It’s easy enough to shrug it off when a research paper that involved the study of nearly 400 temperate lakes worldwide identified Wascana Lake as among the leaders in water bodies that are losing oxygen the fastest, both at the surface level and at the lake bottom. While many people might regard the Regina lake as nothing more than a glorified slough unworthy of global consideration, the factors that contribute to its degradation also affect lakes elsewhere in Saskatchewan — particularly the shallow lakes across the southern part of the province — and indeed across much of Canada.