Quinte Fishing

The Kingston Whig-Standard had this in todays newspaper - something we all know about.

David aka Superdad


If it seems that Kingston’s receding shoreline is more pronounced this fall, you’re not imagining anything: Lake Ontario’s water level is not only a foot lower this year than last, it’s at its lowest point in the past 48 years.

According to statistics compiled by the International St. Lawrence River Board of Control, Lake Ontario measures 243.3 feet deep, seven inches lower than it was last month and 11 inches below its October average.

But it doesn’t approach the lowest recorded level for October, however. That belongs to 1934, when the lake’s water level was down another 20 inches.

Rob Caldwell, a representative of the International St. Lawrence River Board of Control that controls the outflows of Lake Ontario, said that being 30 centimetres below average has happened about a dozen or so times before 1964.

A lack of precipitation this year hasn’t helped, and “it has been exacerbated by the dry, hot summer,” he said.

The water level of each of the Great Lakes is lower than normal, statistics show.

John Casselman, an adjunct professor in Queen’s University’s biology department, participated in compiling International Joint Commission studies on the water levels, and remembers the last time the water level dipped so decisively.

“In 1964, it was rather interesting because commercial fishermen came to me and said, ‘You have to see this,’ ” he recalled.

“This is in December … and the water levels continued to stay low and go down, and they noticed through the ice a lot of dead fish on the bottom.”

Those dead fish — ones such as pike and perch that spawn in shallow water — fell victim to what’s known as “winter kill.”

“When the ice comes in, then the oxygen is fixed in the water column,” Casselman explained.

“If the areas are shallow where these small fish are, the oxygen is quickly depleted by the bottom mud.”

The damage the low water level may cause to assorted aquatic life may not be seen for some time, he said, and the spring will also determine the fate of some spawning species.

“That was very devastating because it essentially killed the ’64 year class of fish that would be recruited,” Casselman said.

“Even more devastating, the water stayed down and the next spring those fish didn’t spawn successfully. So we had a real hiccup in recruitment.

“The anglers don’t see that, of course, until they try to catch the fish four or five years later.”

If the water level is still low come spring, it may force some species to spawn elsewhere, and that could lead to what Casselman calls “hybridizing” of species.

“We saw hybrids produced that year, which was quite interesting,” he said, noting that northern pike spawned with muskellunge and also grass pickerel, which is also a member of the pike family.

The low lake level also has an impact on other aquatic organisms that spend winters nestled in silt such as the American eel, which is currently an endangered species in Ontario and the subject of a paper Casselman is currently writing.

Casselman feels that part of the blame for the low water levels of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River lies with global warming.

For every degree the temperature rises, the evaporation rate rises by 6%. Evaporation, and the resulting drought, is much more noticeable to the average person than the temperature being a degree warmer, he feels.

Lee Willbanks, executive director of the Clayton, N.Y.-based conservation group “Save the River,” said that he’s been told by the group’s consulting scientists and researchers that the low water level is a cyclical occurrence.

“We’ve known since February or March that we were entering what turned out to be just a dramatically dry year pretty much across great pieces of both our countries,” he said.

“Since Ontario is a receiver of the other Great Lakes, and our focus is the St. Lawrence River, you could see weekly that the sources were just not delivering the supply of water that you would normally get, didn’t realize it would go on as long as it has or be as dramatic as it’s been. It’s part of the cycle.”

Willbanks and company, who also hold the title of Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper, see the lake’s low water level as a natural occurrence.

“We actually think periods of low water are good for the whole system,” he said.

“It’s going to help, we hope, clear out these monoculture cattail wetlands and return them to a more natural, open, and supportive of a whole bunch of species kind of situation.”

Any drop in the number of fish will rebound, Willbanks has been told.

“Their spawning beds, which are in shallow water, are being choked by cattails and that’s why a year or two — in a cycle that runs 20, 30 years — you might have one non-productive breeding season, but, because they live and breed in multiple years, the idea is if you clear out their historic spawning beds and make it that they can access those, in the long run you’ll see the numbers come back,” he offered.

This year in the cycle is something species rely upon, Willbanks said, and is a part of the “big picture.”

“Everybody hates it because it shortens the boating season, it’s not as much fun if you’re a small, recreational boater and you’re finding new places where the shoals are coming up that we haven’t had them before,” he said. “Year over year over year, the cycle works to everybody’s advantage if we return to a more natural ecology.”

