OTTAWA—The success of groups such as Manitoulin Area Stewardship Council (MASC) and their need for further government support, as well as concerns with low lake levels and Asian carp, were some of the main topics raised by speakers at a Parliamentary Standing Committee hearing on the “Environment and Sustainable Development-Study of the Water Quality of the Great Lakes,” held in Ottawa last week. The committee will make recommendations on what they heard at the Ottawa hearings.
[pullquote]“I chose to speak on the topic of the community stewardship model and how this model works for the benefit of the sustainability of natural resources and those communities that depend on these,” said Bob Florean, representing MASC and MSIA.[/pullquote]
Mary Muter, chair of the Great Lakes section of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, told the committee, “I won’t go into all the Great Lakes issues, I will focus on two—Asian carp and water levels. I am sure you are all well aware of the significant threat posed by the very large invasive carp species that are at the doorstep to the Great Lakes at Chicago. The silver carp feed by filtering out the tiny organisms that are the food for our small native fish, thereby disrupting the food chain. They can eat up to the equivalent of their weight in food daily and grow to over 100 pounds and can grow to four to five feet in length.”
“They spawn three times a year and adults can lay up to a million eggs each time,” said Ms. Muter. “Other invasive carp species feed on wetland plants and tear the plants apart in doing so. These very invasive fish have the potential to decimate the $8 billion recreational Great Lakes fishery. Early in January of this year the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released their report on options to prevent these fish from getting into the Great Lakes. The public comment period ended yesterday, but let me highlight two of our concerns.”
Ms. Muter explained, “first the report made no mention of the risk these fish pose to Canadian waters. Our Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) completed an excellent risk assessment in 2005 that showed all four species now present in the Mississippi River posed a high risk to infiltrate into Canadian waters. The silver carp is the most aggressive and DFO determined that they would take over our lakes and rivers all the way up to James Bay and west to Alberta. But in 2009 a joint risk assessment was carried out by DFO with the USACE. That risk assessment showed that once in Lake Michigan the silver carp would infiltrate all of Lake Huron, Georgian Bay and Lake Erie within five years.”
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[pullquote]“This is an unacceptable risk and Canada needs to very clearly let American authorities know that under the GL WQAA the US has obligations to prevent these fish from getting into the Great Lakes,” stated Ms. Muter. “The cost of prevention is much less than the millions we are spending annually just to keep one invasive species, the sea lamprey, numbers down. The scientists now know we will never be able to eradicate this one invasive species.”[/pullquote]
“This is an unacceptable risk and Canada needs to very clearly let American authorities know that under the GL WQAA the US has obligations to prevent these fish from getting into the Great Lakes,” stated Ms. Muter. “The cost of prevention is much less than the millions we are spending annually just to keep one invasive species, the sea lamprey, numbers down. The scientists now know we will never be able to eradicate this one invasive species.”
“Second, the Army Corps report listed eight options for preventing Asian carp from getting into Lake Michigan,” said Ms. Muter. “They are now only 50 miles from entering the Great Lakes at Chicago. The USACE have listed the status quo, the electric barriers, as an option. But last summer the corps revealed that video footage taken at the electric barriers showed schools of four-inch fish swimming right through the barriers. In other words the barriers should not be listed as an option. The only responsible option is total separation of connections of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River.”
“Let me now turn back to water levels,” said Ms. Muter. “We have an opportunity here to correct a 50-year-old failure to act. In the 1950s and early 1960s the last formal deepening dredging took place in the navigation channels in the Great Lakes. A Canada/US agreement was signed at that time that said that a condition of the dredging to deepen the channels to 27 feet was that the USACE would install compensation measures in the upper St. Clair River. But Environment Canada could not agree with the USACE on how many submerged sills or speed bumps should be placed on the riverbed. The project was being funded entirely by the Americans but after 10 years the US Congress withdrew the funding but not the authorization. Our government has agreed that there was a permanent lowering of Lake Michigan/Huron/Georgian Bay as a result of the deepened channel, but they thought it was a one-time drop and no further lowering would take place.”
Ms. Muter continued, “however, when water levels plummeted four feet beginning in 1999 we began working with a team of engineers and we suspected something had happened in the St. Clair River that had contributed to this sudden drop that went beyond the decline in precipitation. Now 15 years later, erosion in the upper St. Clair River has been confirmed by the IJC as a contributing factor to the low water levels and the IJC advised our governments almost a year ago that Lake Michigan/Huron/Georgian Bay levels should be restored via flexible measures in the St. Clair River. After over 100 years of human alterations including dredging, Lake Michigan/Huron/Georgian Bay has been lowered by 50 centimetres or 20 inches. This has not happened to any of the other Great Lakes. They have control boards and the ability to maintain their lake levels. This is an uncompensated loss and as a result, today there is a significant imbalance of water levels in the Great Lakes. Lakes Superior Erie and Ontario are all at or above their long term average but Lake Michigan/Huron/Georgian Bay are 34 centimetres or 13 centimetres below their long term average.”
