My name is Raj Bejankiwar, scientist at the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Regional Office in Windsor.

One of my favourite Great Lakes is Lake Erie for several reasons. It was the first Great Lake that I was introduced to when I arrived in Canada and the first time I was introduced to Lake Erie’s was for monitoring beaches and that’s where I encountered the algal blooms. We were traveling to Pelee Island from Leamington Shore, and I could see to the end of my vision, it was all green. When I saw the amount of green, it was almost like a paint, it was a very powerful image. It’s sad to see that Lake Erie is suffering from this massive algal bloom issue. I was reading IJC’s Lake Erie Ecosystem Priority which has a very keen focus on providing solutions in terms of algal blooms in Lake Erie, we should all work together and see that Lake Erie comes back and again we’ll celebrate the environmental solution that we are going to see in the next few years, hopefully.
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Raj Bejankiwar is a Physical Scientist and the Deputy Director of the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Regional Office in Windsor. He leads projects addressing the issue of harmful algal blooms on his first and favourite Great Lake: Lake Erie.