By Meerna Homayed
The Co-op Unit began as a partnership between Laurentian University, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), with a sharp focus on restoration ecology involving acid- and metal-damaged waters in Northeastern Ontario. In 1989, the timing was perfect for Dr. John Gunn, then a fisheries scientist with the MNR, and Bill Keller, a freshwater limnologist with the MOE, to join forces with Laurentian in a bid to further their research initiatives.
“The rationale was that we had similar or at least parallel interests – fish, water, benthic invertebrates, all that kind of stuff. And it just made sense to tie some of the efforts more closely together,” explains Keller.
The partnership was initially called the Cooperative Fisheries Unit, with Gunn and a research assistant working out of Laurentian’s Biology Department. In 1991, they relocated the Co-op Unit to modest cottages on an MNR airbase on Ramsey Lake Road, where Keller also maintained an office. When his lab in downtown Sudbury was replaced with a new boardroom, he transferred his lab equipment to the new site and retrofitted the cottages to create workspaces. Having a research lab afforded Gunn and Keller the space and opportunity to engage more students in their fields of research.
“I think one of the best things about it was the kind of spirit of the people we managed to attract there. I mean it wasn't a wonderfully glitzy place to work, by any means. But everybody loved it, and got along, and worked hard. And that was really what made things succeed. People liked what they were doing, and even more importantly, believed in what they were doing,” says Keller.
In 1992, the Co-op Unit was renamed the Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit (CFEU) to incorporate its expanding and diversified research interests. Gunn and Keller were gaining international recognition for their studies on acid rain, and collaborators were steadily drawn to their robust datasets on lake acidification. As more students and collaborators from academia and government joined the thicket, the focus of the partnership evolved to embrace a multiple stressor framework.
“That's kind of how the work at the Co-op evolved over time, in a nutshell. From, you know, looking at a problem, to looking at a problem that has changed a lot in scope, but is now being played out against a background of a whole bunch of other things too, with climate change being a big one everywhere,” says Keller.
Industry partners engaged in the CFEU after a change in provincial government in 1995 led to a drastic lack of funding. All the while, the quaint cottages on Ramsey Lake Road were struggling to keep up with the proliferating Co-op Unit. As research moved beyond Sudbury’s industrial damage to incorporate more regional ecological complexities, the needs of the CFEU greatly surpassed its allotted space, and it was time to move out. Gunn, in his new role as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Stressed Aquatic Systems at Laurentian, began the search for new facilities, and potential donors.
“Most of the members took part in the fundraising themselves. We designed the new building ourselves with professional architects, and then built it for growth. We built it for new potentials that we didn't know at the time,” says Gunn.
It worked. In 2011, with support from local businesses and provincial and federal agencies, the Vale Living with Lakes Centre officially opened for business. Situated on Ramsay Lake at the mouth of Laurentian’s campus, the building is dressed in ceiling-to-floor lake-facing windows and equipped with sustainable water and energy sources. The upper floor mainly consists of a large, open lab where researchers and students from all facets of the Co-op work closely together.
“To be all together in this inspiring space gives a great sense of cohesion and purpose to the work we do,” he says.
Moving into the Living with Lakes Centre enabled growth within the CFEU’s foundation. What was once a three-pronged co-op between Laurentian and the Ontario Government and industry, then became four by adding a federal collaborator in the Canadian Forestry Services (CFS), further stabilizing the partnership. Dr. Erik Emilson, a former LU Ph.D. student, leads the CFS program.
“It grew from one research assistant, Ed Snucins, and myself in a tiny corner office in Biology, to the current participating researchers from five different
departments, six associate universities, and three government agencies, forming a team of approximately 80 people.”
“Moving into the Living with Lakes Centre represented the expansion of the ecosystem of concern onto the land and into the atmosphere,” says Gunn. “We arrived in the new facility with our established team of experts (Gunn, Keller, and Drs. Tom Johnston, Dave Pearson and Peter Beckett), but the move soon ushered in a new generation of talented research scientists whose expertise covers all manner of stressors to ecological ecosystems. This includes Dr. Nate Basiliko, a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Environmental Microbiology, Dr. Nadia Mykytczuk, an NOHFC Industrial Research Chair in Biomining,
Bioremediation and Science Communication, Dr. Brie Edwards with MECP, and Dr. Pascale Roy-Léveillée with the School of Northern and Community Studies.
The Living with Lakes Centre is also host to the Science Communication Master’s program, the first of its kind in North America, directed by Dr. Chantal Barriault.”
As the CFEU celebrates this milestone anniversary, it’s also gearing up for the next phase of developments. The Co-op is looking to add 3 or 4 new researchers by 2022, extend the Living with Lakes Centre to incorporate a science communication and climate change hub, establish a new Centre for Mine Waste Biotechnology, and support the development of clean-water technologies. It will continue to expand connections with other post-secondary institutions and industry partners, and maintain its long-term monitoring studies.
Where will it be in the next thirty years? Gunn believes the CFEU will develop broader and deeper partnerships, while perhaps creating other research and science engagement institutes and teams, to be based largely in Northern Ontario. “We will still be conducting important research to address the life cycle effects of mining, from environmental assessment to decommissioning to waste management. But I suspect the big focus will be on climate adaptation with a Northern community and ecosystem perspective.”
While it’s not always possible to predict the future in an area of changing environments, “the Co-op Unit has always been a leader in identifying threats to freshwater systems and their surrounding landscapes,” says Dr. Brie Edwards, the CFEU’s lead research scientist for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. “[It] will continue to champion research that blends multiple disciplines and breaks down barriers between knowledge production and evidence-based decision-making wherever it is needed most.”
This article is republished from Laurentian University’s Research Magazine The Key 2019.
