Evidence of meeting #19 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 wetlands.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
Yes, I agree with that too. The timeframes are very short for setting goals, but there's very little in terms of actually implementing them, as we've said.
Vice Chair, Restore Our Water International, Sierra Club of Canada
I would just add that the whole question is whether there is adequate funding to actually implement the terms.
NDP
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for David Sweetnam.
You spoke about blue-green algae, which is something that I am quite concerned about, as are many of my constituents. My riding is magnificent. It has mountains and lakes. My riding is Brome—Missisquoi, in the Estrie region. There are many lakes, including Brome Lake, Champlain Lake—I won't list them all—and there are organizations mandated to restore their water quality.
I know you that are working on Georgian Bay and that you provided funding to York University to acquire knowledge on what triggers blue-green algae blooms. First, what influence does the water quality have and what are the dangers to the people who use it? Second, could you also summarize the outcome of that research?
Executive Director, Georgian Bay Forever
Certainly. From the perspective of the public and the ecosystem use of the water, it could be argued that blue-green algae is part of the ecosystem and therefore part of the natural processes that exist. But I think when we talk about blue-green algae and nuisance algae blooms, we're talking more about the impact they have on the humans who are using the water. From that perspective, even the spectre of a blue-green algae bloom can cause problems with housing values. If there is an actual bloom, whether or not it's toxic, in the interim between it being expressed and it being identified, nobody can touch the water or drink the water, and you can't let your dog go into it, for fear that if it is toxic it's actually going to kill the pet or cause you problems. You can't touch it, because it can be absorbed. You have hepatotoxins—liver toxins—that can actually get into your system and cause significant health problems.
From an economic perspective—in Sturgeon Bay as an example—where blooms recur, you have the spectre of not being able to sell your cottage if that is a progressively worsening condition in that particular geographic location.
From the perspective of inland lakes, we've actually seen increases over the last couple of decades in the incidence of blue-green algae blooms. Part of our actual research was looking at these biochemical triggers that exist and asking why, when blue-green algae are always more efficient at scouring phosphorus out of their environment, they do not always express themselves in massive blooms. The eukaryotic algae—the other algae—dominate until something triggers the blue-green algae, and it takes over.
We were looking at the effect of anoxia in these bottom waters that have detritus, as Dr. Ciborowski was talking about. The normal eukaryotic algae die and go down to the bottom and rot, and they suck all the oxygen out of that water. At that point you go back to prehistoric, pre-oxygen conditions that existed on the earth when the blue-green algaes actually dominated. They are much more efficient at using chemicals other than oxygen in their biochemical processes than the eukaryotic—or oxygen-loving—types of algae are.
As soon as you go anoxic, you can get ferrous iron that can come out of the sediment, and that liberates phosphorus. Phosphorus is used as a kind of fertilizer, if you will, for those organisms, and they can actually migrate up and down in the water column. They can go up to the oxygenated kind of eutrophic areas where they can get to sunlight, and then they can drop themselves down like a diving bell, grab the nutrients they want, and then rise up again through the water levels. So they're actually motile; they can move up and down.
It's those kinds of triggers we've now written a paper about with York University's Dr. Lewis Molot, which has been accepted for publication in Freshwater Biology. It's an interesting, kind of esoteric, science that we wanted to find out about.
Once they dominate, then certainly with the amount of phosphorus that's available to them in the Great Lakes system—phosphorus is kind of the limiting nutrient—they can then manifest themselves in these huge surface scums that we all associate with the bloom. But the bloom was already happening in the water column. There were already lots of these organisms in existence throughout that water column.
Conservative
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses. This has been an especially gratifying study for me. It was one that I had requested and I have a great interest in it, living along the banks of the Grand River as I do, and having an interest in the quality of the water that I find all around me.
I would like to direct some questions to you, Professor Ciborowski, if I may, beginning with the Great Lakes nutrient initiative that you mentioned. I guess I'll ask you, first of all, are you involved with that in any way?
Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
I am to some extent. Yes, we're helping to sample in some of the areas. One of the biggest challenges in understanding the condition of the Great Lakes is that over time funding available for monitoring and conducting research has declined. We know more about the conditions in Lake Erie than any of the other Great Lakes. We know about the amount of nutrients that are loaded into the lake every year and use that to predict whether we will get algal blooms. In fact, though, many of the tributaries have not been monitored for 10 or 15 years. Fewer and fewer are monitored and we assume that some of those behave the same way as the ones that are.
