Open House will showcase water lab's research expertise

by Valerie Shore

To ensure clean water from source to tap, Canada needs to take an integrated approach to water and watershed science and management.

Find out how UVic is fast becoming a national and international leader in integrated water and watershed science when its new research facility for interdisciplinary environmental research holds an Open House on Wednesday, Aug. 27 from 1-5:30 p.m. The facility is located in rooms 020 and 034 of the Cunningham Building.

"This Open House will showcase the expertise and technologies we have in our lab to help governments, communities and utilities make informed decisions about drinking water and other issues related to fisheries and land-use activities," says Dr. Asit Mazumder (biology).

Since 1999, Mazumder has headed the NSERC industrial research chair on the environmental management of drinking water-the country's first university-based research program on the ecological processes that contribute to safe, clean and reliable sources of drinking water. The program has since evolved to take on a more interdisciplinary approach relating directly to human health, says Mazumder.

"We now have much broader collaborations with various industries and research institutions in Canada than we had before, as well as linkages in other countries, such as the U.S. and Australia."

The lab houses about $1.5 million worth of state-of-the-art analytical equipment, thanks to funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the B.C. Knowledge Development Fund and various industries. "We probably have the best-equipped lab in B.C. for analysing disinfection byproducts, taste and odour compounds, contaminants, pharmaceuticals, toxins, essential fatty acids, stable isotopes and nutrients," says Mazumder.

More than 30 people work in the lab, including research scientists, postdocs, graduate students, technicians and undergraduates. There are currently more than a dozen research projects on the go, on topics as far-ranging as: the raising of the Sooke dam and water quality; the use of chemical tracers to study land use and water quality; the effects of reservoir drawdown on water quality; the impact of cattle-grazing on water quality; new molecular tools to detect sources of drinking water contamination; mercury levels in fish; and the impact of forest harvesting on water quality.

The Open House is being held in conjunction with a national workshop on integrated water and watershed science at UVic on Aug. 28. More than 150 participants, including several international experts, government officials, utility and First Nations representatives will be on campus to discuss the ecology, management, health and socio-economics of water.

"To sustain clear water we need the integrated science that starts from the source water through distribution to the consumer's tap, and tie it in with human health and economic scenarios," says Mazumder. "Building this kind of integrated knowledge is what this workshop, and our lab, is all about."

For more details on the Open House, call Rick Nordin at 472-5021, nordin@uvic.ca, or go online to www.uvic.ca/water.