Environment committee  No, it's a separate issue. It's microplastics. It's been an area of study in the oceans, where they're finding zones of concentrations of plastic. One of the sources is our plastic bags and all the plastics we use that get ground up and persist in the environment. Interestingly,

Environment committee  That's the big challenge, how you would do that, either in sewage treatment or in other measures. Right now, I think the area of research is the impact of those microplastics and how important they are in the Great Lakes, but I think that already companies are starting to take pr

Environment committee  If I could add to that, though, Hamilton may be a best practice in terms of community involvement. They have a group called the Bay Area Restoration Council that has been absolutely wonderful in bringing people down to the harbour and creating recreational facilities for them alo

Environment committee  The long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants is still an issue globally. For Lake Superior in the north where there aren't a lot of local sources, it still accounts for a significant contribution of some chemicals. Overall the good news is that in the last 30 years the con

Environment committee  We use direct water quality monitoring. We have a fish contaminant program in the Great Lakes where we collect fish in both Canada and the United States from all lakes and analyze accumulation in fish. We have herring gull monitoring, which is now being used out west to monitor s

Environment committee  You asked about indicator species. The one indicator species that we do watch is the bald eagle. Bald eagles were not present in the Great Lakes basin for a number of years, largely because of the contaminants in the lakes. They've returned to most of the lake basins now.

Environment committee  We certainly look at fish. We look at whole fish, fish parts, and edible portions of fish.

Environment committee  They're all declining significantly in terms of the persistent toxins.

Environment committee  Water temperature is increasing. There is a link to algae growth. We're seeing a longer growing season for algae in Lake Erie. The lakes are all different. Lake Superior is a very large and deep lake, so it's a colder lake and it's not as responsive. Lake Erie is the shallowest

Environment committee  I'd just like to say that 2025 is our goal for those other seven. It's a bit hard to project that far out. Randle Reef is a sediment problem, and we have a solution and we're beginning to implement. Port Hope harbour is another place where there is a sediment problem, contamin

Environment committee  For sure, and we're actually using that knowledge in other parts of Canada, North America, and around the world. We developed the way we assess sediments in the Great Lakes, and we use that nationally now to characterize sediments and figure out how much of the sediment we need t

Environment committee  Certainly in the contaminated sediment field that's correct. These are legacy problems. What's changed in the Great Lakes since we started working in the 1970s is that we now have national legislation and provincial legislation that controls the discharge of chemicals. Federally

Environment committee  We actually work throughout the entire Great Lakes basin. The sources of the phosphorus are largely from land sources. They're urban, such as waste water treatment plants, stormwater, even household fertilizers that people use, but they're also agricultural. We work throughout th

Environment committee  Yes, they are. We do have our Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay cleanup fund, which is actually federal funding that was renewed in budget 2012. It's $30 million over five years. That helps stimulate action on the ground to demonstrate projects to reduce phosphorus from entering Lake

Environment committee  Yes. I would suspect that the report predates the amendment to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a Canada-U.S agreement that occurred in 2012. The newly amended Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement simply references the marine contingency agreement and addresses notificat