For 20 years the Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation has brought together citizens, dozens of municipalities and Indigenous nations and state, provincial and federal governments in Canada and the USA to amass the scientific, technical and community knowledge needed to inform an international water quality plan while building the trust and capacity to implement it.
With the arrival of the new year, the Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation has some important announcements to share in our endeavour.
After 20 years at the helm, our Foundation’s founding Executive Director, Todd Sellers, has retired as at December 31, 2024. Todd joins our Foundation’s Board of Directors this month where he will continue to be involved in the Foundation’s ongoing effort, while handing the reins to Teika Newton as his successor in the role of Executive Director. Meanwhile, Meghan Mills has joined the team as the new International Watershed Coordinator.
This transition is happening at an exciting moment in the history of our Foundation, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2025 and move forward into a new era of collaborative sustainability planning for the Lake of the Woods region.
Thank you, Todd
Since the Foundation’s launch in 2005, we have cultivated international relationships at all levels and sectors in pursuit of the sustainability of the water quality of Lake of the Woods. Our Foundation was formed to meet the challenge identified in 2004 by the then Lake of the Woods District Property Owners’ Association (LOWDPOA, now LOWDSA, the Lake of the Woods District Sustainability Association) and its environment committee, chaired by Todd Sellers. Algae blooms on Lake of the Woods, driven by excessive nutrient loading, were becoming more frequent, toxic and lasting later in the year. LOWDPOA’s environment committee sought greater flexibility to advocate for international planning and policy to address the problem, and this was the impetus for a community-driven effort to establish a new, stand-alone registered charity with Todd as its inaugural Executive Director.
Over the past 20 years, the Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation - under Todd’s direction - has coordinated work among government agencies, Indigenous communities, civil society organizations, the public, academia and scientists, and the International Joint Commission of the USA and Canada, all in pursuit of growing the body of Lake of the Woods watershed science and knowledge to inform robust watershed policy. Todd has been instrumental in securing many legacy achievements through the Foundation, including the annual International Rainy – Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum, in its 22nd year in 2025.
With Todd’s leadership, our Foundation championed international watershed governance, first establishing the International Watershed Coordination Program (with Kelli Saunders as the first International Watershed Coordinator, from its inception to 2022), then pressing for a mandate for the International Joint Commission’s participation in the region. Our Foundation’s advocacy resulted in the establishment of the IJC’s International Rainy – Lake of the Woods Watershed Board in 2013. We have been active participants in this board, with Todd as a member since its inception.
Even before the IJC board launched, with partners around the basin, our Foundation established the International Multi-Agency Arrangement, a table where international government agencies meet, share information, and collaborate on planning and strategies to address issues of concern affecting shared, international waters in the Rainy – Lake of the Woods watershed. These cooperative relationships have been integral to our ability to produce the comprehensive State of the Basin Report on water quality in 2009, 2014 and 2022, and to underpin our ongoing work to advance international water quality planning frameworks, including new work we’ve just begun to develop a collaborative nutrient management plan for phosphorus for the Canadian portion of the Rainy-Lake of the Woods watershed.
We are enormously grateful to Todd and we wish him a well-deserved, healthy, restful retirement while we continue to embrace his generous contributions and expertise as one of our volunteer Directors.
Welcome Teika Newton as Executive Director
As we move forward into our next chapter, we are delighted to welcome Teika Newton (she/her) as our new Executive Director. Familiar to the Foundation’s stakeholders for her work as the International Watershed Coordinator over the past two years, Teika is a long-time participant in regional watershed science, policy, and governance activities. She has served as a board member for the International Joint Commission’s International Rainy–Lake of the Woods Watershed Board, and co-chaired the Board’s Community Advisory Group, Engagement Committee, and currently the Adaptive Management Committee. Teika also has been helping to guide the IJC Board’s work on climate adaptation since 2016. Teika lives in Treaty 3 Territory, just outside Kenora Ontario with her husband, Mike, their son Sam and daughter Maya, and assorted dogs, cats and wild forest friends. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Over the past two years, Teika shepherded a complex project through the International Joint Commission, engaging international agencies and partners working on water quality issues in the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods basins to propose international water quality objectives and adopt alert levels through the regional IJC watershed board for nutrients and contaminants of concern. She continues to work with these partners to develop a long-term, shared, international monitoring, assessment and reporting program to ensure these water quality goals are achieved and maintained.
