Good afternoon. I'm Bonnie Fox. I'm the manager of policy and planning at Conservation Ontario. We are the organization that supports Ontario's 36 conservation authorities.
Conservation authorities are community-based watershed management agencies. Of the 36, there are 35 conservation authorities that drain into the Great Lakes Basin and the St. Lawrence River Basin. Of those 35, there are 26 that have a Great Lakes shoreline and St. Lawrence River shoreline.
Of Ontario's population, 90% resides within conservation authority boundaries. This is both a challenge and an opportunity in terms of balancing human needs with environmental and economic needs.
Conservation Ontario coordinates watershed level input into Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River issues through a couple of ways. We will set up review committees of conservation authority technical experts and we will endorse representatives to sit on binational Great Lakes and domestic committees.
As well, the conservation authorities themselves provide an effective coordination and local delivery mechanism for provincial, federal, and municipal priorities. So, for example, it's what Terry was talking about federally with the remedial action plan program. At the provincial level, for example, it's the provincial groundwater monitoring network and local rural water quality programs.
With regard to priority locations in the Great Lakes Basin, I wanted to draw your attention to four broad areas.
The first is the Great Lakes areas of concern.
The second one is Lake Erie. It's suffering from excessive nutrient loads to an ecosystem that is too impaired to deal with them. From the Canadian side, it would likely require a focus on the Grand River watershed as a major contributor to loads, and, as well, for the western basin, the Thames River.
The third area I want to draw your attention to is the nearshore areas of the Great Lakes, in general, and as a major threat to the nearshore areas, the contributing watersheds.
As a starting point, the areas that could be focused upon are where there are already federal, provincial, and municipal collaborations to deal with nearshore issues. For Lake Huron, the southern Georgian Bay collaborative comes to mind, as well as the Lake Huron Southeast Shores Initiative. For Lake Ontario, the Greater Golden Horseshoe comes to mind.
The final priority locations are natural areas that provide significant support to our Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River ecosystem. That may include the headwaters, large natural areas, wetlands, and shoreline areas. Preliminary priority locations have been identified in lake biodiversity conservation strategies that were developed by binational committees. These natural features in areas improve water quality coming from the contributing watersheds, and they are the nurseries of our commercial fisheries and endangered species, and resting areas for migratory birds. One of those priority areas is the Bay of Quinte.
With regard to efforts that are currently under way or planned for remediation, I can tell you conservation authorities have a lot of experience in developing and implementing a range of local conservation programs. Best management practices within watersheds and along the shorelines of the Great Lakes improve water quality, and they create green jobs to boost the economy.
We consistently hear from the conservation authorities that they need more incentive funding to promote voluntary actions. This funding cannot be short term, but needs to be multi-year and long term. This allows momentum to build and community action to occur.
There are some best-bet actions I want to highlight that are occurring, but they require greater investment to have real impact.
Number one are rural and urban stormwater management practices to reduce non-point source pollution. I'm talking about agricultural best management practices, urban stormwater management, green infrastructure, and low-impact development techniques.
The other area is habitat enhancement projects for improved biodiversity and resiliency in the nearshore. Examples of those projects would be dam removal or naturalization of Great Lakes shoreline protection works.
As indicated earlier, the nearshore of the Great Lakes is a vital resource. There's no question that the nearshore ecosystem and dynamics affecting water quality need to be understood. As well, the contributing watersheds, as one of the major threats to the nearshore, must be recognized in nearshore science and assessment activities. There must be measurable targets set for the nearshore areas to achieve improvement of Great Lakes water quality. An integrated watershed management approach would enable the assessment and subsequent adjustment of watershed actions, like the BMPs I've mentioned, as necessary to meet the targets. Monitoring and reporting will ensure accountability.
In the Greater Golden Horseshoe especially, it will be important to examine population growth projections and land-use scenarios that are watershed-based and modelled for climate change predictions that demonstrate what we need to manage and adapt to. Watershed and shoreline managers need to be able to access climate change data and information specific to the Great Lakes region, and that is not something we can do locally.
Turning to your final question around best practices that will facilitate further remediation of areas of environmental concern within the Great Lakes Basin, a critical best practice that's currently being enhanced under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is collaboration. Collaboration between all levels of government, first nations and Métis, watershed management agencies, and others is necessary for improvements to Great Lakes water quality. In particular there needs to be greater collaboration on governance, science, and action.
For governance, Conservation Ontario has taken the position that, given our role in local watershed management, we should have representatives at decision-making tables wherever priorities are being set and work planning is undertaken. We have a seat on the Great Lakes executive committee for the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and on a number of the annex committees and task groups. That's a great start and we appreciate that. It would be good to see similar engagement under the new Canada-Ontario agreement.
Collaboration is also necessary for the action agenda with regard to increased implementation of stewardship and capital assistance programs, as well as education and outreach programs. These actions must be supported with an adequate and collaborative science agenda with regard to research, monitoring and reporting, and ensuring accessible information.
Another important best practice in remediation that I would like to share is prevention. We need to transfer the tools and the lessons learned across the basin, lessons we know will benefit Great Lakes water quality. We need to incent implementation of these best management practices so that we are not creating new areas of environmental concern and playing catch-up. Through application of lessons learned and financial incentives to enable significant action, we can protect the entire basin while we continue to remediate in environmental areas of concern.
In conclusion, we rely on Great Lakes water quality for all kinds of things in our daily lives. We should ensure that we will have enough clean water for all our needs, whether they are ecological or economic or they are for our own health.
The attention of this standing committee is welcome. The conservation authorities are committed to improving Great Lakes water quality. We look forward to working with you and meeting the commitments of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and, most significantly, participating in implementation actions.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments and I look forward to your questions.