NTERNATIONAL JOINT COMMISSION: REGULATING WATER LEVELS
Plan would change outflows from Lake Ontario
IJC wants to reduce risk of flooding in low-lying areas; environmentalists complain goal comes at the expense of wetlands
The International Joint Commission has issued a new proposal for regulating water levels on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River that critics say sacrifices environmental concerns in favour of the interests of shoreline property owners.
The IJC, a Canadian-U.S. body that oversees shared boundary waters, released a proposal yesterday that would attempt to change water outflows from the lake to reduce risk of flooding in low-lying areas. But the plan comes at the expense of rehabilitating wetland areas that have been severely damaged by the current water management regime.
Alone among the five Great Lakes, water levels on Lake Ontario are amenable to a high degree of human control, mainly through a massive power dam straddling the St. Lawrence River at Cornwall, Ont.
In the 1950s, when the current plan for managing outflows was drafted, the environment wasn't a top-of-mind issue, and the goal was to reduce water-level fluctuations for flood control, shipping, and hydropower development. But the approach has degraded more than half the lake's wetlands, an extensive area of riparian habitat about 133 square kilometres in size.
At a news conference yesterday, an IJC official said adopting a more environmentally friendly water management approach would likely increase losses due to flooding by about $2.75-million a year. But he also warned that those living around the lake and the river, Canada's most heavily populated region, would be more vulnerable to infrequent, catastrophic flooding that would cost more than $100-million. These losses would occur primarily in low-lying areas of Ontario, New York, and in Quebec around Montreal and Sorel.
The IJC official, engineering adviser Russ Trowbridge, said devastating flooding would be a risk at times when high water levels in the fall are followed by heavy spring runoff and difficulty allowing increased water flows due to ice conditions.
The IJC has spent five years and $20-million considering various water regulation options for Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, including one that would have placed wetland habitat recovery as a major goal by restoring part of the lake's pattern of natural water fluctuations, but demurred. "The potential damages to some interests were too great for us to implement it at this time," said Irene Brooks, acting chairwoman of the U.S. section of the commission.
She said governments would have to provide more funding to mitigate risks to shoreline property before the IJC would consider revising its approach.
Environmentalists condemned the IJC. "It really showed me that the real concern [of the IJC] is the protection of property values," said John Jackson, program director for Great Lakes United, an environmental group based in Montreal and Buffalo. "We are really distressed."
The IJC proposal hasn't been closely followed by Canadian governments, unlike in the United States where it has faced intense scrutiny.
New York Governor David Paterson issued a letter highly critical of the IJC to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, urging her to force the organization to adopt rules with more priority on the environment.
"The current protocol for water-level management has had a very negative impact on the ecology of Lake Ontario, severely damaging more than half of the wetlands (33,000 acres) bordering the lake," the letter said.
At the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, an aide to minister Donna Cansfield was unaware of it and couldn't comment. The Department of Foreign Affairs, which must concur with any IJC proposal before it can be adopted, was unable to comment. The IJC proposal is open for 90 days of public comment and will be subject to public hearings in June.
