Lake Winnipeg - The urgent need for action - Manitoba Liberal pre-budget annoucement

Manitoba Liberals are First on the Environment

Today we held a press conference calling on the NDP government to include Lake Winnipeg, and addressing the environmental liability in cleaning up Lake Winnipeg in the budget - along with details of the comprehensive plan needed to restore Lake Winnipeg to health.


For the power point containing details of the presentation see below.



/Lake%20Winnipeg%20Pre-Budget%20%28u%29.ppt



Details of the news release are below:


News Release
Liberal Caucus Communications
Room 169, Legislative Building
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 28, 2008
NDP should take budgetary responsibility for Lake Winnipeg
Lack of government leadership on environment has lead to the demise of Lake Winnipeg: Gerrard

Winnipeg – At a news conference earlier today attended by environmentalists and concerned citizens, Manitoba Liberal Leader Dr.Jon Gerrard pointed to government inaction as a major cause for the deteriorating state Lake Winnipeg and called for full accounting, in the upcoming provincial budget, for the environmental liabilities associated with cleaning up the lake.

“The only significant thing that the NDP have done for Lake Winnipeg was to introduce a watered down version of our Liberal bill to ban phosphorus in dishwashing detergents, but that was a day late and a buck short,” Dr.Gerrard said. “It is time to acknowledge that we have an environmental responsibility to clean up Lake Winnipeg and it is irresponsible to omit this province’s largest environmental failure from the budget.”

Some years ago, Manitoba started accounting for environmental liabilities in its budgets. In 2007 the total reached about $150 million in environmental liabilities.

But, last fall, during estimates at the Manitoba Legislature, Finance Minister Greg Selinger said that the province had not allocated a single penny for the environmental liabilities associated with the cleanup of Lake Winnipeg.

“This government has a sad record when it comes to planning and an even worse record of delivering, but it is crucial that the NDP lay out the costs of the cleanup and provide a comprehensive plan to clean up the lake,” Dr.Gerrard said. “Without a proper budget for the cleanup and a costing of the cleanup, the program for cleaning up the lake will lack credibility and eventually lead to the squandering of taxpayer’ dollars.”

The Liberal Plan would:

1) Implement sewage treatment in Winnipeg based on a phosphorous only reduction strategy rather than both nitrogen and phosphorous, saving about $600 million.

2)Use some of the savings to reduce phosphorous outside of Winnipeg including:
implementation of a province-wide Alternative Land Usage (ALUS) program for farmers;
implementation of a small dams/water retention program modeled after South Tobacco Creek;
implementation of improved phosphorous reduction approaches for municipal waste outside Winnipeg;
implementation of model phosphorous reduction strategies in five-15 model watersheds like the Killarney Lake watershed
an assessment of the impact of the Hecla Island Causeway.

Dr. Gerrard has led the charge in calling for the cleanup of Lake Winnipeg and introduced the first in Canada legislation to ban phosphates in automatic dishwasher detergents. Dr.Gerrard also called for an end to the winter spreading of manure, a reduction in the use of phosphate cosmetic fertilizers on lawns and golf courses and a speed up in the removal of phosphorus from municipal sewage in Winnipeg.

“The Gary Doer NDP has too often tried to wash their hands of their responsibility to Lake Winnipeg by simply avoiding the subject, but algal blooms have been increasing year by year and the urgency of the situation increases every day.”

This announcement is the first in a series dealing with Liberal expectations for the upcoming provincial budget.


For more information or interviews, contact:

Samantha Charran
Liberal Caucus Communications
(204) 228-6707
samantha.charran@leg.gov.mb.ca

Manitoba Liberals. First on the Environment.