The low water level can also have a subtler impact, said Jeff Ridal, executive director of the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Studies in nearby Cornwall.

“We know when we have low water levels we expose more of the near-shore areas, and, particularly when they drop quickly, what happens is any algae coating the surface of those rocks then is exposed to the atmosphere, dies off and then again you could have a water-quality impact,” he said. “But that’s more of a summer issue.”

That could result in water having “undesirable tastes and odours,” he said.

John Casselman believes the weather in the coming weeks is key to what the spring will hold for some species.

“What’s really important here is the fall rains,” he said.

“If we don’t get the fall rains, then we won’t see recharge or the water level either stabilized or become higher. It will continue to drop.”

I don't suppose that the fact there is a freighter stuck in the mud down stream that they have been working on for the last week and trying to raise the water level around it to refloat and dislodge would have anything to do with the water dropping another 2 ft

_________________
Hooksets are free
Bill Barber
Owner /Operator -Trophyhunter Fishing charters

or perhaps this.....

"Here is a little information about where Nestle's "Ice Mountain" bottled water is sourced from, and some of the conflict revolving around their disputed 'emptying' of the Great lakes aka "The Basin".

In 2006 George Bush passed the Great Lakes Compact, a set of agreements that was supposed to safeguard and maintain this area of water that holds 20 percent of the world's freshwater.

The Compact included a loophole that, according to the Michigan Land Use Institute, "undermines the structure and purpose of the Compact by stating that the term “diversion” does not apply to “water produced in the basin and used ‘in or as’ a product and transferred outside of the basin." This sentence opens the door for exports of water as a “product.” This means that if water is produced and labeled as a product, it can go out of the Great Lakes basin without a limitation on the size of the container or quantity. The problem with the loophole is that we’ve created a situation where water can be labeled as a product, transferring its public protection to private control using the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other agreements to suck water out of the Great Lakes Basin."

Basically what the quote is saying is that the loophole allows for Great Lakes water to be labelled a commodity, that our public water supply, Lake Michigan, is being tapped and sold to Nestle for a very low price, flipped for an incredible profit (The Free Press, 2006):

The new Michigan law allows Nestle Corporation to continue its five-year takings of up to 250,000 gallons per day and sell them at a markup well over 240 times its production cost. Nestle's profit from drawing this water could be from $500,000 to $1.8 million per day. A key proviso is that the bottles can be no larger than 5.7 gallons apiece."

It is what it is, I dont get too hung up on it. No snow last year, little rain over the summer = low water levels. When the water is low and there is a draw down which happens every year on most regulated bodies of water it is more noticeable. I suspect once all the data is in the % that the lake is down will coorelate to the % below average precipitation we received.

Thanks Dave, for posting this. It has already received great responses. Could have the potential for a dangerous situation with the winter kill. Never thought about this. Dave

I was going to post something very similar to this till I saw this post. Jesse Ventura's conspiracy theory had a lot to say about the subject

Yes some of those problems also important even for Ontario Lake.
As far I know, alewives spawn in Napanee River. If Ontario lake water is lower 1 feet then it will shrink spawning area a lot in the river.
Fortunately Ontario lake does not freeze completely. So low oxigen level is not a big problem.

But bigger problem is probably pollution of radiation into Ontario lake.
We have so many nuclear reactors. They all have second contour coming into the lake. And if the reactor is 30 years old don't tell me it does not have cracks. So some Uranium washed into the lake little by little.
In USSR each reactor had man-made reservoir for second contour, closed to other water system. So Nuclear pollution does not spread into other rivers.
On top of that nuclear waste factory in Port Hope right at the mouth of Ganaraska river. They spilled some nukes into the lake.

The fact that some companies make bottled water is not bad directly if they sell all of this water locally. We will drink it anyway from tap.
Danger is when they start selling it outside really. And those huge profits will allow them to compete worldwide. That's when they would push government for much larger limits how much water they can suck, giving lame excuses of creating local jobs.
So there has to be a limit how much water allowed to be taken overall.
This limit should be high enough for local consumption.
And no excuses later why they need more.
Limit can be increased only proportionally to population growth.

