Roesch, director of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture says it’s a learning process.
Roesch is a cash crop farmer in Chatham-Kent. He says plants need phosphorus.
“It absolutely has to have it, that’s part of your growth, and greening effect,” says Roesch.
So farmers are trying to balance that need with keeping it out of the water. Roesch says they are working with the conservation authority to develop phosphorus management practices.
GPS is now used in farming to figure out acre by acre what nutrients are needed and what ones are not.
“So you're putting it exactly where the crops need, and you're not putting on that extra phosphorus in the areas where you don't need it,” says Roesch.
There are 15 of machines across Chatham-Kent monitoring how much phosphorus is getting into the watershed.
