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IJC Biennial Meeting at Kingston, Ontario,
June 10-11, 2005

Summary of Breakout Session: Adaptive Management

The following is an IJC staff summary of two breakout sessions on the topic of Adaptive Management that were held at the Biennial Meeting on Great Lakes Water Quality in Kingston, Ontario, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on June 10, 2005 and from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on June 11, 2005. Presentations, as listed below, were part of the breakout sessions. All slides, abstracts and papers provided by the presenters have been included in the record of the IJC's public consultations on the review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA).

Friday, June 10, 2005

1. Saad Jasim, Walkerton Clean Water Centre
2. J. P. (Jim) Bruce, Soil and Water Conservation Society
3. Karl Schiefer, Georgian Bay Association
4. Ester Osche, Whitefish River First Nation
5. Chief Glen Hare, M'Chigeeng First Nation
6. David Klein, Nature Conservancy of New York
7. Jennifer Nalbone, Great Lakes United

Saturday, June 11, 2005

1. Lin Kaatz Chary, Great Lakes United
2. Kai Chen, IJC Windsor

Highlights of presentations

1. Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Great Lakes Waters

• Preliminary research to assess the effect of an ozone treatment technology on removal of certain personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides from source water supplies indicated this technology reduced levels and removed a wide range of these contaminants from water.
• Some of these pollutants are endocrine disrupting compounds that can affect reproductive hormone levels, growth, reproduction and development in fish.
• Further work is needed to evaluate other methods and technologies for (a) removing, (b) increasing the level of detection, and (c) increasing the accuracy and precision of analysis for these compounds.
• It is also not known whether ozone treatment technology alters the chemical composition of some compounds that could lead to disinfection byproducts of concern.

2. Water Quality Impacts of More Intense Rains

• Research on the greater frequency and intensity of storm events suggests that the implications for the Great Lakes basin may include increased erosion and runoff, with resulting increases in nutrients, toxics and particulates in the runoff.
• One study estimates that a 10% increase in annual precipitation due to increases in intense events would result in an average 25% increase in runoff and a 24% increase in erosion.
• Existing erosion prevention guidelines and practices should be examined for measures to reduce these consequences in a changing rain regime.

3. Net-Cage Aquaculture

• Environmental impacts of large facility aquaculture operations that have been noted in association with some facilities, both cage and land-based, include: escapement; detection of antibiotics and other veterinary compounds; increased turbidity; decreased dissolved oxygen; impacts on benthic diversity and health; and impacts on fish populations, genetic diversity and productivity.
• Improved guidelines for environmental assessment of facility placement, on-going monitoring of water quality conditions, and permit compliance are needed, as well as increased attention to community involvement in site selection and permitting.

4. Wetlands in Georgian Bay

• Aquatic wetland monitoring and research have demonstrated that while a large number of "high quality" wetlands can still be found in the Georgian Bay ecosystem, the overall number of wetlands around the basin has vastly diminished and continue to be lost.
• Early prevention action is required because remediation costs can be enormous and ineffective -- for example, a study of wetland restoration in Hamilton Harbor demonstrated that, despite an expenditure of millions dollars, full restoration has not yet been achieved.
• The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement needs to be much more proactive to ensure that good wetlands in Georgian Bay are prevented from deteriorating: wetland mapping, assessment and protection must be explicitly written into the Agreement.

5. Adaptive Management for Lake Ontario/St. Lawrence River

• A five year binational process (Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Study), organized by the IJC, is nearing completion to develop a new plan for regulating levels and flows in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence.
• This study represents an opportunity to restore natural conditions to an altered hydrologic regime. The new plan will be based on predictions of environmental response to different hydrologic conditions.
• The need to test these predictions and close information gaps argues for an adaptive management plan to implementing the regulation plan as well as new institutional arrangements for such an approach.

