THE ECOSYSTEM APPROACH

A light is slowly turning on. The more I read "UNDER RAPs" the more I understand what has gone on here in Woolwich Township. I also am beginning to see more likelihood that our Ontario Ministry of the Environment knew that Elmira's drinking water was contaminated long before November 1989. I have commented here previously that it was coincidental/strange/bizarre how much remedial work was undertaken at Uniroyal Chemical immediately prior to the "discovery" of NDMA in the south wellfield in 1989.

This book is clearing the mist for me as to what was going on through the 1970s & 1980s politically and environmentally between Canada and the United States. The 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act started the ball rolling with Canada and the U.S. then signing the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) the same year. This was followed by updates and expansions to the agreement in both 1978 and 1987. In 1985 the IJC (International Joint Commission) had recommended that the eight U.S. states and Ontario start a Remedial Action Plan (RAP) to restore the beneficial uses that had been severely comprimised, in the five Great Lakes.

Eventually 43 Areas of Concern on both sides of the Great lakes as well as joining rivers such as St. Mary's, St. Clair and Niagara River were stipulated. All these 43 Areas required RAPs involving an ecosystem approach. In other words all disciplines, all stakeholders and all environmental, biological, chemical and engineering professions were to be part of the discussion and debate as to how to most effectively restore these Areas of Concern. These RAPs were also specifically to include citizens, activists and local residents who had the most at stake in cleaning up their own neighbourhoods.

For example a RAP must not solely focus on industrial contamination such as Trichloroethylene (TCE) while ignoring concomitant problems of oxygen depletion, eutrophication (algae) and possibly contaminated sediments. The full ecosystem had to be carefully considered prior to decisions regarding cleanup.

These 43 Areas of Concern are all either directly on the shores of the Great Lakes or the near shores (eg. Bay of Quinte). They also include a specific part of the St. Lawrence River downstream of course of the Great lakes and as mentioned connecting rivers between the Great lakes. Is it well past time for further upstream designations as Areas of Concern? The Grand River is one of the major rivers discharging into Lake Erie and as history has shown us Lake Erie is in special need of attention. P.C.B.s. Dioxins, DDT and other Persistent Toxic Substances (PTS & POPs- Persistent Organic Pollutants) are on the list for zero discharge and virtual elimination yet at a minimum the last two are still discharging into the Canagagigue Creek here in Elmira, Ontario, courtesy of Uniroyal/Chemtura Canada. Enough is enough.