Evidence of meeting #17 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 watershed.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority
It borders Lake St. Clair as well as Lake Erie. The Thames itself doesn't touch Lake Erie, but the Lower Thames jurisdiction does. The tributaries that flow directly into the north shore are under our jurisdiction as well.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I'm told there is a Lake St. Clair Canadian Watershed Coordination Council. Would your agency be a participant?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I'm told also that the Government of Canada is a partner in that council. Is that correct?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I understand that council created the Lake St. Clair Canadian management plan. Are you familiar with that plan?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Can you give us a bit of description about that management plan and what impact it's having on Great Lakes water quality?
General Manager, Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority
Essentially, in the framework that Environment Canada had developed as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, it focused on the Great Lakes, so, for example, there was the lakewide management plan for Lake Erie. There was a similar effort undertaken for lower Lake Huron. And Lake St. Clair, being part of the connecting channel, is neither one or the other of the Great Lakes. It was recognized that Lake St. Clair was a special case, and that the impacts of the watersheds that were draining directly into Lake St. Clair were proportionally greater because of the very small volume within Lake St. Clair.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
My general impression, just from growing up in southern Ontario, is that Lake St. Clair has been a bit of a difficult case. I almost want to say a basket case environmentally, but that may be unfair.
Can you tell me what improvements, if any, you have seen in Lake St. Clair as a result of that management plan?
General Manager, Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority
Again, it's difficult to attribute specific improvements, other than more awareness around the importance of maintaining shoreline vegetation. As you know, the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair is intensively farmed and very heavily drained. But there are very important wetlands associated with Lake St. Clair, and I think it's understood that Lake St. Clair responds very well to maintaining those wetlands.
I'm happy to say that this year one of the consequences of the cold weather is that the ice-fishing season was prolonged on Lake St. Clair, and that the success the anglers have been having on Lake St. Clair has been, apparently, excellent. There's no question there's a good fishery existing within Lake St. Clair.
The water quality again in Lake St. Clair, sadly...if you look at satellite photos at a particular time when a significant runoff event has occurred from the Thames. One that I'm thinking about is from April 2013. About 40% of Lake St. Clair, the plume, the sediment plume from the Thames River was very visible. Again, I use that as an example. Regardless of what we've done, we're not approaching the problem with nearly the intensity or the scale that we need to. In my view, the objective should be to eliminate that sediment plume. The only way we can do that is to make sure we're managing all of the landscape that contributes to Lake St. Clair.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I'd like to go back to that, and if I may, I'll pick up with Ms. Fox. There was a suggestion, a good suggestion, I thought, about the necessity to model sources and relative contributions.
Is that being done already? Does it just need to be supercharged? Do we have the capacity? Where do we stand with those efforts?
Manager, Policy and Planning, Conservation Ontario
I believe—Don, I don't know if you know this—from the source water protection program we have some of the information that we need. I don't know what the status of that kind of modelling is among the conservation authorities. Some have been doing more than others.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
So maybe I will turn it back to Mr. Pearson, then.
Can you tell us, Mr. Pearson, in your watershed, how that's worked out?
General Manager, Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority
Sorry, just to clarify, in terms of the sources of greatest load?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That's correct—and the relative sources and the identification of sources. Is your conservation authority able to...? Are you working on that?
General Manager, Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority
We are working on it. The funding that I referred to earlier from the Ontario Ministry of Environment is intended to help us fine-tune it. We know that certain areas.... For example, the contributing area to Rondeau Bay has been studied extensively in the past, and it's a combination of the soil type and the slope. We know that this area in general is a very high contributor into Rondeau Bay. We can basically extrapolate that to other similar soil types with similar slopes.
The characteristics are that there is a significant slope from what's called the ridge down into Lake Erie, and so virtually any practice that is aimed at conservation tillage and reducing the rate of runoff is equally applicable. All of those areas would be contributing equally.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Woodworth.
We'll go back to Mr. Bevington.
Mr. Bevington, because of Mr. Choquette's extreme generosity, rather than five minutes, you have four minutes and 59 seconds.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your careful attention to the clock.
I have a question for Mr. Murphy.
Are you dealing with arsenic trioxide in this?
General Manager and Secretary Treasurer, Quinte Conservation Authority
I'm not a chemist. All I know is that it's not the good kind; it's quite toxic.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
It's very toxic. It's one of the more toxic substances known to man.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
If it's the same thing that's in the Yellowknife mine, I wish you well with your job of getting it out of the soil. It's really quite a bad substance, and every effort should be made to keep it out of the river system. It's absolutely....
General Manager and Secretary Treasurer, Quinte Conservation Authority
The system that the Ministry of the Environment has put in place includes a series of waterproof barriers along the river and pipes that intercept any water that does get through and takes it back to the plant that takes the arsenic out. We're quite satisfied that they've done a great job in their plans and that it's going to work.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Yes. It seems to be that the phosphorus is the issue.
Have any of you had any discussions about polluter pay principles with respect to the phosphorus issue?