HIGHLIGHTS OF IJC RECOMMENDATIONS TO GOVERNMENTS

L.H. Legault, Chairman, Canadian Section

Ladies and gentlemen, if we could come to order please. Just before we proceed to the open night presentations, there are two matters we would like to review with you. First of all, we want to take this opportunity to welcome and introduce to you, the new Director of our Windsor Office, Tom Behlen. Tom, would you stand up?

Many of you will recognize Tom's name and his person. He comes to us from the Ohio EPA where he served as Chief of their division of Surface Water and represented the Director of the IJC's Water Quality Board for the last few years. Tom brings with him, both academic degrees and past work experience as a biologist, chemist, and environmental lawyer, which is an interesting combination and fits very nicely for the work he will be doing in Windsor. Please join me in welcoming Tom and wishing him well.

Of course, with this new appointment to the position of Director of the Regional Office, it means that we are losing something. As you know we are losing Doug McTavish who has served the Commission in many capacities for many years, but most particularly almost five years, as Director of the Regional Office. We owe him a great deal. He has served the Commission well. He has unfailingly showed the greatest dedication to the objectives of the Water Quality Agreement, and I wish you would indicate your appreciation by a hardy round of applause.

The second matter I would like to take up at this time relates to the charge that was put to the Commission by the governments of Canada and United States, a little over six months ago. I think all of you know that at that time, the governments had requested the Commission to review its mandate and to come forward with proposals as to how the Commission might best assist the Parties of the U.S. and Canada to meet the environmental challenges of the 21^st Century. We consulted very widely in preparing our response to this charge. We consulted, of course, with our own family of Boards, Council, task forces, and with university professors, scientists, experts of nongovernmental organizations, provincial governments, state governments. On the basis of this very far-ranging and comprehensive series of consultations, we have come up with a report which we submitted to the Canadian and U.S. governments last week, which will be made public tomorrow. Summaries of the report are here and available for distribution.

I would like to take just a few minutes to hit some of the highlights of the recommendations we are making to governments. There are five proposals. These proposals really go to adapting and extending the Commission's structures to further assist the Canadian and U.S. governments in meeting the transboundary environmental challenges of the 21^st Century. The thrust of the proposals is to reinforce the Commission's traditional capacity to assist the two governments:

• first, by alerting them to emerging issues;
• secondly, by providing a more effective means of addressing environmental issues and anticipating, avoiding and resolving transboundary disputes;
• thirdly, by encouraging and facilitating binational efforts to find solutions that are in the common interest of both countries and their people, and
• above all, by engaging local interests in local governments in all of the activities that I have just mentioned.
• The key proposal, the central proposal that we have put forward relates to establishment of a system of international watershed boards that we would establish over a period of years to extend, so-to-speak, the environmental reach of the Commission coast-to-coast. The new boards would focus on the overall environmental integrity of each watershed. Water, including groundwater, land and air, and the Boards would monitor and report on all relevant concerns, including questions of habitat, biodiversity, exotic species and pollution from all sources.

For the Great Lakes basin, the existing Water Quality Board would provide the nucleus for the establishment of an international Great Lakes International Watershed Board covering the St. Lawrence right down to Trois Rivieres. Other Great Lakes boards and task forces, and all IJC Control Boards would continue in their normal role. This focus would allow the International Watershed Board to identify and address new issues before they develop into environmental crisis or transboundary conflicts. It would also enable the Boards to serve an ombudsman-like role in drawing international attention to local concerns about the environmental integrity of the watersheds.

Commissioner Chamberlin will take us through the remaining four proposals that we have put before governments.

Alice Chamberlin, U.S. Commissioner, IJC

I am going to be very brief in the interest of time. I will begin by saying that the additional proposals were designed to enhance and assist the work of the proposed International Watershed Boards across the boundary. They were also designed, in part, to address the issues that we heard through the consultation process that are the greatest demand, not only of greatest concern, not only in the Great Lakes basin, but across the boundary.

• The first proposal is a series of studies that would be initiated by the Commission; a study on water supply and demand, as well as water quality in the international watersheds across the boundary area. Of course, that has significant implications for the Great Lakes region as well.
• A study of our transboundary air issues that would identify for the Commission, emerging air issues, and finally a study of the core data requirements, the monitoring capacity of the Parties to provide that data on the critical issues of air and water in our transboundary region.
• The third proposal is that the Commission continue its review of the existing Orders of Approval that operate structures such as dams across our boundary area. We have 20 structures in six watersheds currently. In some places, we don't believe that those Orders of Approval are compatible with the existing conditions within that watershed. So we propose to continue our review to make sure that our Orders of Approval are compatible with what we know now about the interests in the watershed, as well as environmental conditions in those watersheds.
• The fourth proposal is a request to governments to give the IJC a Reference on certain nuclear issues. This question has been brought up at this Public Forum and past Biennial Meetings and we know it is a very sensitive and timely binational issue that we hope governments will consider giving the Commission a Reference to address and begin a comprehensive binational dialogue on critical nuclear issues in the basin.
• The fifth proposal is that the Commission report on an ongoing basis to governments on transboundary environmental conditions. We believe that the proposed watershed boards, the International Watershed Board, would be critical to reporting to governments, the nature of conditions in the watershed boards, and the emerging conditions that government should be alerted to. We see this as utilizing the local and regional capacity that are really the experts in the international watersheds to help direct the future work of the governments.

Finally, I would like to say that all of these proposals will, we hope, move forward, but most importantly, in consultation with the existing bilateral organizations in our international watershed boards, in consultation with the states and provinces, and other relevant authorities in the international watersheds. We are looking very much forward to that consultation process. We are depending on it. The support for this concept has to come from the need and from the citizens and public in our international watersheds. So we are anxious to begin that dialogue with all of you and look forward to it. Thank you very much.

Susan Bayh, U.S. Commissioner, IJC

Thank you, Alice. What I really like about the charge presentation is that a lot of the comments that we heard yesterday in open-microphone were already incorporated into some of the things we have presented and that's a wonderful way to show that we have been responsive on nuclear issues, and other issues to make sure that those are incorporated in our plans for what the IJC will move into in the 21^st Century. The second part of it is, that when you read the document, our rededication and our continued dedication to the Great Lakes is in no-way lessened by our dedication to take the knowledge, take the expertise that we have learned in the Great Lakes and apply it on the transboundary.

Now, we are going to take this opportunity to have you speak to us. I have to start out with an apology, but an apology of success. We have so many people that are still waiting to speak, that we are going to be fairly strict about our time deadlines to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak. There has been such a demand to speak that we must limit comments to three minutes apiece.

I will now turn it over to Jim Chandler and his colleague, Murray Clamen, Tom Behlen to start the open-microphone process.