Fisheries Committee on May 6th, 2019

[Mark Hambrook]

About the other species in the lake, before an application of rotenone is implemented, you capture all the native species and hold native species off site while the application is administered, which takes a day. It will be effective for about a week or so afterwards. After that, the level drops and those species can be put back in. This doesn't affect any of the insects or the aquatic life in the lake—just the fish.

In the outflow, rotenone can be neutralized with potassium permanganate. You would treat the outflow water to make sure that none could get to the Miramichi River.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Maybe to Ms. Noel, and to the comment by Mr. Hambrook also, I was really surprised and shocked to know that it is not illegal to take a species from one body of water and bring it into another one. Is that so?

[Paula Noel]

Yes. I've been informed of that by provincial staff here. That's a concern within the province. You couldn't take something that's not currently in the province and introduce it legally, but the conservation officers are not able to press charges if somebody is moving a species within the province. That's what I've been told.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Would that be a provincial regulation, or would that be federal?

[Paula Noel]

The reference they made was to the 2015 federal regulations that had improved the situation, but apparently this was still a loophole that was of concern to conservation officers here.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Probably the best way to make sure we don't have invasive species would be to educate people, because I'm sure a lot of people don't know that. They think, “Well, if I bring this fish here, instead of going to Grand Lake, I can fish it right here in Miramichi”. You've referred to it, but how much are we spending on the education aspect of that?

Also for the associations, how much are we investing in campaigns to educate people that this is very dangerous and it could affect the livelihood of other species?

This is to both of you, if you want to answer.

[Paula Noel]

There has been some in New Brunswick, but the problem has been that there's been no consistent funding. There's no group. We've heard from some other provinces that there are multiple groups working on this issue. Here it's really been a side-of-the-desk issue for other groups like the salmon groups. Other conservation organizations are working, like I am, on a volunteer basis on the invasive species file, but it's been really difficult to get any funding specifically to address coordination, education and outreach on invasive species.

It has been shown that these education programs to explain to people what the damage is and how they can prevent spreading invasive species do work, but you need to be out in the communities. You need to go to the fishing derbies and to the boat shows and be where the people are to explain this to them. You also need the equipment in place for people to be able to do what you're telling them to do in order to clean and properly inspect their boats and equipment.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Have you ever heard about—I think it was mentioned here—ED... It's kind of a new science—

[Paula Noel]

Is that eDNA?

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Yes, eDNA is a new science into maybe controlling that, which would be less invasive and adapted to a particular species. Has there been any research that you know of in dealing with invasive species on that front? Anyone can answer that, whoever wants to take a jab at it.

Maybe it's just something that I've seen in a movie somewhere, but if that's real science, it would be interesting.

[Erin Bates]

I can speak to that a little bit. This is Erin from CKISS.

We've done some eDNA work here in British Columbia on invasive bullfrogs. At this point, eDNA is mostly a monitoring tool. It's used to measure the residual DNA that's left in the environment when a specific species inhabits that environment. You can take water samples and measure specific DNA patterns and assess it for the presence or absence of a species, but there's no known technique for treatment using that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Finnigan. You've gone over time.

Now we'll go to Mr. Arnold for seven minutes or less, please.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses, even the ones we can't see on the video conference. It's always a challenge, I'm sure, listening in and not being able to see what's taking place.

Mr. Hambrook, I certainly appreciate your frustrations. The invasive species bug bit me about 20 years ago when our local fish and game club identified that someone had planted perch into our small trout lakes. They put the perch in there to feed smallmouth bass, but the perch multiplied to such an extent that they basically wiped out the insect life and the bird life on this small lake that was about 90 hectares, I think. The people in the community noted that. It was a disaster, but we persevered. After seven years of letter writing and meetings and pushing, we got that lake and nine others in the Shuswap area treated with rotenone. One of the treatments was half a million dollars just to treat one area.

Don't give up on it, because the perch multiplied to a point where they would only reach three and a half inches long, but they were fully sexually mature and reproduced. We held derbies—not derbies but family fishing days—to educate people.

