Evidence of meeting #16 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was hydro-québec.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
We don't necessarily supply it in that sense, because we're not talking only about the river, we're mainly talking about the coast.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
I understand that. My question was leading up to that. Wherever the river comes in, if it's north or south of the area you're showing, I'm not clear about where your settlement is, I'm not clear about where the river is, and I'm not clear about where the tidal action is, and if it's going south.
Science Advisor, Grand Council of the Crees
I think I can help.
This is a sample of the coastline, and it's about 30 to 40 kilometres north of the mouth of the La Grande River. The images were chosen to illustrate the complex topography of the coast, and it's within--
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Has the La Grande River capacity increased?
Science Advisor, Grand Council of the Crees
The area chosen for these images is within the general reach of the freshwater flume of the La Grande River, and the images were chosen to illustrate the topography and some of the issues involved in trying to map the distribution of eelgrass beds.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
I have a couple of questions, and if someone else has some, they can ask them.
I'm not questioning the fact there has been a change in the coastal area and the eelgrass is dying out. I'm not quite certain what can be done about it. You have a group that works with the board of Hydro-Québec; obviously they're not going to stop their hydro flow, and it's been there for some time. There is increased fresh water, there's increased turbidity, and there is muddy water, if you will, going into the bay. It makes perfect sense to me that the geese and the brant are going somewhere else if there's no eelgrass there for them to feed on.
I don't know, beyond working with Hydro-Québec, if any changes can be made that would decrease the flow in the wintertime, because I have no reason to question what you're saying. The water temperature will be changing, there is more fresh water, and the eelgrass beds are dying out. Is there a way to mitigate that? Probably not.
I'm not trying to sound negative, but that's a quick summary.
What are you looking for out of this meeting?
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
First of all, we've been focusing on the impacts of the hydroelectric development. When we started out, we wanted to see if we could re-establish the eelgrass beds. Our adviser told us that in order to be able to do that we had to find out why the eelgrass disappeared, because we'd be just throwing the seeds into the wind, if you will, without knowing what the cause was.
So that's how we started out. To this point we've looked at wasting disease, the salinity, and we're starting to look at turbidity. We haven't looked at any combination of these, so we really don't know. One of the things we'd like to ask from this committee is that it direct the resources that it has to helping us find the cause of this. Why is it happening? And then once we find out what the cause is, we'll determine whether it's feasible to regrow this or not.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
That's a reasonable ask, I would think, for DFO to look at, and I appreciate the way you put that. Everything you look at on the ground tells you there was eelgrass there. The big change has been in the river itself, and now there's less eelgrass, so most of us would come to the conclusion that there's a problem. But you're still saying we really need the scientific answer to that.
Have you looked at eelgrass in other locations, for example in silted water, in other areas? Along the coast of Nova Scotia there's a lot of eelgrass in areas, and in some of those areas--and I'm not a biologist--I would think there's a fair number of geese whose migratory route crosses the Bay of Fundy. There are places in the Bay of Fundy where the geese land. Now, whether they're eating eelgrass.... They do on the southwest shore of the province, and that eelgrass would be growing in brown, muddy water.
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
I have personally made contact with the Maritimes people, who have said that the eelgrass is disappearing, but due to a number of reasons. It could be--
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
It gets over-foraged sometimes. It gets overgrazed sometimes, the eelgrass. The geese eat it down to nothing.
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
Yes, we've had that experience, and it was demonstrated that the eelgrass would grow again the following year.
I went also to New Hampshire to check on the program they have that deals with the restoration of eelgrass beds. They do restoration programs, but in the case of James Bay, whether or not that is feasible I don't know. Studies need to be conducted to have a better understanding of whether that project would be able to take place in Chisasibi.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Thank you.
Those are all the questions I had, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Can you clarify for me, in what year did the hydroelectric facility go in? Also, did I not understand you to say that following that, there was a decline in eelgrass, but it came back and has now declined again? If that's the case, what's the scientific explanation for why it would have come back, if it was the effect of the increased flows, which would have been there, I assume, since the beginning of the La Grande hydroelectric facility?
You've worked with a scientist, you said, who has ruled out some of the other explanations for the decline, but do you know of other scientists besides this individual who have come up with some explanation for the decline, maybe a different explanation from what the person you're working with has? Are there scientists out there who have some explanations for why the eelgrass has declined?
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
I'll let Mr. Penn answer the first part of that question.
