I'll give the example of a study undertaken by the Washington, D.C. based Brookings Institution and more recently in partnership with the University of Toronto based Mowat Centre.
They did an evaluation within the context of what's called the north coast initiative of the United States, all the Great Lakes along their northern boundary. Their economy has declined to the point where all this industry has left for states and outside of country where it's more economically viable for them. The Great Lakes were in great decline, so the Brookings Institution was tasked to do a north coast initiative strategy. It outlined a number of things to revitalize that area because the infrastructure still existed. I'm using this as an example because it's right there; it's just across the border and it's the same context.
The Great Lakes are very important because you can attract industry to the zone. You have 18% of the world's fresh water sitting in that one basin. You also still have infrastructure: schools, roads, hospitals, commercial venues, etc. Everything was contingent upon the health of the Great Lakes, so they carried out a Great Lakes restoration study. It demonstrated that for an investment of $26 billion in that entire coastal area, including upgrading of sewage infrastructure, restoring up to 500,000 acres of coastal wetlands, eliminating dams that were impeding fish migration, and cleaning up toxic blobs in the St. Clair River, they would garner $50 billion in large-scale regional benefits and $30 million in that immediate area.
The Mowat Centre has been working with them and trying to quantify the benefit of these actions. We have been impacted by lower water levels In our area. If you can believe this, the north channel of the eastern Georgian Bay coastal area has among the most diverse and most productive fish habitat in the Great Lakes. With the decline of the water level, suddenly a lot of these habitats in which fish spawn and which they need as rearing habitat are gone. That productive cycle is eliminated.