In 2009 the Government of Ontario released its Lake Simcoe Protection Plan, which called for Lake Simcoe’s phosphorous pollution to be reduced by 50% to 44 tonnes a year. According to the Plan, this is the reduction in pollution that is needed to protect the lake’s cold-water fishery and to prevent excessive weed growth and algae blooms.

However, the Government of Ontario has not funded or implemented a plan to reduce Lake Simcoe’s phosphorous pollution to 44 tonnes a year. Lake Simcoe’s phosphorous pollution has instead gone up by 30% since 2009. (To learn more about how we can reduce Lake Simcoe’s phosphorous pollution to 44 tonnes a year, please read our Cleaning-Up Lake Simcoe report.)