The Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) is appealing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep funding flowing to a world-renowned national freshwater and fisheries research facility.
As part of federal budget cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is slated to have its funding run out by the end of March, 2013. About 15-20 research positions will be impacted.
But NOMA wants more time to put together a partnership arrangement to keep the 58-lake facility open.
In a June 22 letter to Harper, NOMA president Ron Nelson said the short timeframe to withdraw funding does not provide “sufficient opportunity for other funding partnerships to be developed.”
NOMA said it's “vital' to keep ELA open to coincide with the coming of new mineral resource development in the North.
“The expansion of mining opportunities in northwestern Ontario will present new opportunities for regional-based research.”
Mike Meeker, a Manitoulin Island fish farmer, is rallying support to keep the facility, located between Kenora and Dryden, operating for years to come.
Meeker, who is president of the Northern Ontario Aquaculture Association, worked with ELA researchers in the late 1990s and early 2000s to gather important baseline environmental data for his Evansville operation.
“The work they did for us was important as an industry.”
Meeker hopes to assemble a coalition of private and public interests to come up with a business plan and a coordinated partnership to keep the centre viable.
“When looking back at the importance of that facility, moving forward with the environmental changes we're seeing, and the relevance of what they do across Canada, I would hope we can pull together the partners to do it.”
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