Mr. Chair, members of Parliament, distinguished guests and committee staff, good afternoon.
My name is Jérôme Marty, and I am the executive director of the International Association for Great Lakes Research.
I first would like to acknowledge the land where we gather today: the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation. The Algonquin people are the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River watershed.
I welcome the opportunity to share with you the main issues and priorities that Great Lakes scientists are reporting for the Laurentian Great Lakes. There are three main topics that we would like to bring forward.
The first one is about nutrients. Although the Great Lakes water quality has improved in several lakes, Lake Erie continues to remain a priority area with regard to nutrient management, both for point sources—for example, urban areas—and for non-point sources, such as agriculture. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement includes reduction targets for phosphorus loading, with a 40% reduction from 2008 levels by 2025. The reduction of point source discharges of nutrients has been achieved through improved waste-water treatment technologies, but the reduction of non-point source nutrients through adaptive management and best practices poses more challenges.
The second topic is about contaminants of emerging concerns: the CECs, the “forever chemicals”. Pharmaceutical and personal care products—PPCPs—and pesticides and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—PFAS—are increasingly detected in the waters of the Great Lakes, including in urban surface waters. Understanding the human and ecological impacts of exposure to persistent CECs is critical both for specific compounds and for mixtures.
The third is microplastics. They are now widespread through the Great Lakes basin. They can be detected in water, sediments and wildlife. Recent research has been conducted to assess the toxicity of microplastics exposure in the Great Lakes. These risk assessments show that the concentrations measured across the Great Lakes exceed proposed risk thresholds for water samples.
We have produced five recommendations as part of our brief.
The first one is to consider adding CECs and microplastics to the list of contaminants of concern in, for example, Annex 3 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
The second is to invest in research to better understand the fate, behaviour and toxicity of emerging contaminants to support informed regulations.
The third recommendation is to consider climate change as an accelerator for pollutant production and toxicity. Higher temperatures increase metabolic rates of resident organisms, causing oxygen depletion and creating toxic conditions for the biota. Higher water temperatures also favour the growth of harmful algal blooms—HABs—that are able to release cyanotoxins such as microcystin. As stated by the editor of our journal, Dr. Robert Hecky, Lake Erie is “the canary in the Great Lakes climate mine”. In this context, the urgency of reducing nutrient inputs from the land becomes even more critical.
The fourth recommendation is to engage with first nations and Métis on water monitoring and management. This recommendation is reflected in “The 2023 Third Triennial Assessment of Progress on Great Lakes Water Quality”, released by the IJC to the parties earlier this month.
The fifth and last recommendation is to adopt a comprehensive approach for Great Lakes science. As mentioned earlier, the Great Lakes are inland seas, and as such they call for management approaches that are similar to those developed for marine ecosystems. Faced with an aging research infrastructure, Great Lakes science has fallen behind in its ability to understand the physical, chemical and biological features of these ecosystems and also to report on how quickly they are changing. Several organizations are working together to develop a decadal science plan for the Great Lakes. This initiative is led by the IJC and has identified six priorities for the Great Lakes and will next focus on a blueprint for the plan's implementation.
I thank you for your time to allow us to share insights on the threats that pollution poses to the Great Lakes. Please contact IAGLR should you have any questions about science and the Great Lakes or require support for your work.
Thank you very much for your attention.