Welcome Meghan Mills as International Watershed Coordinator
With Teika moving into the Executive Director position, Meg Mills (she/her) has joined the team to take over the International Watershed Coordinator role. Meg lives on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and cherishes time spent off-grid at Pelicanpouch Lake, located on Treaty 3 Territory near Minaki, Ontario. She is thrilled to step into the role of International Watershed Coordinator, joining others dedicated to protecting our shared waters.
Meg is currently completing her Master of Natural Resources Management at the University of Manitoba, with a focus on researching meaningful public participation and community engagement in resource management through a co-governance lens. Her background includes diverse environmental projects that blend science and storytelling, with community-based monitoring and project coordination work, equipping her with strong technical and communication skills. Continually learning the complexities of water governance, she is deeply committed to relationship-building and meaningful collaboration with diverse groups through empathic approaches to achieve impactful outcomes. In her free time, she enjoys backcountry canoe trips in the summer (a humbling reminder of coexisting with natures quirks, including bugs), cross-country skiing during the long, dark prairie winters, and exploring different art mediums, most recently, needle felting (it’s surprisingly cathartic to repeatedly poke wool with a sharp needle!). Meg looks forward to meeting and working alongside the LOWWSF community, and we are excited to welcome her.
The Next Chapter
Our majestic and precious Lake of the Woods faces many competing pressures and is experiencing rapid changes. Today’s ecological challenges are impacted by a changing climate, including reduced ice cover and changing precipitation patterns, droughts and floods, and the introduction and establishment of novel and invasive species. Human activities on the landscape also impact the lake’s water quality, and recent years have seen many shifts in regional forestry, agriculture, mining and land development practices, in response to economic changes from the local to the global level.
Ecosystem changes are additive and integrated. They compound the complexity of ecosystem relationships and behaviours and changes never operate in isolation. Every year we learn more about watershed science, yet the more we learn, the more we appreciate just how complex and dynamic is the Rainy-Lake of the Woods system. We may test solutions to one problem, only to learn of unexpected impacts to our actions elsewhere in the ecosystem. A system this big, this intricate and this multi-layered requires thoughtful policy responses to match the scale and scope of the emerging science, and such multilateral policymaking only happens through collaboration done mindfully. This is our mission. We are champions of sustainability for the Lake of the Woods watershed, through science, policy and planning. It’s a big task and one that we are excited to tackle with our exceptional, energetic and expert team.
In the coming year, the Foundation is moving forward a key action towards fulfilling this mission as Teika and Meg will be working with local communities, knowledge keepers, stakeholders and experts in the Canadian portions of Rainy River and the Lake of the Woods to develop a domestic phosphorus management plan that will support international water quality goals.
Please join me in thanking Todd and congratulating Teika and Meg.
The Proceedings Report of the 2024 International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum is available for download at the Foundation’s website: lowwsf.com/forum-proceedings. Held March 6-7 in International Falls Minnesota, 142 researchers, resource managers, policy makers, and members of the public put Lake of the Woods and its watershed under the microscope.
The Forum featured a moderated panel discussion on "From Science to Action" and 26 presentations in themes of: watershed governance, ecosystem modeling, contaminants and mining, ecological interactions, nutrient dynamics as drivers of cyanobacteria and cyanotoxin production, nutrient and sediment load tracing, and updates on the major monitoring programs of the MPCA and ECCC.
Fred Desjarlait, spiritual advisor from Miskwaagamiiwi – Zaagaiganing (Red Lake Nation), joined by Métis Senator Karen Cederwall, helped open the Forum, followed by addresses from Terry Duguid, Parliamentary Secretary and Special Advisor on Water to the Prime Minister and by US Consul Marilyn Gayton.
Dr. Caren Binding, research scientist in aquatic optics and remote sensing at Environment and Climate Change Canada, is the 2024 recipient of the Larry Kallemeyn Award. The Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation presented the award on behalf of the community of scientists and resource managers from the United States and Canada working in our watershed.
