Environment committee  That's been the traditional approach but we are starting to actually look at ecological flows through our water management plan and some of the things—

Environment committee  We're not prepared to get into flooding out communities, but it's a conversation that we're having.

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, the annual flow is about 25 cubic metres per second. It ranges from a low of 10 to 12 through the Kitchener-Waterloo area, to an average of 60 sometimes in the springtime. But it's a relatively small river of about 25 to 35 cubic metres per second.

Environment committee  It will be around that right now, yes.

Environment committee  Right now the river is covered with ice. It does tend to create an ammonia problem as it moves downstream. The city of Brantford takes its water from the Grand River, and when it's entirely covered with ice it tends to cause an ammonia problem that requires changes in how they tr

Environment committee  We don't measure for oxygen demand. We measure oxygen, pH of the water, and temperature, but not specifically oxygen demand. That would be one of the things that municipalities would do through their sewage treatment plant upgrade studies.

Environment committee  It's been relatively constant over the last several decades. That's mostly as a result of the large dams in the watershed. The Grand is a very controlled river. It has three major reservoirs and four minor reservoirs that control the majority of the flow, so—

Environment committee  The Grand is a highly controlled river. The reservoirs actually are used to collect the spring runoff and discharge it over the summer so that there is sufficient water to dilute the effluent from the sewage treatment plants.

Environment committee  It's not particularly significant. We do actually open them up in the fall and discharge an awful lot from the bottom of the reservoirs. A lot of the sediment can pass through the system the way it naturally would.

Environment committee  That's correct.

Environment committee  Yes, the spring freshet...certainly the reservoirs are used to control flooding, so some of the traditional flood plain areas that would have been spawning areas are no longer flooded every spring the way they would have been 200 years ago. I would say that the spring freshet is

Environment committee  I'm not familiar with the funding arrangement but I am familiar that the Region of Waterloo has gone through and is in the middle of some very major upgrades to the treatment plants. We expect to see some significant gains in water quality in the Grand as a result.

Environment committee  It is the most populated municipality in the watershed. It is close to half the population of the Grand River watershed. So what the region does with their treatment plants is really important to the quality of the Grand.

Environment committee  The lack of connectivity in the Grand is a direct result of a small dam. There are a number of small dams on the Grand. These dams were put in possibly 100 to 150 years ago. Some of them are very old. Our communities are built up around them. They were used to power mills and saw

Environment committee  Optimization is really building a community of practice among actual waste water treatment plant operators. They actually tweak their systems to get them to maximize the extraction of nutrients and harmful things from the sewage stream and create a better quality of practice. Wha