Environment committee  Okay. I'm not a climate scientist, but I know from reading that the global circulation models do predict that with climate change there will be a drop in water levels. This is a link that I don't do research in, but this is what I've read. This drop in water levels that we're

Environment committee   for Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, is that it has stayed low for the last 15 years. We do have a sense that some of that is definitely because of climate change, but some of that is also because of the dredging of the St. Clair River, which has also exacerbated that.

Environment committee   in terms of the zebra mussels and other invasive species, human interventions, development pressures, clearing for crops, and the obscuring effect of climate change. We've had to go back to the drawing board a number of times and reassess the initial delisting targets to see whether

Environment committee   consequences of global climate change is there are lower than normal water levels in the Great Lakes, and we are seeing this now. For lakes Huron and Michigan, which are essentially two lobes of the same lake, water levels have been at or below the long-term average since 1999. The mean

Environment committee   on the nearshores? Was there wetland improvement? A lot of those things all contribute to nutrient loading—algae blooms, and throw in the climate change and throw in the zebra mussels to make it a lot more complicated. But we have received funding and we have done a lot of research. Prior

Environment committee   augmentation, so we actually hold water back up north to let it out slowly in the summer when there's no water in the riverways. Climate change, the patterns that it's creating...a better understanding of climate change will help us in the future to prepare better. Maybe we need bigger

Environment committee  I wanted to know something about green economy, and the question is for all three of you. It's important to invest in green infrastructure. What would you suggest to the federal government in that regard? Earlier, we talked about climate change and its repercussions on the work

Environment committee   is interrelated. I am getting to my questions. I was interested in what all three of you had to say, especially when it comes to climate change, which I think is very important to take into consideration in a study of the Great Lakes. All of you talked about how important it was to adapt

Environment committee  That's a good question. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement has a climate change annex, and Conservation Ontario has a representative on that annex. That subcommittee is currently working on pulling together the current information. They're planning on having a webinar

Environment committee  Thank you very much. I will continue in the same vein. I think you worked on the Green Economy Roadmap for Conservation Authorities in Ontario or a group closely related to you did. This document suggests creating sound partnerships to manage climate change, adapt

Environment committee   to the elements during the shorter duration of snow cover in the period when crop cover is absent. Obviously, again, climate change and the changing weather patterns impact our water quality protection efforts. We have to our adjust our agricultural practices on a very wide scale

Environment committee   the targets. Monitoring and reporting will ensure accountability. In the Greater Golden Horseshoe especially, it will be important to examine population growth projections and land-use scenarios that are watershed-based and modelled for climate change predictions that demonstrate what we

Environment committee   in some of those areas. The last thing that we have a major concern about is climate change. I know that a lot of people think we don't have global warming and that, after this winter, climate change doesn't exist. Well, we know it does. One of our jobs is to manage dams into the Bay

Environment committee  Thank you very much. A little earlier, you spoke about the importance of climate change. I think that Ontario has the municipal adaptation and resiliency service. Can you tell us a little bit about that program in relation to water quality in the Great Lakes?

Environment committee  It is an information program for the municipalities. There is a website and a training program for municipalities to implement efforts to prevent the negative effect of climate change, such as severe storms and things like that.