April 28, 2009

Dear concerned citizens of Manitoba,

Part of the Wilderness Committee’s mandate is to ensure public lands are managed in an ecologically sustainable way, and in the best interests of all people. We take this responsibility very seriously, as our members and supporters expect us to.

The key component of educating Manitobans about the decisions being made on public lands is accurate information. We can not tell people what to do, but must instead provide them with rational and logical ideas based entirely upon facts, so that Manitobans can voice their own opinions.

The Meditation Lake proposal is LUDICROUS. Apart from all the problems with putting a youth camp on Meditation Lake, the Manitoba government has not provided us with any information regarding the proposal ahead of development. That is mismanagement.

The information sessions, these open houses scheduled for April 30 and May 2, are taking place SIX WEEKS AFTER DEVELOPMENT STARTED. The government, in the mean time, has not returned phone calls regarding this development, and has not posted information regarding this development on its website. The only news release emailed out through their news service (through which they send at least five emails every day) did not have a background information attachment.

This whole process stinks like a government cover up—they made a mistake by deciding to offer Meditation Lake for private development and are now dodging responsibility

On March 23, I was informed of the Meditation Lake development by a concerned citizen. That day, Manitoba Conservation confirmed that they had a contract at their Operations Department to build a road into Meditation Lake. The development broke in the media on March 24. On March 25, I met with Conservation Minister Struthers at the legislature. He told me “there is no formal proposal to put a camp at Meditation Lake”. Eight days later Minister Struthers hosted a press conference with fancy maps and representatives of the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation, and announced the plans. In the mean time, I had called Water Stewardship Minister Christine Melnick and asked for the water quality information regarding Meditation Lake. She has yet to return my phone call. Consequently, when the official development was announced, I filed 10 Freedom of Information (FIPPA) requests on behalf of the people of Manitoba. The requests include all plans to develop the road, water quality information, and management plans for Whiteshell Park. Responses to FIPPAs are required within 30 days. Because of this, I requested the public Open Houses for the Meditation Lake proposal be moved back a week, so the public could have all information they need to ask appropriate questions. The Conservation office in Lac du Bonnet said the planning was too far along to move the open houses. At this point I sent an email directly to Minister Struthers and Premier Doer, asking that they move the open house dates back, and asked that they respond within three working days. Last week I finally received a response from Minster Struthers, saying the open houses could not be moved. His letter also stated the information about the proposed development would be online. Until this morning, it was not.

The first open house is in 48 hours, and there are no answers coming from government. There has been no FIPPA-requested information received from Conservation or from Water Stewardship. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

During a recent school presentation, I explained to students that public land is their land, and everyone has a responsibility to manage it wisely. I then told them the government actually works for them. It is their land, and the government must work for them, I told them. Yet this government is not working for us, the people of Manitoba. This government is making us file legal requests for information that WE need to manage OUR public lands—information the government collected WHILE WORKING FOR US.

Unfortunately, to this point, this entire email has been about government mismanagement, which means the real issue here is being lost.

This is about our parks.
This objection to the development at Meditation Lake is about the loss of some rare intact natural areas. Healthy wild places, free of development, provide us with ecosystem services, such as clean air, clean water, and diverse plant life. Every park needs areas that don’t have roads, so nature has an opportunity to reach a natural balance and thrive. Undisturbed lakes in Whiteshell Park are a rare item. We need the long-term vision to know that some areas need to remain wild and free of development.

We need these wild and free areas for recreation, too. Manitobans cherish nature, in some ways nature defines us. Another road, another camp, another development, and we will lose our peace and solace.

Our government, who works for us, must work to publish a public management plan for all of our parks, so we will be assured that some areas of parks remain off-limits to any sort of development. With a management plan in place, we would have avoided any of the problems that we are experiencing now, and we would have known we were going to continue to manage Meditation Lake as a walk-in picnic area, as it has been for decades.