6. Better Controls of Invasive Species

• The Great Lakes basin is considered a world leader in regulations to prevent aquatic alien invasive species.
• Much has been done, but efforts to date have not curbed the rate of new introductions. Reports by the Canadian Auditor General and the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the two governments have not responded effectively to the problem and lack a binational approach.
• Opportunities exist to prevent AIS by enforcing current laws and implementing pending legislation in both countries. Great Lakes states and provinces could form a coalition to implement consistent policies.
• Approaches could include transshipment, liability insurance, retrofitting ships with ballast water treatment technologies, and using land-based facilities or moving barges to receive ballast water discharge.

7. PBDEs in the Great Lakes

• Polybrominated Dipenyl Ethers (PBDEs), a flame retardant added to many products, have become ubiquitous environmental contaminants in the Great lakes.
• They have been measured in: indoor and outdoor air; office and house dust; rivers and lakes and sediments; sewage sludge; terrestrial and marine mammals, fish and humans.
• Comparisons were drawn with PCBs and questions asked why lessons learned from PCBs have not been used to prevent current concerns with PDBEs including endocrine disruption, developmental effects and health impacts.
• Clear strategies for achieving zero discharge and virtual elimination for PBDEs must be explicitly written into the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

8. Adaptive Watershed Management

• The concept and principle of adaptive watershed management have not been explicitly addressed in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
• Aligning the Lakewide Area Management Plans and the Remedial Action Plans specified in Annex 2 of the Agreement with watershed approaches will provide a great opportunity for the implementation of regional and local watershed initiatives.
• Existing challenges, barriers, and opportunities facing the Great Lakes basin can be addressed by adaptive watershed management tools, measures, and techniques.

Highlights of discussions

Common themes noted in both sessions

• Adaptive Management encompasses the establishment of regimes where monitoring and data are used to make science-based decisions, where uncertainty is recognized and addressed, and where decisions and actions may proceed.
• Adaptive management should be driven by goals that clearly identify what is trying to be achieved.
• Role of science in adaptive management is to answer questions and thereby assist decision-makers.
• There is uncertainty associated with science and new questions always arise.
• Existing and emerging priority stressors include
  • pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and pesticides in source water supply
  • climate change and changing storm frequency and intensity
  • large facility aquaculture
  • loss of aquatic wetland habitat and biodiversity
  • microbial pathogens
  • aquatic alien invasive species
  • PCBs
  • population growth, land use and urbanization.
• Approaches to policy and management need to be adjusted on the basis of science, research, monitoring and evaluation.

Individual views as stated by participants

• There are real questions on how well we use adaptive management in the Agreement given increasing chemical concentrations seen today.
• How can the Agreement be used in an adaptive management approach? How can it be used to ensure capacity to address future issues?
  • Need a review process to look at classes of chemicals, not just individual chemicals, with some required individual testing
  • Consider a new list of classes of chemicals of concern in a revised Agreement
  • Need criteria: for example, if we're seeing persistence after 5 years, something happens
  • Need to work with agencies (e.g., EPA)
  • Need to look at grandfathered chemicals
  • Need mechanisms to access and review industry's data.
• Need to distinguish between precautionary principle and risk-based approaches.
• Need to do more than just identify a problem, but also prevent the problem in the first place using precautionary principles.
• How can the precautionary principle be operationalized within the Agreement?
• Adjust Agreement to address knowledge now at hand, but recognize that chemical influences (manufacture, emissions) occur globally
  • Can address some global influences through state/provincial policies, procurement practices
• Need to address difficulties of scale (global vs. Great Lakes vs. watersheds), perhaps address via a model watershed rather than tackle entire Great Lakes
• Support zero discharge, not just virtual elimination, as language in the Agreement (but how is zero discharge possible?).
• Adaptive management approaches should not be applied to persistent toxic substances as their use should be stopped (prevention vs. adaptation).
• The goals of virtual elimination and zero discharge should remain in the Agreement.
• Change is coming (climate change, impacts of climate change) and decision makers must adapt policies and programs.
• Maintain focus on water quality in the Agreement rather than broaden/dilute.
• Recognize that in 1972 and 1978 we didn't understand the ecosystem approach.

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