Canadian watersheds under stress, WWF says

OTTAWA — Canada can no longer pretend it is a country rich with pristine lakes and rivers, the World Wildlife Fund said Monday in a report into the country’s waterways.

After four years of research, the conservation organization concluded that one-third of Canada’s 167 watersheds are experiencing high levels of disturbance due to everything from pollution and overuse to climate change and hydroelectric development.

Every watershed in Canada is seeing some impact from climate change, with three-quarters hit with a moderate or high impact, said David Miller, president of the WWF.

“Scientists call it stress,” said Miller. “I would call it a threat. That’s a real worry.”

The research produced a score for each watershed in four areas — water flow, water quality, the health of fish and the health of invertebrates such as snails, leeches and bugs.

The data revealed that more than one-third are so polluted it is of serious concern, while onequarter have poor or fair water quality and one-fifth have water flow issues due to hydro dams, the WWF said.

Decades of government cuts to monitoring programs means there isn’t enough data to give a full picture of watershed health, the report said.

In 110 of the 167 watersheds, there were not enough to data to produce a score in at least two of the four areas.

Information on fish and invertebrates was in particularly short supply, said the report.

Invertebrates are extremely sensitive to ecological disturbances and are a good marker of the health of a watershed. However, 112 of the 167 watersheds have no good data available.

“Where the data was available about the health, we do see there are some pretty significant health concerns. And that implies when we start to see more data, we’ll see more health concerns,” Miller said.

The WWF wants Ottawa to set national standards and a national database for what needs to be reported on watersheds.

Much of the data is collected by provincial and municipal governments, but there are no federal requirements to do so, which is why some watersheds have data and others don’t, Miller said.

In a brief speech Monday at a reception with WWF members, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed concern about the lack of data but did not go so far as to promise a national database.

Trudeau said everyone, including governments, need to “step up” and ensure the data is collected and shared.