We need an explanation of what went wrong with the water of Meditation Lake. In the summer of 2008, there was a mass clam die-off in this lake. The government never released the cause of the die-off. According to a university professor who specializes in clams, this is a possibly unique event in Manitoba. Clams are so tough and hardy that they use them for toxin tests, yet they were dying by the thousands in Meditation Lake. Dead fish were also found floating in the remnants of massive algae blooms. The question of mismanagement at Manitoba Conservation becomes quite obvious when someone decided to PUT A YOUTH CAMP ON A POISONOUS LAKE. Minister Struthers also tried to explain that the road built into Meditation Lake was being built to get rock from an old quarry. Diligent management of the region would have been to halt all development until the lake became healthy, rather than open the area up for industrial activity.

Meditation is a shallow lake that suffers from natural algae blooms. This is not a lake kids will enjoy being on in the later summer months. There are other lakes in Manitoba, lakes that are healthier. There are other sites, like the site of the former campground at Lone Island Lake, not 10 minutes up the road from Meditation Lake. The road access exists already, there are no other developments on the lake, the lake is larger and healthier with rivers flowing in and out of it, and it sits on the edge of roadless wild areas to the east. The only person who would choose Meditation for development would be someone who has never visited the lake in late summer. In short, it is a bad decision.

Meditation Lake requires a short hike in of about one kilometer, which brings you to the south shore. On the north shore of Meditation Lake, again maybe a kilometer across the water, is a portage into Horseshoe Lake. This portage is about 100 paces across, flat and easy to traverse. The one kilometer walk into Meditation served as a natural crowd control mechanism. With the road now pushed into Meditation Lake, that crowd control is gone. For decades, the Manitoba government has been managing Horseshoe Lake as a high quality management lake that they have been stocking with fish. One of the FIPPA requests was to find out how much money and energy Conservation has put into managing Horseshoe Lake. It is a waste to spend so much time and money managing the lake for one purpose, and then increase the access to the area so the lake experiences more impact.

On a final policy note, no development of any kind should be allowed without public announcements prior to commencement. This includes activities like building a road, or reactivating an old quarry that was likely in place before the park even existed. Again, these are public lands, our lands. Inform the citizens of Manitoba when you wish to spend our money on a project on our lands. This is not an unreasonable policy request, nor an expensive one.

The development of Meditation Lake makes no sense, on any level. The Wilderness Committee has, for decades, worked on getting people out to wild and natural areas, and we will continue to do so. We are not against kids camps, and really, who would be? We know that wild places are good for the soul. There are 35 accredited kids camps in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario, and we would encourage investments into these camps, and encourage the government to work on getting more kids out to camps. But we can not stand by while this bad decision is made about our parks. The end result—a kids camp—does not justify the means—secretive planning and the loss of some of our remote wild and natural areas.

By this point you will have noticed that this is not a typical communiqué from the Wilderness Committee. I could not have conceived of a more egregious plan than putting a kids camp, or any sort of camp, at Meditation Lake. There are so many major problems with this that I felt a personal letter was the best way to communicate to the members and supporters of the Wilderness Committee. Apart from my work with the Wilderness Committee, I willingly shoulder the personal responsibility of making sure the wonderful wild places we have in Manitoba are preserved. I believe that every person needs to commit to ensuring we protect Manitoba to the best of our abilities. I encourage you to consider bringing up the problems with this plan with the Premier, and with Minster Struthers, which you can do by letter, email or phone call. And let us know what you told the Premier, too. Also, please tell your friends and family about the problems with this proposal, and also about what the government hasn’t told us. A I mentioned earlier, these are our lands and we need to make sure that the government that works for us makes decisions that are good for all people for generations.

On Thursday, I plan on personally greeting everyone who comes in the door at the open house, and letting people know the problems with this plan. The open house hours are long, so we are looking for a concentration of people to attend at 7 p.m., as a demonstration of protest. Please respond to this email if you can attend.

Thanks for reading this through, and I look forward to your comments and concerns,

Eric Reder