In the last days of December, a regional French-language Canadian media organisation, the Quebec Hebdo, wound up the year with a retrospective feature summarising the highlights of 2018.
It is fairly clear that Phoslock made some waves in Quebec last year, for the product features prominently in one of the listed memorable moments of 2018.
Under a heading, which translates to 'Hope for Lake Saint-Augustin', there is a picture of one of the Phoslock vessels treating Lac Bromont.
Here is a translation of the relevant text below the picture:
Autumn brought a ray of hope for the preservation of Lake Saint-Augustin, whose water quality is deteriorating because of its small size and the surrounding urban environment. In its fight against episodes of surface algae caused by cyanobacteria that affect many bodies of water each summer in Quebec, Lake Bromont opted for Phoslock. Tested for the first time in the province, the solution was a success that could eventually be replicated on a lake similar in size like that of Saint- Augustin. It remains to be seen the long-term results of this expensive process and also the regional willingness to preserve the small urban water body.
In the middle of 2017, one poster here drew attention to an article by the same reporter who penned the above retrospective, which noted that the local council of the Saint-Augustin region had been watching the outcome of the Phoslock treatment of Lake Bromont, the suggestion being that the apparently successful treatment of Lac Bromont should pave the way for a similar treatment of Lac Saint-Augustin.
So from the sound of it, with the treatment of Bromont now looking like a success, it seems likely that the local council should give the green light for the treatment of Lac Saint-Augustin in the near future.
It isn't a huge lake, although it is larger than Bromont: comparing the two on a map, Lac Saint-Augustin looks like it might have a surface area of about 30-40% greater than that of Lac Bromont.
I think the company got lucky with the timing of the Lac Bromont treatment: as mentioned in the previous post, 2018 was a horror year for blue-green algae in Canada, and last summer, while many surrounding lakes in Quebec would have been full of algal-blooms, the recently treated Bromont was crystal-clear and algae-free, thereby serving as a nice advertisement for phoslock.
(20min delay)
