2011 2: International Joint Commission

Question 1

What is the International Joint Commission?

Answer 1

The international joint commission; established in 1909 by Boundary Waters Treaty

Question 2

Who forms the Boundary Waters Treaty?

Answer 2

The treaty has 6 members 3 USA and 3 Canadian (Americans appointed by president, Canadians by PM); which prevented and resolved disputes; good water for everyone using it.

Question 3

What does the 1909 Boundary Water Treaty consider?

Answer 3

Considers ALL of Canada and US boundary waters**

Question 4

Details of they Treaty?

Answer 4

o It was the first environmental treaty in the world
o Niagara Falls was one of two disputes specifically mentioned
o 8000km of boundary 40% fresh water, 134 shared rivers and lakes
o 100 disputes resolved in 100 years
o Allowed for complete equality between the 2 countries
o 1972 new responsibilities assigned under Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Question 5

What is the main FOCUS of the treaty?

Answer 5

o The areas under this treaty involved the whole border
o MORE FOCUS ON QUANTITY OF WATER! We have this kind of respect to the right of water where its like I can use the water that goes by my farm in the stream, but I will use it in a way that there will be enough that the next guy down stream will have enough for him and I will leave it clean enough for him to use.

Question 6

The Role of The IJC?

Answer 6

o Recognition that each country is affected by the other’s actions
o Provides a way to cooperate in management of water to protect them from benefit of today’s citizens and future generations

Question 7

Three key roles of the IJC?

Answer 7

1. Respecting competing interests
2. Investigating water pollution
3. Investigating air pollution
   o Side note: they have to respect everything and take everything into account from industry to recreational

Question 8

The Ecosystem Approach

Answer 8

o Recognition of interrelated and interdependent factors
o More than one course of action
o Comprehensive and interdisciplinary
o Ask everyone all of the experts and gather all of the information you possibly can and put it all together and think about everything as a whole
o Cant be bound by lines must thing as a whole, not just one jurisdiction at a time

Question 9

What is an important thing that the ecosystem approach recognized?

Answer 9

They recognize that there may not be just one solution to a problem. Need to be comprehensive in their approach.

Question 10

How is the ecosystem approach systematic?

Answer 10

o Interaction among physical, chemical and biological components
o Uses biological indicators to monitor water quality and changes in the ecosystem
o Ie. Cant measure everything have to use biological markers of good or bad health

Question 11

How is the Ecosystem Approach Geographically Comprehensive?

Answer 11

Includes land, air and water. Recognized the impact of atmospheric deposition and land uses on water quality (what we do to other things that affect it) What we do to the INDIRECT: things like ground water! These things must be considered as well.

Question 12

How is the Ecosystem Approach inclusive of humans?

Answer 12

o Recognizes social, economic, technical and political variables that affect how humans use natural resources.
o Human culture, changing lifestyles and attitudes must be considered. How the changes will affect us.
• Basically: Takes into account that PEOPLE are the problem! We cant pretend that this is about managing water… its really about how people impact the water: changing their behaviour/changing regulation!

Question 13

What does the Ecosystem Approach change from the usual ?

Answer 13

o Focus on localized pollution: used to think it was such a LOCAL problem: this is now saying lets INCLUDE EVERYBODY, consider everything, take COMPREHENSIVE action*
o Management of separate components of the ecosystem in isolation
o Planning that neglects the profound influences of land uses on water quality

Question 14

What are the MOST IMPORTANT things the ecosystem approach combines?

Answer 14

Ecosystem Approach COMBINES: environment, economy (Traditional approach: economy is the BIGGEST ASPECT, new approach: ALL THREE ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT AND AFFECT IT) and community to find overall common health!!

Question 15

What is the decision making process?

Answer 15

o It is the integration of all aspects
o A framework for decision-making that compels managers and planners to cooperate and devise integrated strategies to find a solution; look at everything at once instead of making incremental decisions.

Question 16

Remedial Action Plan;; 1972

Answer 16

we signed the first Great Lakes quality agreement: this was because of Lake Erie going to hell (dead fish everywhere) Investigated pollutants: it was detergents/chemicals we had added that caused algae: GROSS everyone can see it: so that was a call for action that said TREAT YOUR SEWAGE: everyone MUST do secondary treatment. Agriculture and industrial partners needed to do the same. TAT WORKED: stop adding non-persistent pollutants:

Question 17

RAP: 1978?

