Battigelli Award - 2020 Recipient Kelly Macgillivray
Kelly Macgillivray, MSc. candidate at Trent University, is a recipient of the 2020 Deborah Battigelli Memorial Award. Presented by the Foundation, this Award provides financial assistance to graduate students to present their research at the annual International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum.
Kelly's research is improving our understanding of sources of nutrients and potential best management practices to limit phosphorus loading to the Rainy River and to Lake of the Woods. Kelly will deliver the Deborah Battigelli Memorial presentation at the Forum titled "Longitudinal patterns in nutrient export in the lower Rainy River watershed".
Battigelli Award - 2020 Recipient Seth McWorter
Seth McWhorter, MSc. candidate at the University of Georgia, Warnell School of Natural Resources, is a recipient of the 2020 Deborah Battigelli Memorial Award. Presented by the Foundation, this Award provides financial assistance to graduate students to present their research at the annual International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum.
Seth's research into cyanotoxins in water and fish fillets should contribute to ecological risk assessments and importantly help inform human health risk in lake and areas plagued by cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms. Seth will deliver a presentation at the Forum titled "Investigating presence of cyanotoxins in fish of Voyageurs National Park".
Read more: Deborah Battigelli Memorial Fund Awards Announcement 2020
August 15, 2019 in Treaty 2 Territory, Leadership from the Anishinaabe Nation of Treaty #3 and technical support staff met with International Joint Commission (IJC) Commissioners and staff at Prairie Firehouse in Brandon, MB.
An account of this important meeting as well as details of the Treaty #3 Nibi (water) Declaration is available in the pdf August edition of Treaty 3 News (602 KB) .
A must see for all!
Lake of the Woods: A History by Water
Lake of the Woods: Eastern Shores
Kelli Saunders, the Foundation's International Watershed Coordinator has a weekly column in the the Lake of the Woods Enterprise newspaper and online at the Kenora Daily Miner News. This feature series will celebrate the importance of water locally and the great efforts collectively to protect it, will be dedicated to water throughout the summer months – its quality, its governance, its future and how we can all help to preserve it.
Several articles are online now - click the Read more (below) for the links and look to the Lake of the Woods Enterprise newspaper and Kenora Daily Miner News Online for weekly updates!
At a meeting of the International Joint Commission (IJC), Canadian Commissioners Pierre Béland, Merrell-Ann Phare and F. Henry Lickers made a solemn declaration to faithfully and impartially perform the duties assigned under the Boundary Waters Treaty. Also announced was that the appointments of Jane Corwin as US Section chair, and Robert Sisson and Lance Yohe as US Section Commissioners has been confirmed by the US Senate.
Read the full announcements:
The history of the Rainy River is fascinating. How could it not be with voyageurs and lumberjacks all tangled up in it. The overlooked part of any history lesson, however, is often the timeline of environmental insults that occurred in concert with the industrial revolution and the population of the land and exploitation of its resources.
In this article, Bev Clark explores the history of the pollution and subsequent research and cleanup of the Rainy River as an example that shows what coordinated international efforts engaging the IJC can achieve.
Read more: The Rainy River – A Case Study in Pollution and Recovery
Phosphorus, algae’s favorite food, should be quickly buried by inches of mud year over year. Perhaps, somehow, the phosphorus that had entered the lake during the paper and population booms of the mid-twentieth century is being recycled? Could it be that the turbulent waters of Lake of the Woods south basin (the Big Traverse) are combining with short periods of temperature stratification (when the cold bottom waters of a lake do not mix with the warmer water above) to deplete oxygen and draw nutrients back up from the sediments. Particularly windy days could then mix nutrient rich particles of sediment throughout the water column, allowing pollution from many years ago to be reused over and over again. In this article from the Field Notes - Stories from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station of the Science Museum of Minnesota the story unfolds of research seeking to answer these questions and gain insights into what causes the algae problems plaguing Lake of the Woods.