About this time every spring, Larry Tompkins takes his boat onto Twelve Mile Lake and tests the water; for things such as temperature and dissolved oxygen.
It’s a volunteer gig using equipment purchased by Boshkung, Mountain and Twelve Mile Lake associations in 2019.
He’ll be back on the lake in the fall to take another set of 2025 measurements.
Demonstrating from his pontoon boat, Tompkins explains, “certain fish, primarily lake trout, can only survive at a certain oxygen level. It also gives you an idea of how much bacteria and algae is in your lake because algae eat the oxygen.”
He records his findings with pencil on paper and sends them to the Dorset Environmental Science Centre, as well as U-Links, which partners with 10 lake associations to monitor 24 lakes.
Tompkins is part of the province’s Lake Partner Program (LPP), which the Coalition of Haliburton Property Owners’ Associations (CHA), and the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations (FOCA) say could be at risk.
FOCA says the five-year agreement for the LPP ended in March, “amid turmoil due to a snap provincial election and the appointing of a new minister of environment, conservation and parks.
“Despite repeated reassurances that a new agreement was on its way to FOCA, we have now reached a critical point in the sampling annual cycle, and the 2025 data is at risk unless an agreement with MECP is confirmed now,” FOCA added.
Continuous, long-term data key for scientists
Gary Wheeler, a spokesman for Environment, Conservation and Parks told The Highlander May 12, “the program has not been cancelled and we intend to work with our partners to implement renewed agreements for the 2025 season.”
Jim Prince is with the U-Links program. He said he does not think the LPP will be cancelled, but that this is a preemptive strike by FOCA, similar to one done five years ago, to ensure the program continues. “The value for the cost is enormous and it gives the province the opportunity to say they’re doing something good about the environment.”
FOCA said, “the LPP provides immense value to the public and to Ontario as a whole. It is one of the largest long-term databases on water quality for freshwater lakes … essential for research and analysis conducted by universities, government, community groups, and scientists.”
The water sampling is done by 629 FOCA lake steward volunteers who monitored 546 lakes at 917 sites across the province in 2024. FOCA added although the sampling is done by volunteers, the LPP is not possible without the ministry’s involvement to conduct the lab analysis of the samples, and through financial support of a FOCA employee in Dorset who manages the hundreds of volunteers and coordinates requests for information and outreach about the program.
‘It’s a critical program’
Chair of the CHA, Paul MacInnes said he had sent emails to the MECP and MNR, as “most of the organized lakes in Haliburton County, as with everywhere in Ontario, use the Lake Partner Program, and have been using it for 15-plus years.”
MacInnes said consistency is key. “You need one lab doing all the lakes, 400 and some odd that are in the program in Ontario. It’s a critical program, and it can’t be done any other way.”
He added the timing could not be worse, as “you’re getting very close to the time where the test kits are sent out for the summer.”
He would hate to see the data disrupted, saying scientists need continuous long-term records. “That gives the scientists what they need, and we need those scientists to be coming up with some solutions.”
He said the CHA correspondence to government “focuses on the impact that unhealthy lakes would have on our economy in Muskoka, Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes etc. Our economies are based on healthy lakes.”
Back on Twelve Mile Lake, and Tompkins said he will still test the water this spring and fall, and send the results to U-Links and whomever else wants it.
“It’s still terribly important because without the data – being in business all my years – if you can’t track it, you can’t control it. Basically, it’s the same principle here. If we’re not tracking it, we can’t control it.
“It’s going to affect us as lakefront property owners. You’re sitting here looking at that beautiful lake, and you can’t use it. How frustrating is that going to be? And nobody is going to want to own something that they can’t use.”
