Lake Ontario, ON - Steve Ropp

My Watermark is Lake Ontario.

I grew up in this area (near Lake Ontario). I remember as a kid, about 50 years I lived about two miles from the lake, but we never went to Lake Ontario because it didn’t smell good. This was throughout the late 70’s. I remember playing lacrosse and going out by a park near the lake and every time we went down there it stunk. Every time we played lacrosse down there it stunk. I just never went in the water.

For me now, to see the water and smell the water and notice that it doesn’t have that unpleasant odour is amazing. In 50 years it appears the water has gotten cleaner.

I actually still don’t swim in Lake Ontario. I swim in Lake Huron,or up north. But as a kid, I just remember Lake Erie was taboo, you never went near it, It was the worst, and you knew that Lake Ontario smelled so .. as a kid we always went up to Lake Huron, where the water was clear and didn’t smell.

All these stories in today’s day and age—I mean we still have raw sewage going into the lake. I can’t understand how we accept that and how they don’t put their foot down and say that’s got to be fixed. It needs to be fixed, and fixed sooner rather than later. I heard there’s a plan for over 20-25 years to stop it, but I don’t understand how we could put that long of a time on it.
 

Waterbody
Lake Ontario, ON
Collector
Melanie Edmond
Contributor
Steve Ropp

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