Watershed Scale Solutions to Pollutant Phosphorus for Lake Erie HABs Prevention: An Eastern Canada Perspective

Progress in protecting the Great Lakes is not keeping up with the intensifying impacts of climate change, population growth, and nutrient pollutant overloads from agricultural activities and wastewater treatment plant discharges. Innovative technologies for the reduction of nutrient pollutant Phosphorus (P) are being considered to enhance water quality and aquatic biodiversity (Harmful Algal Bloom mitigation) as a potential solution to the vexing problem of P pollution. The manuscript and presentation will present efforts endeavored by the Thames River Watershed, Ontario Canada, which discharges into Lake St. Clair and then the North shore of Lake Erie Western Basin, via a collaborative approach for non-point sources and pathways of P pollution on a watershed-wide basis. Point source P-recovery research efforts undertaken by Laval Univesite, Quebec City, Quebec are also addressed. Loss of dissolved phosphorus (P) from agricultural, horticultural, urban, and recreational lands to water bodies promotes eutrophication and hence is the focus of multiple field demonstration projects managed by the Thames River Phosphorus Reduction Collaborative (PRC) and funded by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). The PRC also honed in on using Phosphorus Adsorptive Media for wastewater treatment application for dissolved P reduction and farm field reduction of dissolved P from surface run off and tile drainage (edge of field treatment), which constitute the majority of projects described herein. Multiple project sites were selected and multiple treatment technologies were awarded via an RFP solicitation to carry out a three-year, pilot-scale field demonstration. Each will be described herein by treatment technology or methods, including results and observations just prior to manuscript publication.