Basic Facts

Healing Lake Winnipeg - Basic Facts 

  • Lake Winnipeg is fed by four River systems 

  • These rivers bring in over 7500 tonnes of Phosphorus (P) into the Lake annually 

  • The majority of this  P (5000 t) enters via the Red River system 

  • LW is in a state of hyper-eutrophication due these nutrient flows 

  • Manitoba has set a goal of reducing present levels of P by 50%, or reducing the P levels from 0.11 mg/litre to 0.05 mg/litre 

  • Present plans focus on point-source emissions (sewage plants) emitting less than 5% of P into LW 

  • The Healing Lake Winnipeg plan is to actually reduce P levels in the Red River systems flowing in LW by up to 50% focused on non-point source loading 

  • This plan is focused on the Typha (cattail) plants’ ability to extract P and other nutrients from polluted water 

  • Once harvested Typha can be baled, and processed into products being sold today 

  • These products are Typha soil amendments, and clothing insulation 

  • Future products include potting soil, biomass fuel pellets, biochar, and renewable natural gas 

  • Typha horticulture products provide replacement for Peat moss whose mining releases immense CO2. 

  • Typha products store CO2 and P, needed for agriculture 

  • P is a critical mineral which Canada does not produce and must import for food production 

  • The extraction of enough P from waters entering LW to reduce P inflow levels by 50% will require the harvest of 2.6 million tonnes of typha biomass 

  • This large quantity will be used for the above products by businesses to sustainably and profitably reduce P levels in LW 

  • For each tonne of biomass, approx 1 kg of P can be extracted from the waters flowing into LW 

  • 2.6 M tonnes of biomass will remove 2600 tonnes of P per year or 50% of present P loading 

  • Typha biomass can be harvested at a rate of 7.4 tonnes per hectare 

  • Harvest of 2.6 M tonnes of Typha biomass requires 360,000 hectares of land (MB uses 7M ha for agriculture) 

  • Land growing Typha is marginal to unusable for crop use 

  • 360k hectares is equivalent to a square of land 60 km on each side 

  • At a value of $500 per tonne, the 2.6 M typha biomass tonnes can create revenues over $1B 

  • Biodiversity is enhanced as a result of Typha harvest 

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