Evidence of meeting #18 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was phosphorus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I wouldn't mind the executive summary, just out of curiosity, because you're always looking for the magic bullet and I don't know whether this is or isn't, but it's an interesting....
4:35 p.m.
Representative, Forum for Leadership on Water
It's a magic bullet, not the magic bullet.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Thanks very much for that opportunity. I have a chemical background; I'm a chemist, actually.
I won't get into detailed chemistry, but ozone is a strong oxidizing agent, just like chlorine. It is even stronger than ozone. In fact, in Windsor, where we actually meet with the IJC at this water treatment plant, instead of chlorine it uses ozone. The reason they put it in was to get rid of chemicals that caused taste and odours. It is a very strong chemical oxidant that has the ability to break down and destroy those chemicals that Dr. Bruce was talking about.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I'm assuming for every action there's another reaction that goes on. Is this a good reaction or not?
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
With ozone there are sometimes disinfection byproducts. In drinking water issues it usually smells and tastes a little bit like bananas. Certainly, it depends on the source water quality that's coming in. That's a fairly rare case. In the case of Windsor, they don't have any disinfection byproducts in that particular case. I wasn't actually aware of this information, so I find it quite interesting.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Maybe in Windsor they just like bananas.
Dr. Taylor, your target which Mylène referenced in her question, was that target set based on modelling in the 1970s?
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
Certainly, there are more sophisticated models that we could apply now. On the other hand, they are also very data hungry models. I don't know whether for a research program data could be collected to supply a more sophisticated model for an area in the Great Lakes.
It's commonly done in research, but I think it's going to be a long time before we have the monitoring data for a whole great lake that we could routinely use with a more sophisticated modelling approach. That said, I'm not a modeller, but I think that would probably be the case.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Dr. Chow-Fraser, the core of your presentation had to do with the levels of Georgian Bay in particular; that's where your focus is. Routinely, there are requests at IJC to draw down water for whatever reason. Currently, I think there is one in Wisconsin which wants to move from one watershed to another. It's about nine million gallons a day. Nine million gallons a day, as one application, may not mean too much, but 100 of them really starts to mean something.
Given that your observations are highly influenced by levels, what would your recommendation be not only to the government but to the IJC?
4:40 p.m.
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
Changing water levels have implications for the volume of the water, obviously. So whether it's in the nearshore or on the offshore are actually two different things. I'm talking about the nearshore.
For the nearshore environment a drawdown of half a metre or a metre, when your wetland on average is only about three or four metres, means that's a quarter of the volume of water. That's a huge effect. More than that, it's not just whether it's drawn down or up, it's the fluctuations, the natural fluctuations which are very different in the Great Lakes.
In the Great Lakes, we have a 30-year cycle of up and down. People can probably remember that in the 1970s and 1980s we had very, very high waters. Then in the 1960s there were very, very low waters. It tends to cycle like that naturally.
What's happening now, which is really unusual for Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, is that it has stayed low for the last 15 years. We do have a sense that some of that is definitely because of climate change, but some of that is also because of the dredging of the St. Clair River, which has also exacerbated that.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
We're going to have to leave it at that point.
We'll move now to Mr. Chisholm, for five minutes.
March 27th, 2014 / 4:40 p.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you to the panel.
This has been a frightening presentation, frankly. I'm the fisheries and oceans critic for the official opposition, and I very much believe in the breaking down the silos aspect of dealing with this: deal with fish, deal with water quality, and deal with the environment together.
I'm frankly so alarmed by the changes to the Fisheries Act. I guess that's partly my question. The changes to the Fisheries Act and the regulations that came forth subsequently set the walls even higher. We're looking at fish and we're looking at their economic value, and that's kind of it. It took away the powers in the Fisheries Act with respect to HADD, to do the kinds of things you're talking about with respect to habitat, an ecosystems approach.
I'm so interested in what you have to say, but again, I find that our ability to deal with what you've said has really been impacted because of some of the legislative changes we're making. I would ask the four of you to comment, please.
4:45 p.m.
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
It's really critical that we look at habitat, because without the habitat we don't have the small fish and we don't have the big fish. This is actually one of the major things that our research is showing now. When you don't look after the breeding habitat, when you're only looking at the big fish, like the muskies that grow to 54 inches, what we're finding now in Severn Sound is that there are no more young muskies because the habitat is gone, because it has dried up, and there's no oxygen where there should be.
In terms of actually having the leverage to try to protect this habitat, we don't anymore, because the large fish aren't using it. It's the small fish. I absolutely agree with you: it has to be habitat.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Does anyone else want to respond?
Dr. Taylor, do you want to respond?
4:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
I can only concur. It's all about habitat. I mean, fisheries management; it's a bit of a strange term. We can manage people, and we can do what we can do to fix the habitat. We really can't manage fish. They do what they want.
4:45 p.m.
Representative, Forum for Leadership on Water
Also, we have to remember that the fish are rather mobile creatures. If you think of an area as being a good place for controlling fish and you designate that as an area to control, you have to remember that those fish probably came from somewhere a lot further away, upstream, or downstream possibly; so the selection of areas where you would apply the habitat provisions of the Fisheries Act is I think a very unfortunate move.
4:45 p.m.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Yes. Just to make it unanimous, I don't think you have too many scientists who were cheering for the changes that we saw. Be that as it may, we need to echo those comments already made about fish habitat.
I have a little story. There's that little tributary that I showed you in my slide with respect to phosphorus. It turns out that it's one of the most important walleye runs and nursing habitats. It stops at what is a historical dam and it's obviously the end of the spawning run at that point. In terms of how much more extensive it was in previous years we can't say, but it shows the limitations when you start to encroach on habitat.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
It's interesting that in the constituency I represent, which is urban-suburban, there has been an increasing amount of conservation work being done to try to repair damage that has been done, going right up past shopping malls and that kind of stuff to a lake now, to the point where there are gaspereau returning. It can be done, but if we keep damaging it, it does leave more....
My last question, I guess, is—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
My apologies, because I have to go, but I do want to follow up with you and learn more about the work you're doing.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you, Mr. Chisholm, and thanks for joining us today.
We'll move now to Mr. Toet for five minutes.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