We thought we were covering all the bases, and the day after one of our family ice fishing days, someone spotted perch in another trophy trout lake in a channel between two lakes. It turns out that one family took another family's kids on this fishing day and sent them home with some perch. The parents didn't know what to do with it, so they took the perch and dumped the bag of them into the other lake because they didn't want to kill them.

Education, education, education and prevention are huge parts of this. That's why I put this motion forward to do this study.

I'm going to quickly switch to Mr. Kemmere for some questions now.

What would the estimated loss be to agricultural production in some of the agricultural lands that are irrigated through these systems if there was a loss of the irrigation?

[Al Kemmere]

To put a full number on it would be speculative at best. I just need to point out that more than half of the irrigation is now supplied through piping systems versus open canal, with all the best intentions in mind. If these systems are going to be compromised, the largest and the highest producing part of agriculture within our province would be affected, whether it's the feedlots or the specialty crops in southern Alberta, all those various aspects down there.

We have to remember, too, that in the irrigation sector as an example, it would additionally affect the viability of those towns that rely on that water also to sustain their communities.

For me to put an exact impact number on it would not be fair, but I think you can understand that the general impact of that from the economics of production alone would be substantial.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Basically, it's an ecological and economic disaster waiting to happen if not prevented.

[Al Kemmere]

Yes, exactly.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

Moving on to the electrical producers, the hydro associations, in B.C. there's about $4.5 million being spent on avoiding aquatic invasive species. That's funding from the Government of British Columbia, BC Hydro, Columbia Power, FortisBC and Columbia Basin Trust, but very little from the federal government.

What are you seeing in Ontario or in other areas of the country as far as federal funding is concerned, in comparison to what we're seeing in B.C.?

[Michael Powell]

I'll let Dave answer the question about what we're seeing federally in Ontario and elsewhere. He'd have a better sense.

You listed a few of our members, BC Hydro and FortisBC, that are actively involved. It extends across the country as well, where zebra and quagga mussels are a more immediate threat because they're slowly moving west. It represents real dollars for ongoing maintenance costs once they come, and it's likely never going to go away. Therefore, investments up front make good sense.

As we've seen and what our members are telling us is that they're hoping to see similar programs nationally for the prevention of the spread of aquatic invasive species. As you're seeing for programs in Ontario for species beyond the ones that affect our facilities, such as Asian carp and others, the hope is that there is some geographical equity for these types of measures.

Dave.

[David Stanley]

OPG gets no support from the DFO regarding control of invasives. We use chlorine to kill the mussels in our plants. We also use UV systems and some novel methods, such as a dead bacteria, called Zequanox, that is toxic only to dreissenid mussels. We don't get any help.

I saw some colleagues earlier from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. OPG does fund that group and I know they reach out to fishers and anglers, and such, to help control invasives, but we don't get any help.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay.

Switching over to Erin Bates, what do you see in the Kootenay region? I know you have a number of hydro generating stations in the Kootenays on the Columbia River. It's probably the most dammed river in North America for hydro generation and flood control.

What do you see for funding coming in there to control aquatic invasives?

[Erin Bates]

You actually mentioned quite a few of the funders that are providing funds in our area specifically for monitoring. We conduct a very extensive monitoring program. We sample every water body in our region, basically every two weeks, all season, and those samples are tested by the province for zebra and quagga mussel veligers.

That program is decently well funded. There isn't any federal input to that. There is a bit of provincial money, and then mostly Columbia Power is the primary funder of that at this point, and there is a bit from CBT, the Columbia Basin Trust, as well.

I feel that a big gap for funding in our region is really around the education and outreach piece, and also just the prevention at the borders—really reinforcing the messaging around what people can do to prevent this issue and just plain preventing infested boats from getting into the province.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you. I'm starting to see a trend here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

Now we'll go to Mr. Donnelly, for seven minutes or less, please.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to all the witnesses for providing your testimony on this topic.

Ms. Bates, I want to continue with you. You talked about the potential impact of ZQM being about $43 million a year to deal with in B.C. Is that what you quoted?

[Erin Bates]

Yes, that's a 2013 study that we have tracked down, which was estimating the cost in British Columbia.