Environment Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

My final question has to do with RAMP, the regional aquatics monitoring program, which you've just mentioned. Are you involved with RAMP? This is an industry-funded monitoring program. I believe it started in the late nineties, I think around 1997.

When we were at Fort Chipewyan yesterday, we heard there was concern from first nations about the consultation process or their involvement with RAMP. They had concerns about that. So if it's a monitoring program that industry is required to be involved in, along with NGOs and first nations, Cree, could you comment on RAMP? Do you see it being successful, or are improvements needed?

[Dr. David Schindler]

I would say it has been very unsuccessful.

I had a small role in a 2004 review of the program. It was largely done by three federal scientists from the fisheries and environment departments. Of a 100-page report, about 99 pages were scathing criticisms of how they changed chemical analyses, changed sites of sampling, changed timing of sampling, all the things that violate all of the first principles of monitoring programs.

What I've heard since from people who have been involved leads me to believe that it hasn't improved very much. The other thing I find deficient in the program is that it's not transparent. There have been no analyses of the data. The data are not available to the scientific community at large to analyze and there has been no public release of what the program shows. Probably if there were, because of the deficiencies in design, it would show nothing. You can show no effect either by designing a very poor study or by nothing happening, and my guess is it's the poor design that's at fault here.

I think that program really needs to be changed. I would recommend an oversight by an independent committee of scientists and some first nations representatives, and that the program be required to report every three years, perhaps, with a public report as well so that people can understand what's happening to the river, if anything.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Dr. Schindler.

We'll move on now to the second round of five minutes. We'll do it like the last time. We'll give everyone who hasn't asked a question an opportunity to ask a question, and I'd like to start off.

Dr. Schindler, I was--

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we have to be able to ask another question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, if we have the time.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

We'll take the time, Mr. Chairman. We're going to ask other questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're supposed to stop—

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

It's not normal for him to be able to ask four questions and for him and me to ask only one.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I understand.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I would like us to do a second round, for both Mr. Trudeau and me.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll be able to come back to that after the second round.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

If we have the time, we'll finish with them.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The clerk tells me the committee has adopted a procedure. The first round is done by party, and the second is reserved for those who haven't asked questions.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

There are only two of us. There is he and I. So on a by-party basis, it should come back.

Yes, he's here. My buddy is here. I'm asking questions for him.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm going to ask my question and thus take the Liberal Party's turn.

Dr. Schindler, in the data that you showed us, could you just explain to me again what it's showing? It's showing that there are more chemicals in the river than there would be naturally, especially around oil sands developments, and then of course it tapers off as we go down the river. You were saying some of that presence of chemicals, as I understand it, comes from airborne sources, from the operations of maybe the disturbance of the natural ecosystem, and that some has come through the water as well. Have you speculated as to the source of the water-borne chemicals, if you will? Would that be tailings ponds? Are you prepared to make that link, or is it up in the air?

[Dr. David Schindler]

I'm really not prepared at this point. We were surprised at the high indication of airborne input. It's probably not too surprising when you think of strong winds blowing across huge expanses of the sort of landscape you saw yesterday. Also, I don't know if you saw any of those monster trucks going across. Often all you see is a great big black moving dust cloud around those, so they mobilize a lot of material as well.

Of course the only period we have that for is the winter four months. What we don't know is how much of that will run off with the snowpack into the river or its tributaries during spring melt, and that's something we plan to try to do next year. We were simply unable to raise the money to do it for this year, but there's really no way right now. We're hoping that via fingerprints we can separate perhaps tailings ponds from stacks from mobilization of surface material, but I don't know how probable that is at this stage in our analysis.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

My next question is to Dr. Donahue.

In terms of the framework that was developed with the help of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Alberta government, you were saying it's really not very useful because we don't have much science. Obviously we'd be speculating, but how would they go about it? What would the conversation be between DFO and the Alberta government in creating this framework? Obviously the scientists involved from DFO would know that the framework is inadequate. Would they just say, “Well, sorry, we don't have the data, so let's do our second-best effort, or let's throw a few darts at the board”? I'm being facetious here. What would the conversation be if you had to write a play about this?

[William F. Donahue]

Well, it would be a comedy.

I don't really know. I do know that in one of the draft frameworks it was reviewed by DFO scientists, and they concluded that it was not protective of fisheries. Somewhere along the line DFO's role became minimized, I think, and the science and the conclusions were removed as it approached this final phase-one framework.

In terms of where they go from there, I would say the conversation probably excluded the scientists at some point. It became more like “We need to put something in place, so let's maybe take a good stab at something that might work”.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, thank you very much.

We'll go with Mr. Braid for five minutes.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for their participation here this morning, for their time.

I'd like to start perhaps with you, Dr. Donahue, just to understand some of the work that you've done with respect to research on the flow of the Athabasca River. Perhaps I could just start with a basic question: Is the flow of the river and the water level of the river one and the same, or two different things?

[William F. Donahue]

It's two different things. The water level basically is a function of the geometry of the river. If it's deeper, the river's likely narrower. If the depth is low in some areas, that may be because the river's either wide or there's low flow. Water depth will be a function of the geometry in the amount of water that's flowing through.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

If I could go off on a tangent, then, have water levels changed in the river, to your knowledge?

[William F. Donahue]

I'm pretty sure water levels are available. I didn't really consider them, because they're going to change. In any river there will be shallow areas and deep areas, so the level ultimately will vary as you move up and down the river. Certainly as flow declines at any point in the river, the depth will decline also.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay, great.

With respect to your studies on flow, then, what year did the studies that you covered in your paper start? Was it 1970?

[William F. Donahue]

In this paper I presented I focused on the period from 1970 on, for a couple of reasons. One, the data weren't available necessarily that went back further beyond that, for example, in the Sunwapta River, at the headwaters. It was a case of comparing apples to apples.

I've looked at long-term flow records, where they've been available.