Massive algae bloom covers nearly 70% of Lake of the Woods, September 30, 2023. Panels (left to right) show sentinel satellite image, derived chlorophyll-a, and derived annual Bloom Severity index, Environment and Climate Change Canada (2023). EOLakeWatch 2023 Algal Bloom Report - Lake of the WoodsThe Kallemeyn Award recognizes Dr. Bindings outstanding scientific contributions to the watershed, including leading her team that developed the EOLakeWatch tool that uses satellite imagery to track algae blooms in Lake of the Woods (and other "Great Lakes") and derives indices of bloom extent, intensity and severity that will likely be foundational to long term monitoring for progress assessment as plans are implemented to cut phosphorus loads to the lake.
A heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Caren from the Foundation and the researchers gathered at the Forum for a well-deserved accolade!
Paul Anderson is the 2024 recipient of the Gerry Wilson Stewardship Award. Paul was honored with this international award in recognition of his lifetime of environmental advocacy work on behalf of the Rainy Lake Conservancy, Voyageurs National Park and Voyageurs Conservancy and his service on the Community Advisory Group of the IJC International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Board.
The Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation presented the award to Paul on behalf of the community of scientists, resource managers and water stewards from the United States and Canada at the 2024 International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum in International Falls, Minnesota.
Paul personifies the best of citizen engagement in conservation and protection. A life-long lover of Rainy Lake and the Rainy Lake watershed, Paul has been an active leader and contributor to initiatives to protect the watershed, including participating in oversight of hydropower and mining projects, advocating for emergency preparedness and response planning, reviewing the past two State of the Basin Reports, and advocating for improved land use and development planning.
Congratulations to Paul on this well-deserved recognition of his volunteer contributions to our waters!
The Foundation presents the Wilson Stewardship Award annually to recognize individuals, groups, or projects that are making significant contributions to environmental stewardship in the Rainy-Lake of the Woods watershed. For more information about the Wilson Stewardship Award see: www.lowwsf.com/wilson-award.
The view from space is compelling and confirms what we have seen firsthand on Lake of the Woods at the end of September. The cyanobacterial bloom (aka blue-green algae) on Lake of the Woods is tracking towards being one of the most severe since 2002.
By late September, a massive bloom extended across 2,800 km2 or 73% of the lake’s surface. The bloom was extremely intense with satellite-derived measures of chlorophyll-a concentrations exceeding 60 µg/L over most of the southern and middle basins of the lake.
After a hot June but cool and sometimes smoky July, the algae bloom on Lake of the Woods started to develop in late July and early August as usual. Blooms began in the southern Big Traverse Bay and in the Morson-Sabaskong area to the south-east. By late August, the bloom covered 34% of the lake and has progressed northward through middle channel to Oak Point. Satellite-derrived measures of chlorophyll-a (a pigment in the algae) ranged above 40 µg/L (red in the satellite image) indicating severe bloom formation in a few locations (anything above 10 µg/L is considered a bloom).
Algal blooms in Lake of the Woods typically peak in the late fall, and progress into the north-central area of the lake. Thus, more extensive blooms are expected to come later, expanding in extent and severity into the fall. Last year, peak severity occurred on October 13, 2022. We’ll have a complete report on the annual bloom conditions later in the fall, once the satellite tracking is complete for the season.
The Lake of the Woods Water Sustainability Foundation plays an essential role in coordinating the network of resource management agencies, government partners, and civil society contributors to watershed science and governance. This year, our coordination has been instrumental in driving forward the second phase of a project to develop recommendations for international water quality Objectives and Alert Levels for the Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed. The International Joint Commission has oversight responsibilities for water quality in our watershed, so this project will be administered by the IJC watershed board’s Aquatic Ecosystem Health (AEH) Committee, which is co-chaired by the Foundation Executive Director, Todd Sellers.
Objectives are international standards agreed to by Canadian and U.S. governments for boundary waters. Alert Levels are IJC watershed board-adopted trigger thresholds for advising the IJC and governments of issues of potential concern, where there are no international Objectives established.
The draft
pdf
2025 Program and Abstracts
(675 KB)
for the 2025 International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum is now available.