“The US government has gone ahead and provided some funding to the USACE to begin their General Re-Evaluation Report of St. Clair River Compensation designs,” continued Ms. Muter. “In Canada I have been assured that three senior cabinet ministers plus several MPs are seeking a coordinated government of Canada response. We await that response. Canada unfortunately does not have any government agency like the USACE that is capable of undertaking a project like this but we need to be at the table and announcing support for the IJC’s advice and some funding so we can be a partner is critical to resolving this.”
“This past winter’s cold and snow across the Great Lakes has brought some temporary rising of all water levels, but the imbalance remains,” Ms. Muter told the committee. “In addition, virtually all the experts are advising us that this truly is just a blip in the weather not a change in the climate. The Great Lakes water is only one percent renewable, 99 percent is a glacial age deposit. The time to act is now to restore the balance of water levels in the Great Lakes by compensating for the human-induced loss of water from Lakes Michigan/Huron/Georgian Bay down the deepened St. Clair River.”
In his presentation Mr. Florean, a representative of MASC, MSIA and stewardship partner groups, pointed out that these councils are comprised of members representing the greater public, including municipalities, First Nations, NGOs and business interests from across the community, serving in a volunteer capacity to achieve positive ecological and economic outcomes for our area.”
“I want to tell you about the stewardship model and outline how this model benefits many aspects of our environment and dependent economies,” said Mr. Florean. “But first I want to talk to you about the steady decline of support for this stewardship model over the recent past years and how this now threatens to undermine the furthering of effective community-based environmental stewardship efforts across this province and with the Great Lakes basin. An example I can offer is how CFWIP (Community Fish and Wildlife Involvement Program) CFWIP benefitted our own Manitoulin Streams organization. Via an overall initial CFWIP funding allocation of $35,000 to Manitoulin Streams between 1995 and 2006, they were able to use this funding to leverage nearly $3 million worth of other funding and in-kind support for their restoration efforts.”
“Ontario Stewardship and CFWIP were very successful programs that achieved tremendous results in the Great Lakes basin. These two programs have been cancelled since 2011 due to (provincial) budgetary constraints,” said Mr. Florean. “Thus a stewardship support void now exists.”
“In light of all of this, we understand that an aging population and infrastructure is consuming most public funds,” said Mr. Florean. “Not withstanding, it would be short-sighted to not adequately manage the natural resources that sustain these Great Lakes economies. Engaging the public to participate in the stewardship model can bridge the gap between the need to manage the resources and a lack of sufficient public funds to do so. I am here to try make you understand that the stewardship model works very effectively to fill the environmental sustainability void. It works because, by engaging the public to become directly involved, it connects their sense of pride and dedication towards successful outcomes that benefit their community areas.”
“The MSIA is a not-for-profit and incorporated volunteer community-based stewardship organization which has undertaken a number of proactive steps, including developing a watershed restoration based strategic plan and a Class Environmental Assessment (EA) that covers the 182 watersheds of Manitoulin Island which was formally approved by federal and provincial agencies. That EA outlines the specific actions required to be taken to effectively carry out watershed restoration efforts. Manitoulin Streams have secured funding and in-kind contributions to date valued at nearly $3.2 million. These funds and efforts have been used to strategically plan Island-wide efforts directed at the restoration of nearly nine kilometres of streams and their adjacent riparian areas to date, efforts that have achieved a quantifiable 193 percent average increase of aquatic life within these restored areas.”
“Manitoulin Streams’ restoration successes have garnered binational and national recognition in it being awarded the binational State of the Lakes Ecological Conference (SOLEC) Award in 2008 and the 2012 Canada National Recreational Fisheries Award,” said Mr. Florean. He pointed out MASC is working the Eastern Georgian Bay Stewardship Council in undertaking a strategically focused ‘Eastern Georgian Bay-North Channel Aquatic and Economic Revitalization Initiative.’ This strategy encompasses a geographical coastal swath that includes eastern Georgian Bay and the North Channel of Lake Huron, including Manitoulin Island.
“This strategy will work with all of our local community partners to undertake a large scale strategic effort based on Manitoulin Steams success model to strategically outline and plan specific actions needed to achieve good on the ground results, build the capacity and skills needed to support this strategy and economically evaluate the benefits and effectiveness of the actions taken,” continued Mr. Florean.
The United Walleye Clubs community stewardship efforts in the greater Sudbury district have, since 1991, re-established fisheries across a large geographic area in lakes once considered dead due to many years of industrial sulfur fallout, pointed out Mr. Florean.
“The examples I gave were only a small sample of what can be accomplished via the community-based stewardship models. Stewardship organizations can more effectively engage their community to become productively involved in successful resource sustainability outcomes. They are also successful in leveraging greater levels of funding from outside sources. Governments can no longer do it alone, but along with a better supported stewardship model, we can together achieve great success for the benefit of all,” said Mr. Florean. “I therefore would like the standing committee to make recommendations for further support of the stewardship model within the Great Lakes basin. The sustainability of our communities and the natural resource values we are dependent upon requires this.”
