FAQ
The Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit (CFEU or Co-op Unit) is an internationally renowned research and monitoring group that studies the impact and effects of human activities on lakes, streams and wetlands in Northern Ontario environments.
There are often positions available during the school year and summer months. Check out our Programs page to see what graduate student programs we offer, and our Scholarships & Career Opportunities section to see what positions are currently available. You can also send your curriculum vitae (cv) and cover letter to one of our principal investigators (PIs) directly. A follow-up phone call or a drop-by visit is always encouraged. Job opportunities may also be posted on the Job Bank website.
The public is often seeking information on individual lakes. Much of this information can be found in our Reports and Publications Section. Additional information can also be found on the City of Greater Sudbury’s Lake Health page.
If you suspect that blue-green algae is present in a waterway in the Sudbury area please report it to the Sudbury & District Health Unit.
The Guide to eating Ontario Fish is a publication of The Ministry of the Environment which lets you know if you should be eating fish from your lake and if so, how much.
The person collecting the data is not always the individual who is responsible for the project at hand. Oftentimes, technicians at the Living with Lakes Centre collect data for government monitoring projects and send the samples elsewhere for analysis. A great example of this is the Sportfish Contaminant Monitoring Program run by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Provincial government monitoring programs are often open to making their data public, although there may be substantial lag time before the samples are processed and the data is available. In these cases, a quick internet search will usually guide you to the correct person to contact for data requests.
Other times, data is being collected for an academic research program at Laurentian University. In this case, the data is usually owned and maintained by Laurentian researchers. However, in some cases there may be restrictions to how much data can be shared (for example, agreements with research partners sometimes require that the data remain confidential until it is officially published in an academic report).
In either case, a friendly conversation with the technicians can usually lead you in the right direction. Even if the technicians don’t know on hand whether or not you can obtain the data directly, they will have the contact information for the project supervisor, who will surely be able to give you an answer.