The Great Lakes nutrient initiative has provided funds to monitor 12 of the Canadian tributaries flowing into Lake Erie that haven't been sampled for about five or six years previously. That includes the Grand, the Sydenham, the Thames, and the Detroit River, which is being monitored 24 hours a day throughout the year, in winter as well as in summer. It is a major impetus of the nutrient initiative to understand what is the linkage between the phosphorus loading and the manifestations of these algal blooms that we're seeing.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That's very good news and I appreciate it. What I understand is that although this initiative is focusing on Lake Erie the science or the data and the policy approaches that are developed through the initiative will be transferable to other Great Lakes, and indeed other bodies of water throughout Canada. Is that your understanding?
Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
That's absolutely correct. Lake Erie is the poster child because we have the most information, the most scientists, and therefore the best understanding of the relationships. That can certainly be applied to the different Great Lakes. Because we almost have three different lakes in Erie, we can use the shallow part and the deep part to infer about the other parts of the Great Lakes as well.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In fact, I've been waiting to try out the word “oligotrophy”, I think it is, which is in the deep part of Lake Erie and constitutes an absence of phosphorus. So I understand there are different levels within those lakes. I also understand that this Great Lakes nutrient initiative is going to lead to the establishment of binational lake ecosystem objectives and phosphorus objectives, and phosphorous load and reduction targets. Is that your understanding also?
Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
That is true, and I'm actually on the task group that's charged with estimating that based on the best available science. Presently, the guidelines that have been proposed for Lake Erie have been 11,000 metric tonnes per year. When we have a normal year in terms of rainfall the amount of runoff is below that and we don't have algal blooms. When we get a wet fall or winter, we go well above the normal amount of water and the amount of phosphorus entering can go up to 18,000 or 20,000. That's when we get those very severe blooms.
The evidence seems to be that those targets may be too high given the behaviour of the blue-green algae that Mr. Sweetnam was talking about, and some ideas are that perhaps a 30% reduction may be necessary in some of the watersheds. The question is: is that a realistic approach and how would we ever achieve those reductions given the economic consequences of that and the best management practices we have available?
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I think we've heard that the Grand River Conservation Authority is in fact working on this same project with a view to best management practices. But I don't know whether we have yet determined what the outcome of that is. Is that being studied as well, that is, the effect of the best management practices that are being developed?
Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
That's an important phase of it. The other thing to recognize is that the different rivers have different amounts of contribution from agriculture versus rural and suburban areas. One of the points we try to make is that so much attention seems to be devoted to the Maumee, which is mainly agricultural, that when you have Grand River, which is quite a mix of rural and urban areas, we probably need a different prescription from what we use for some of the other areas. That's an area of great interest to this task force.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I was just going to say that the chair is going to cut me off, and I have two more questions.
Conservative
NDP
NDP
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Okay.
My question is for you, Mr. Sweetnam.
Could the federal government play a preventive or curative role with respect to blue-green algae blooms?
Executive Director, Georgian Bay Forever
Certainly, I think with respect to the algal blooms that we're seeing in the Great Lakes Basin and the type of work that Dr. Ciborowski is doing and talking about, absolutely, there may be a role in the process there, which I'll leave to the people working in that process to talk about.
In the inland lakes where you have algal blooms, you may not even have anybody in that vicinity and the lake may still be experiencing an algal bloom. It may be that the pH of the rainfall is changing. It may be something completely different, or beyond our control, directly or short-term, that wouldn't necessarily lend itself well to the government intervening particularly with that kind of regulatory solution.
So I think you have to look at the problem specifically. Does that particular location or problem lend itself to being assisted? The answer, if it was yes or no, would be yes, but specifically directed to a particular problem.
NDP
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you very much.
I will share the rest of my time with Ms. Ashton.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
My question is to Ms. Muter.
I'd like you to comment on the connection between what we're talking about today and climate change. Increasingly, the words “climate change” are bad words in the political climate we're in from the government side. I'm wondering if you could make the connection in terms of what you see in the Great Lakes.
Vice Chair, Restore Our Water International, Sierra Club of Canada
Climate change is here. It's here. We have clear evidence of it now. The report that's just been released makes it even more scary than we previously thought it was.
In terms of its impact on the Great Lakes, obviously it's warming water temperatures. McMaster University's Dr. Pat Chow-Fraser has found temperatures of 27 degrees where pike populations exist, which is beyond the range that they normally can survive in.
So yes, it's warming up the waters, which allows things like algal blooms to happen much more easily over a longer period of time, but also with increased water temperatures there is increased evaporation. Historically, over the past decade, we have had significantly less ice cover. This past winter is an exception, but previous to that with less ice cover, warmer waters, increased evaporation, there are lower water levels across all the Great Lakes.
