14 | 2017 LAKE STEWARDS NEWSLETTER Water Chemistry Lab by FOCA Did you know? There is a world-class water chemistry laboratory located in the heart of Ontario’s cottage country! Water samples collected by Lake Partner Program volunteers are processed here. Located in the District Municipality of Muskoka near the southern boundary of the Precambrian Shield, approximately 200 km north of Toronto, the Water Chemistry Laboratory at the Dorset Environmental Science Centre (DESC) is a state-of-the-art analytical facility dedicated to characterizing a wide array of water quality variables. The lab provides high-quality analytical supportforthisLong-TermEcosystemScienceprogram,as well as many other provincial lake monitoring programs, in partnership with government agencies, non-government organizations and universities. The data produced by the DESC Water Chemistry Laboratory are used to understand the health of Ontario’s inland lakes and streams by investigating patterns and trends in the data. Here are some facts about the Water Chemistry Lab at the DESC: • Through the late 1970s and 1980s, the DESC Water Chemistry Lab provided scientifically defensible data that were used to assess the ecological impacts of acid rain; this eventually contributed to the development of environmental regulations for reducing sulphur and nitrogen emissions across North America. • Since the mid-1990s, DESC’s focus has been on multiple and interacting environmental stressors that affect lakes, with all of the data, with the exception of chlorophyll a and metals, coming from the DESC Water Chemistry Lab. • In2016,theDESCWaterChemistryLabproduced100,000 data points representing water chemistry from streams and lakes across the entire province! • This summer, there are 10 technicians and staff working in the Lab, two of whom are solely dedicated to providing high quality total phosphorus analyses. • In 2016, the Lake Partner Program represented about 20% ofthetotalnumberofsamplesanalyzedbytheDESCWater Chemistry Laboratory. This means that approximately 500 totalphosphorusdatapointswereproducedeachweekfor the Lake Partner Program alone! • The lab is a well-oiled machine! DESC’s technicians and scientists work closely with the Water Chemistry Lab staff to create an efficient and science-based approach to monitoring water quality across the province. Learn more about the Water Chemistry Lab at: http://desc.ca/ Lab tech analyst with water sample. From LPP Report Card (2015) showing that total phosphorus concentrations have not changed dramatically across the landscape over the past decade.