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.