I find this a very interesting post. I have been reading allot about the depletion of the worlds fresh water and were it is going. I was shocked to read that the Chinese are basically stealing our fresh water to cool there big new nuclear power plant. One article i read had areal photos of the Chinese super Tugs pulling mile long strings of neutral buoyancy water bladders and they are doing this at a very alarming rate. They then stated that after the water has been used to cool there reactors it is bottled and sold back to us with some brand name labels. I also read were the worlds biggest and most powerful oil tycoon has quit drilling for oil and has been buying up ground water rights all over the world as he discovered that water is worth much more than crude oil. They showed the water levels in Lake Mead and they are draining that lake. He has purchased tones of property that can be used as storage reservoirs to store all this water so he call sell it back to the world. This is some scary stuff when you think about it and it deserves further investigation for sure.

_________________
Fred Fisher....

Fishy Fishy In The Bay, Bite This Line And Make My Day....

I love a good conspiracy theory but folks I think Ockham's razor applies here

That's cool jjz but i would like to see some rock solid proof that these conspiracy's are wrong. So far I have seen compelling evidence that this is going on right under our noses and it involves allot of corruption on some very high levels.

_________________
Fred Fisher....

Fishy Fishy In The Bay, Bite This Line And Make My Day....

"The most valuable commodity in the world today, and likely to remain so for much of this century, is not oil, not natural gas, not even some type of renewable energy. It’s water—clean, safe, fresh water.
Follow the Money............

When you want to spot emerging trends, always follow the money. Today, many of the world’s leading investors and most successful companies are making big bets on water. Do a little research, and it’s easy to see why. There simply isn’t enough freshwater to go around, and the situation is expected to get worse before it gets better."

reading for Fred/jjz and anybody else interested. This is actually happening folks...



"
Four dollars for a gallon of gas is ridiculous enough, but $4 for a gallon of water could someday became a reality, that is if oil tycoons like T. Boone Pickens and water bottling companies have their way. Privatization of water in which companies control the public's water sources and free water is a thing of the past appears to be what Pickens and corporations such as Monsanto, Royal Dutch Shell, and Nestle are banking on to increase their vast fortunes.

Companies, brokers and billionaires are buying up groundwater rights and aquifers. Groundwater is necessary for agriculture and more water is needed to meet a growing demand for food. Many countries have already over-pumped their groundwater to feed increasing local populations. Combine this with climate changes and an ever-increasing strain on water resources due to a rapidly growing world population and you have got a future where water is called "blue gold" because of its scarcity and high cost.

Bleak future

The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development estimates that half the world's population will reside in areas with significant water stress by 2030. According to a government report entitled Global Water Security, the demand for water will be 40 percent above sustainable water supplies with needs around 6,900 billion cubic meters due to population growth. By 2025, the world's population will likely exceed 8 billion people.

Private corporations already own 5 percent of the world's fresh water. Australia is an excellent example of a country already suffering from multiple water droughts. Farmers are selling water rights to brokers, unaware of the long-term effects.

The United States is by no means immune to these plots. Royal Dutch Shell owns groundwater rights in Colorado and oil tycoon Pickens is buying up all he can in Texas. He owns more water than any other person in the U.S. His plan is to sell the water owns, around 65 billion gallons annually, to Dallas and other major cities affected by droughts. Pickens hopes to profit off of desperation, saying "There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing." He also owns a massive wind farm in the area and natural gas resources, but has admitted that he is no environmentalist, only an entrepreneur who goes where the money is."

Not to make any light of the situation, but with all our water resources, particularily in the north...that would make us the Middle East of the fresh water supply. Just knew we would get those Middle East Oil Fields back some day...filling a boat up at Marina these days is like having your tackle box stolen.

..couldn't resist

Hey I am not disputing that there are threats to our water supply and that we need to ensure that they are not abused, what I am saying is that the current situation is most likely caused by the drought-like conditions we experienced from last winter to the end of this summer, not any water diversion/theft. If all the feeder creeks and rivers and backlakes were at full capacity and the Lake O water level was still dropping I would be a little more suspicious, but its bone dry everywhere.

Well guys I was in USSR in 1990's. I know how current billionaries made they fortunes in 5-10 years.
They organized privatizations of government owned oil, gaz & other natural resources. But you will not be able to bid on those actions. You will die before stepping in.
They did not have a penny to pay for shares of newly private oil companies. They pre-arranged hundreds of millions Dollars loans at 0% interest with state bankers. And all of those money were taken from other sectors of economy, creating collaps of entire country.

Imagine you have few hundreds thousands of Dollars for retirement. And because of inflation you can buy a loaf of bread for those money.

So there must be very strict law made now to preserve resources we all own. Because high end maria is not strong yet here. Later ( once demand for fresh water increases dramatically ) they will dictate rules.