Lake Simcoe/South-Eastern Georgian Bay Cleanup Fund

The coast of South-Eastern Georgian Bay has numerous bays and inlets. This area is an important resource for drinking water, recreation and fish habitat. While offshore water quality of Georgian Bay is not impaired, nearshore embayments and inlets, in some instances, have been reported to experience water quality degradation. Concerns include excess nutrients, increased frequency of cyanobacteria blooms and hypoxia. The Lake Simcoe Clean-up Fund was expanded in 2012 to include the South East shore of Georgian Bay. This mandate allowed for researchers to assess water quality and nuisance and toxic algal blooms within a geographical scope from the Nottawassaga Valley Watershed to the coast of Georgian Bay between Port Severn and the French River. The program was completed in 2017.

Lake Simcoe is the fourth largest lake entirely in Ontario. It is part of the Trent Severn Waterway connecting Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario where tourism generates more than $200 million per year. In 2007-2012 the Lake Simcoe Cleanup Fund was created to address the increased phosphorus loading from point and non-point sources, research and monitoring to improve environmental information for decision making and conservation of fish and aquatic wildlife habitat. Collaborative research between a number of government and non-government stakeholders have contributed to monitoring, research and management of Lake Simcoe to ensure long term ecosystem health of this valuable resource.