THUNDER BAY – The federal government is spending $1 million to help develop a more efficient system to detect blue-green algae in Northwestern Ontario waterways.
The FedNor money will help fund a partnership between the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Discovery Air Fire, the second-oldest aviation company in the country behind Air Canada.
NOSM professor Greg Ross said they’ve been working on the concept for some time and have also conducted proof of study trials on the technology, which involves cameras mounted on aircraft that can identify the toxic blue-green algae without having bodies on the ground collecting samples first-hand.
Ross called blue-green algae, a microscopic plant-like organism that have proven harmful to both humans and animals and have flourished as a result of climate change and chemicals being dumped into lakes and rivers around the world.
“It’s actually more like a bacteria than a plant and it makes a lot of toxins in our environment. It’s harmful to people’s health. If you are in the water that’s contaminated it can give your rashes and lots of health problems with it,” Ross said.
“And certainly if you drink the water that’s contaminated with it, it can lead to all sorts of health issues as well, including chronic long-term health issues, potentially.”
Ross said the project could create a couple hundred jobs in Ontario’s north and could have marketable outcomes.
More importantly, it’ll speed up the process from detection to remediation.
“Right now Public Health is doing an amazing job monitoring our environment and doing their best to close beaches and let us know when they’re contaminated,” he said. “The problem with that is by the time you collect a ground sample and send it away for analysis and start to close beaches there can be very, very long-term delays.
“The technology we’re developing should allow real-time reporting.”
Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour Patty Hajdu said the new technology will also enable researchers to know whether or not remediation efforts, which are separate from Friday’s announcement, are working.
“There’s also an opportunity to monetize this and sell it to either other regions or other countries in some cases,” Hajdu said.
“That’s an opportunity to be a job creator in Northwestern Ontario.”
The project is being funded for three years.
