Local supporters of the Experimental Lakes Area are encouraging the province to save the facility from closing.
About 20 pickets set up to voice opposition to the closing of the ELA outside of MPP Michael Gravelle’s (Lib. Thunder Bay – Superior) Algoma Street office. The federal government announced it wouldn’t provide any more funding to the facility outside of Kenora.
The ELA, which consists of 58 small lakes, was scheduled to be closed at the end of March but a number of parties expressed interest in the purchase the facility from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Ruth Cook, spokeswoman for the Thunder Bay Chapter Canadian Council of Canadians, said she hopes the province ends up being the one that ultimately takes over the facility.
“The province is apparently in negotiations to try and work out some kind of solution but we haven’t heard anything definitive,” Cook said.
“We want to try and get some definitive answers today and try to get a commitment from the provincial government. Privately owned is a concern for us because they might turn out to be someone like a chemical company. If that happens then you can’t trust that the science is impartial.”
The government says that it will save $2 million annually if the facility closes.
Cook argued user fees offset the $2 million so the actual cost to run the facility would be closer to $400,000.
She called that a minimal amount of money for a provincial budget.
She mentioned that the federal and provincial governments signed a memorandum of understanding to run the facility. Cook said that shows the province is interested in what’s happening with the facility.
The ELA is the only facility in the world that allows experiments on whole lakes. Cook said the experiments conducted at the ELA led to major discoveries such as taking phosphates out of detergents.
Gravelle voiced his disappointment in the federal government decision not to support the ELA.
He said the issue was of great interest in Queen’s Park but couldn’t make any guarantees to the activists that the province would take over responsibility.
“It’s my understanding that there are still negotiations going on between the federal government and some other possible agencies,” he said.
“I’m certainly going to be acting as an advocate to see that there is a solution found to keep the Experimental Lakes open. It has got a long history. The research that has been done is quite remarkable. I think it is crucial that we find a solution.”
Gravelle pointed out that the responsibility still lies with the federal government and encouraged the activists to lobby federal representatives.
Kenora’s Conservative MP Greg Rickford praised the ELA for the work it has done but said it was best that other organizations handled that kind of research.
“Some of that research has not been within the strictest mandates of the department of Fisheries and Oceans and or Environment Canada,” he said in an interview with Thunder Bay Television.
“But we committed to it because we understood things like phosphates and acid rain were important contemporary issues of the time.”
