The Manitoba government plans to ban winter manure spreading starting in 2013.
The new regulation is part of an effort to reduce nutrient loading in Manitoba’s rivers and lakes, a campaign that provincial officials are now describing as a war on phosphorus.
“When we entered office, we recognized that decades of poor planning, abuse and neglect of our lakes, rivers and wetlands had to stop,” said conservation minister Stan Struthers.
Another regulation will require all new hog producers to register manure management plans and have a minimum amount of manure storage.
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The regulations are based on recommendations from the province’s Clean Environment Commission, which released a comprehensive report on Manitoba’s hog industry in the spring of 2008.
Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council, said the province has talked about these changes for some time.
But it is difficult to swallow the timing and tone of the announcement, he said.
“The producers, at least in our industry, are in the middle of a serious financial difficulty at the moment,” he said.
“And here we go again, another government regulation. It shows a certain insensitivity as to where everybody is at the moment.”
The phrase “war on phosphorous” used in the headline of the provincial news release, also caught Dickson off guard.
“Which is kind of demeaning of the word (war), when you think of the troops going into Afghanistan,” he said.
“I mean, it’s hardly the same context.”
Manitoba’s NDP government has made water protection a priority since algae blooms covered a significant portion of Lake Winnipeg in the summer of 2006.
Last fall, the province passed Bill 17, a moratorium on hog barn expansion in the Interlake and eastern Manitoba.
The government also announced last week that it will provide University of Manitoba researchers a $300,000 grant to study phosphorus buildup in the soil and how it relates to nutrient loading in the province’s lakes and rivers.
