Prior to the setting up of the dams and the changes in water flow, the impression of specialists at the time was that those eelgrass beds were in very good health and continued to fluctuate at fairly good levels. According to the Hydro-Québec data, which is the only quantitative information we have, the eelgrass showed a decline only after a few years, after the final change in flow or the change in the structures of the dam occurred. As Mr. Penn has described, there has been a continued variation in the amount of water pumped into James Bay from those systems over the past several years.
I guess that was the information that the Cree felt they didn't have. But the major changes caused by putting in the two dams didn't have an immediate effect on the eelgrass, according to the quantitative data that Hydro-Québec gathered on eelgrass. It was only after a few years that a decline was noted.