Environment committee  The volume level of water is one factor; I wouldn't say it's a major factor. Phosphorus is the controlling substance of all the things that affect algae growth. We think the way to influence the amount of algae in the lakes is to influence the amount of phosphorus entering the la

Environment committee  Yes. I would suspect that the report predates the amendment to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a Canada-U.S agreement that occurred in 2012. The newly amended Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement simply references the marine contingency agreement and addresses notificat

Environment committee  That means that the first response is the originating country where the spill happens, and there are notification requirements.

Environment committee  For the initial response, and then the contingency plan provides the framework for cooperation. It's a joint response on—

Environment committee  I would have to check further into the marine contingency plan.

Environment committee  Polluter pay is one of the principles in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, so we always look first to apply the polluter pay principle.

Environment committee  Not to my knowledge. I know it has been discussed, but not to my knowledge.

Environment committee  We actually work throughout the entire Great Lakes basin. The sources of the phosphorus are largely from land sources. They're urban, such as waste water treatment plants, stormwater, even household fertilizers that people use, but they're also agricultural. We work throughout th

Environment committee  Yes, they are. We do have our Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay cleanup fund, which is actually federal funding that was renewed in budget 2012. It's $30 million over five years. That helps stimulate action on the ground to demonstrate projects to reduce phosphorus from entering Lake

Environment committee  I'd just like to say that 2025 is our goal for those other seven. It's a bit hard to project that far out. Randle Reef is a sediment problem, and we have a solution and we're beginning to implement. Port Hope harbour is another place where there is a sediment problem, contamin

Environment committee  For sure, and we're actually using that knowledge in other parts of Canada, North America, and around the world. We developed the way we assess sediments in the Great Lakes, and we use that nationally now to characterize sediments and figure out how much of the sediment we need t

Environment committee  Certainly in the contaminated sediment field that's correct. These are legacy problems. What's changed in the Great Lakes since we started working in the 1970s is that we now have national legislation and provincial legislation that controls the discharge of chemicals. Federally

Environment committee  The long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants is still an issue globally. For Lake Superior in the north where there aren't a lot of local sources, it still accounts for a significant contribution of some chemicals. Overall the good news is that in the last 30 years the con

Environment committee  We use direct water quality monitoring. We have a fish contaminant program in the Great Lakes where we collect fish in both Canada and the United States from all lakes and analyze accumulation in fish. We have herring gull monitoring, which is now being used out west to monitor s

Environment committee  You asked about indicator species. The one indicator species that we do watch is the bald eagle. Bald eagles were not present in the Great Lakes basin for a number of years, largely because of the contaminants in the lakes. They've returned to most of the lake basins now.