Science Advisor, Grand Council of the Crees
I think the first point to make is that this is a very large hydroelectric system with several river diversions. The commissioning process took place between 1979 and 1984. In the first phase of the project there was a gradual increase in flow; it was not done by episodes, when reservoirs were being filled and additional rivers were coming in. It was not really until 1985 that you began to see the full effects of the river diversion, and it took a number of years for this to play out.
Hydro-Québec then proceeded with phases two and three of the La Grande project. Basically the studies they carried out were not about the original diversion itself but the effects of the additional flow from additional powerhouses and the Rupert River diversion. Hydro-Québec has always seen its obligation to study this phenomenon as being limited to the incremental effects of flow rather than the core consequences of the river diversions themselves. That has really been a big constraint on the scope of the studies conducted so far.
The other point I would like to make is that when the La Grande project was designed and conceived, Hydro-Québec was committed to a policy of building power plants to meet domestic electricity demand. The pattern of flows that Chief Pachano described was a function of domestic demand. In the last 10 years or so, Hydro-Québec has very much become part of the northeast North American power pool, so the distribution of flow is very different from what it was at the time of the original planning of the project. The overall effect of that has resulted in a series of pulses that are more difficult to predict because they are responses to market demand and also the pattern of energy used in the United States in the summertime for air conditioning. There's more emphasis now on production in the summertime than in the winter.
All these modifications are treated as commercial issues by Hydro-Québec. The difficulty in obtaining information on flows is partly for that reason.
There are environmental implications to the seasonal and shorter-term patterns of flow. One of the issues for understanding the ecology of James Bay is understanding the relationship between the changing environment on the coast and the changing policies for turbining water and producing energy. That's an evolving concept; it's not fixed in time.
That may help.
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
To answer your second question, the approach we've taken is to systematically eliminate some of these reasons or potential causes for why the eelgrass is disappearing.
We have studied some literature by other people as well, not just this individual we're using. We wanted to take somebody who was totally independent from the developer to see if we could come up with the information. I believe that some of the people who work for the developers, in this case Hydro-Québec, have a tendency not to bite the hand that feeds them. The outcomes of some of the studies in the case of the developer are basically self-serving. Dr. Short was the only individual we found who has been totally independent from Hydro-Québec. There are not too many experts in this field.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Thank you, Chief.
We will allow a quick question from Mr. MacAulay.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you very much.
Welcome, Chief, and everybody else.
It's certainly a major issue for your people. In following the conversation, I'd like to know, is it the water flow? I'd also like you to comment on the process of elimination of the problems. Is it the water flow or emissions from the plant, or is it the project increasing all the time with more emissions? You talk about eliminating problems and the lack of experts, but I expect you're probably developing experts in that area.
I want to know whether you have any fine point on what the problem is. Is it water flow? Is it emissions? If not, what should be done?
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
I don't know where to begin.
Hydro-Québec I guess has done the most studies, so we have started with their reports. The outcome of some of these reports has been different from year to year. Sometimes they say it's the wave action that has caused the decline. Another time they say it's the ice action that has caused the decline. Another time they say it's the wasting disease that's caused the decline. When we have conflicting views like that by the entity that has done the most study, we'd like to find out for ourselves as well. So that's one of the things we have been doing.
We have determined that it is not the wave action, because the same wave action has been happening for thousands and thousands of years. We have determined it's not ice action, because it's basically the same action. Ice has been there since time immemorial. Our expert has basically concluded that it isn't the wasting disease--
Cree Nation of Chisasibi
No. The wasting disease is a little micro-organism that's part of the natural environment. If you have too many of those, then the eelgrass dies. If you don't have too many, it's part of the natural system. It doesn't affect it.
So by a process of elimination, those three, basically we have said, are not the cause. In our view it's either the salinity--how much fresh water is there--or the turbidity, because everything needs sunlight to grow, and the water is not as clear, as the former chief has said, as it used to be. Most of that, we believe, comes from the landslides along the river, that go out into the river, particularly in the wintertime. I guess it's hardest at that point, because it never used to happen before. Now we see that. Upstream from our community there are literally trees and bushes standing in the ice from the landslides, so it's created a lot of turbidity in the water.
So what is that combination? That's what we're asking ourselves. We don't know yet and we'd like somebody's help to determine what that is. Maybe it's not Hydro-Québec's fault. Maybe it's...I don't know what. But once we find out what the reason is, then we'd like to be able to ask, well, can the eelgrass be restored?