Answer 17

they though sweet were amazing look what we’ve done for Lake Erie. We have a problem with PERSISTENT toxic contaminants now: so were gonna do the same thing for this and say stop putting them in! They thought they’d do the same, and aim for zero discharge (meaning you’re not putting ANY Toxic contaminants out through your pipes: were aiming for ZERO) Thought if we did that we’d see everything improve. Didn’t solve: Everything that was already out there remains! We didn’t hit zero, we went way down. We reduced our loadings by 90%. So meaning 10% is still there. SO we reduced how much we were adding but we didn’t CLEAN ANYTHING UP. So we slowed the train, but we didn’t hit zero. So they recognized this: great idea but it wont solve the problem: lets do something radical: Remedial Action Plan recoginizes we cant clean up everything at once: lets identify the WORSE places and start there. Identified those worse areas in 1985, came up with how to fix it in 1987.

Question 18

What is a RAP?

Answer 18

o Restoration and protection efforts
o 1985-43 areas of concern (AOC) (42 found first than one more found during)
o AOCs are the pollution hot spots
o 1987-Remedail action plans (RAP)
o RAPs were developed to restore beneficial uses within the AOCs

Question 19

RAP: what is required for each area with a problem?

Answer 19

• Identify the responsibility and timeframe for implementing remedial and preventative (lets not do any more damage) actions (set up a timetable)
• Adopting the ecosystem approach
• Consulting the public

Question 20

Impaired Beneficial Uses

Answer 20

change in chemical, physical or biological integrity of the Great Lakes system sufficient to cause any of the following…

Question 21

Examples? (don’t memorize)

Answer 21

 restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption
 tainting of fish and wildlife flavour
 degradation of fish wildlife populations
 fish tumors or other deformities
 bird or animal deformities or reproduction problems
 degradation of benthos
 restrictions on dredging activities

Question 22

RAPs 25 years later: which areas of concern have been delisted?

Answer 22

o Five AOCs delisted: Collingwood, Severn Sound, Oswego (US), Wheatley Harbour, and Presque Ile

Question 23

RAPs 25 years later: which areas of concern have been moved to recover stage?

Answer 23

o Two AOCs are in a recovery stage: Spanish Harbour, Jackfish Bay

Question 24

What does the RAP program represent?

Answer 24

• The RAP program represents a pioneering effort in ecosystem based management

Question 25

What does the RAP program seek?

Answer 25

It seeks systemic, comprehensive planning for complex problems on a watershed basis

Question 26

What is the RAP program inclusive of?

Answer 26

• It is inclusive and seeks partnerships; it encourages collaboration and cooperation at all levels; it encourages flexibility and innovation
• It was a long journey over many years of politicians that have to maintain interest in order to see results; could have been postponed based on meeting ect.

Question 27

What is the risk of the approach?

Answer 27

by emphasizing a process, it might play into the hands of politicians unwilling to invest the clean-up funds or make the difficult choices to restore the lakes

Question 28

Why do RAPs have the potential to postpone change?

Answer 28

“Generating meetings and reports and good feelings of cooperation, remedial action planning had the potential to become a way of postponing rather that making a governmental ecosystem commitment.”

Question 29

Implementing RAPs: key challenges?

Answer 29

o Securing resources: hard time finding money
o Identifying accountability and responsibility
o Defining restoration targets
o Setting priorities
o Monitoring recover
o Where to start?

Question 30

Whats the problem? (her opinion)

Answer 30

we haven’t ACTUALLY done anything SIGNIFICANT yet…. Not looking great for the future. Nothings been updated since 2003!!! We understand its difficult, SO MANY things to consider: are we thinking drinking? Are we thinking shipping? Hydro? We have so many key things, its so impacted by humans! And in turn the water affects health… we don’t have a good enough understanding of WHO should be accountable. We don’t have certainty! And Canadians need to have certainty: i.e. “this chemical is going into the water, we take it out we will solve” its not that simple. The time frame is far beyond mandate of a government! So that’s hard to get political will!

Question 31

Implementing RAPs: Problems

Answer 31

o Competing interests (many different things that need to be looked at)
o Lack of information (problems are not easily identified)
o Lack of certainty
o Lack of recourses
o Lack of political will
o Issue attention (people only pay attention when there is a big problem: remember baby bottles: the people were a huge part in removing that chemical!)

Question 32

Implementing RAPs: Solutions

Answer 32

(can we do it, what are we going to do, is it worth the cost)
o	Pollution control
o	Pollution prevention
o	Resource management
o	Radical measures?
o	Cost and benefits : is it WORTH it
o	Lack of information

Question 33

Implementing RAPs: Context

Answer 33

(a lot of different places/people to go to for this)
o Jurisdiction
o Responsibility
o Levels/layers of government
o Institutional arrangements
o Policy/regulatory framework: hard to understand
o Lack of information

Question 34

Years

Answer 34

1972: Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (due to all Lake Eries issues; NON PERSISTENT POLLUTANTS)
1978: identify PERSISTENT pollutants
1985: identify areas of concern
1987: RAPs put in place