Environment committee  Right, and if you think about the water being lost down the St. Clair River, that is glacial deposit that's being lost down the St. Clair River due to the increased outflow.

Environment committee  That was what was originally designed and agreed upon, the speed bumps on the bottom of the St. Clair River. The IJC looked at this in their $17-million upper lakes study. They looked quickly at different options, and those options are described in their report on restoring Michigan and Huron levels.

Environment committee  That's right. With that flow, they removed the rock cover. They removed a sand and gravel bar that acted as a natural weir to the outflow. They cut through that for navigation. They harvest it for sand and gravel. It has been 100 years of human alterations. There is an opportunity to cover over it, to stabilize the riverbed, and to put some type of structures in.

Environment committee  I think it is a fair characterization and I think there are communities, for instance around Lake Simcoe, where they have started to work with the farmers, and they're a unique group. You need to bring them on board. You can't just impose regulations on them if they're not going to be happy with them, so it's much better to work with them.

Environment committee  I think that's a great idea because I know this farmer who started this down in Ohio said that it cost him a lot of money to switch over to get different types of equipment. He had to basically give up using the type of equipment he had been using. It took him several years before his crops matched what they were before.

Environment committee  Yes, I would add to that. There are better farming practices that need to be encouraged by working with the farming community. I was at a binational meeting where the operator of a very large farm on the south side of Lake Erie described how he was leaving what was left of his crop after he took the corn off the field.

Environment committee  Oh, okay.

Environment committee  Good afternoon, honourable members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Thank you for taking the time today to look into the issues facing the Great Lakes. I know you've had previous speakers here, so we appreciate that. By way of background, I will tell you that I am a full-time volunteer and have been working on Great Lakes water quality, water quantity, and wetlands for over 25 years.