Environment Committee on Feb. 25th, 2014

[Joe Farwell]

Mr. Chair, the annual flow is about 25 cubic metres per second. It ranges from a low of 10 to 12 through the Kitchener-Waterloo area, to an average of 60 sometimes in the springtime. But it's a relatively small river of about 25 to 35 cubic metres per second.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So the winter low point is 10.

[Joe Farwell]

It will be around that right now, yes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Is there a significant difference there in the winter? Does it get covered with ice, and do you get this biological oxygen demand problem for your fish?

[Joe Farwell]

Right now the river is covered with ice. It does tend to create an ammonia problem as it moves downstream. The city of Brantford takes its water from the Grand River, and when it's entirely covered with ice it tends to cause an ammonia problem that requires changes in how they treat their drinking water.

I'm not a drinking water specialist, but I know that the ice cover does actually not allow the ammonia to escape and volatilize, or go off into the atmosphere. It does tend to be a bit of a problem in the winter.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Do you measure for oxygen demand in a system?

[Joe Farwell]

We don't measure for oxygen demand. We measure oxygen, pH of the water, and temperature, but not specifically oxygen demand. That would be one of the things that municipalities would do through their sewage treatment plant upgrade studies.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Historically, has the river flow rate increased, decreased, or remained constant?

[Joe Farwell]

It's been relatively constant over the last several decades. That's mostly as a result of the large dams in the watershed. The Grand is a very controlled river. It has three major reservoirs and four minor reservoirs that control the majority of the flow, so—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

The bells have started to ring. Do we have unanimous consent to allow Mr. Bevington to continue with the last two minutes of his questions, or do you want to adjourn?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Go ahead.

[Joe Farwell]

The Grand is a highly controlled river. The reservoirs actually are used to collect the spring runoff and discharge it over the summer so that there is sufficient water to dilute the effluent from the sewage treatment plants.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Is the sediment loading that is behind these dams significant?

[Joe Farwell]

It's not particularly significant. We do actually open them up in the fall and discharge an awful lot from the bottom of the reservoirs. A lot of the sediment can pass through the system the way it naturally would.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

And in the spring you're holding the water back.

[Joe Farwell]

That's correct.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So your spring freshet, is it not available for some of the wetlands in the region? That's usually a problem with control systems on rivers.

[Joe Farwell]

Yes, the spring freshet...certainly the reservoirs are used to control flooding, so some of the traditional flood plain areas that would have been spawning areas are no longer flooded every spring the way they would have been 200 years ago. I would say that the spring freshet is not as volatile. The reservoirs are used to control flooding so we don't flood as much of the flood plain each year.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So the control mechanisms are not ecologically driven. In other words, you're not looking at impacts on the natural environment, you're looking at them as useful for man's environment. Is that correct?

[Joe Farwell]

That's been the traditional approach but we are starting to actually look at ecological flows through our water management plan and some of the things—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

How much resistance would there be to that type of approach?

[Joe Farwell]

We're not prepared to get into flooding out communities, but it's a conversation that we're having.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay, thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We also had an agreement at our last meeting to go into some committee business at the end of our meeting but considering the bells are ringing and we have a number of witnesses lined up for the next number of meetings, I'm going to suggest that we postpone that committee business to finalize our witness list to Thursday.

Are all agreed?