Evidence of meeting #15 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 ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Thank you, witnesses, for coming here today.
I'm going to focus a bit on the Upper Thames River, because I think I'm a little bit more experienced with rivers than with lakes.
I am interested in some of the things you've identified. Quite clearly you consider this to be one of the areas of great concern in the Great Lakes. The World Wildlife Fund gave you an overall poor score on the river. They especially noted water flow. Are there lots of diversions out of the river? Does the flow rate change quite dramatically over the course of the year?
General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
Thank you for the question.
Not only did World Wildlife Fund give us a poor score, we gave ourselves a poor score in our own report cards for water quality as well. The Thames River basin is incredibly developed. Most of the wetlands that would have been in place historically, which moderate flow and maintain flow through dry summer periods, have been drained. Very few remnant wetlands are left.
The solution 50 years ago was to develop flood control infrastructure, first of all to prevent flooding. Those dams and reservoirs are maintained by the conservation authority, but their secondary purpose is what we call flow augmentation. They're designed to capture the spring runoff, which hopefully will happen soon. Then through the course of the summer we discharge water to try to ensure water levels are stable and supportive of ecosystem health.
The watersheds are also very intensively farmed. Field tile drainage is everywhere. That is very efficient and very effective at drying the land for agricultural production, but again it does not retain a lot in the way of a water supply through the summer to continually recharge the streams and water courses.
NDP
General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
Sorry, I didn't get to that part.
Actual water takings are quite low in our watershed for agricultural purposes. It's not used even for domestic purposes. Water supply in our watershed is either provided by ground water or it's piped from the Great Lakes. In fact, water takings for consumptive uses are relatively low compared to those in our neighbour watersheds like the Grand River in Kitchener-Waterloo.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
What would you say is the change in...? Does the land take on more water then?
General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
In all honesty, the principal reason would be the loss of wetlands. We've lost over 80% of the wetlands. Wetlands provide a very, very important function of retaining water just as a dam or a reservoir would. In the spring, wetlands retain the water and slowly discharge it. Through the course of the summer, the wetlands are gone for the most part. It's just a function of the land use, not necessarily because of water takings.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Okay.
I have a question here about this southwestern landfill. This might go more to the future pressures on the river system, but there are some concerns about this new landfill site. Do you do future casting for the river basin, anticipating what the additional pressures are going to be on the river system? Do they come into account when you're looking at what other people are contributing? In other words are you looking at a—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Mr. Bevington, apparently we're having some trouble with interpretation.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Mr. Chair, could you check whether the French interpretation is working?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
It's working fine for me. The English is coming through for me. Is anyone else picking up the French? Okay?
Mr. Bevington, we did stop the clock for you.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Fair enough.
You've said that you've been unable to make a lot of progress in improving the water situation there, but are you also looking at what the future is going to bring—more development, more population, and more impacts on the water system—when you're talking about regulation? Or are you mostly in a reactive mode, where you look at the situations that actually happen rather than forecasting in order to develop regulations or land use policies?
General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
That's a great question with kind of a complicated answer. For forecasting for the future, I would say certainly that's a big part of our job. A large responsibility is flood control, maintaining flows and protecting people and their property. From a forecasting point of view, we certainly are involved in collaborations with the University of Western Ontario and different organizations about future environmental states and what that might mean for water supply and for flood risks throughout the watershed. Yes, we do that.
If your question is more specifically about whether we are forecasting and anticipating future development, future population growth, certain types of land use, or certain types of development, I would say that we do not engage in that specifically. However, when we have a proposal or a development like the southwest landfill that's being proposed, we are certainly fully engaged in the whole environmental assessment process and in providing comments. We are a commenting agency that does bring the science forward about what the potential impacts of those developments can and will be.
On forecasting, we're not reactive in the sense that you build the landfill and then we figure out if there's going to be a problem. We certainly are engaged in answering that question before the development is finally approved through our land use planning process, but we do not go so far as to try to anticipate 20 or 30 years from now what the population, the different land uses, or the different developments might be.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Well, here's what my question would be. If you look back, if you had said years ago that you wanted to improve the river and you anticipated that the population in the region was going to go up so that you would need fairly stringent requirements in order to improve the river, would that have made a difference to the problem you see today?
General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
Mr. Chair, we are engaged in those activities. The showcasing water innovation program was mentioned by my colleagues here. We are engaged in a water management plan right now in trying to anticipate population growth for the next 20 years generally through the watershed. We did the same thing in the 1970s through the Thames River basin study.
We have conducted those studies and tried to anticipate to some extent. Our experience is that the reality of what happens is usually a little different from what the plans anticipate, but frankly, in our watershed.... I'll be clear. The Thames River basin is what I'm putting forward as a critical area. The population growth is not a significant driver like it is closer to the GTA or even to the Grand River watershed. Population growth is very slow and steady. The problems we see today in the Thames River basin are the same problems we had in the 1970s.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing some of my time with Mr. Sopuck.
I have to admit, Mr. Richardson, that being from Alberta, I had very little knowledge when it came to the Great Lakes and in fact Lake Simcoe when I first came up here, other than what I learned in school. Our colleague from Barrie, Mr. Patrick Brown, has been a strong advocate of Lake Simcoe. He is constantly educating me and other colleagues on the importance of the lake, especially the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund.
It's my understanding that our government has been a constant contributor to this fund, and obviously subsequently to the Lake Simcoe and southeastern Georgian Bay cleanup fund.
Could you speak to the results of these funds and how they've helped contribute with remediation efforts?
Director, Ministry of Agriculture & Food, Environmental Management Branch, Government of Ontario
Environment Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have been active participants in the Lake Simcoe protection plan, initially through, as you suggest, funding on the lake, and currently funding through the Georgian Bay-Lake Simcoe initiative.
Much of the work within the agricultural sector has gone towards enhanced best practices. Starting with the Canada-Ontario environmental farm plan, which was a focus in the area, we've topped that up through supplemental programs to increase the attractiveness of the plan and implement a number of best management practices programs.
In addition to the farm-by-farm programs, they've contributed towards research activities. Currently we're in discussions with them on issues surrounding waste-water treatment from agricultural operations, whether it's in the Holland Marsh, which is Canada's centre for organic vegetables, in the potato fields that are found on the edges of the watershed, or in the sod-growing districts in the southeast corner of the watershed.
In all of those we're looking at programs to manage waste water effectively from both an environmental and a cost perspective, to control drainage to prevent low flows in the summer and address water quality issues, and to adopt innovative technologies that look at things like recirculation for processed waste water from potatoes and carrot processing, etc.
