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| Last Review/Updated: July 12, 2002 |
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NRBS - HomeTable of Contents |
Northern River Basins Study Final Report
4.0 Study Board Recommendations
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Recommendation 11 Recommendation 12 |
Adequate protection of a river ecosystem requires keeping track of ambient conditions and of what is going into the river, what impact it has on the organisms that live in the river and what effects there may be on humans who drink the water or rely on the river for food. The synthesis reports contain many specific recommendations for monitoring which will be of interest to research and management specialists. The policy recommendations which follow this introduction are directed to the attention of water resource managers.
Monitoring is undertaken for a variety of reasons. Effluent monitoring, keeping track of what goes into a river from point sources such as industrial operations or municipal sewage discharges, is relatively straight forward. Alberta Environmental Protection has a comprehensive set of standards, requirements and procedures for point source monitoring by licensed facilities. Quality assurance and quality control measures should be rigorous, should address issues of sampling, laboratory analysis and data processing and the science should be overseen independently.
Monitoring of ambient water quality enables assessment of the combined effects of point and nonpoint sources as well as changes arising from natural causes. Environment Canada has eight active monthly water quality monitoring stations in the Peace, Athabasca and Slave basins. Alberta Environmental Protection has a network of 20, designed to undertake investigations in the vicinity of major industrial developments and conducts special surveys where potential problems are apprehended. British Columbia operates a single monitoring station on the Peace.
Alberta Environmental Protection has an extensive set of standards and monitoring requirements for industrial and municipal facilities. The frequency of monitoring depends, among other things, on the type of treatment process, retention time, environmental significance of substances being released, the need for baseline information, cost in relation to capabilities of the discharger and the benefits obtained and the compliance history. Monitoring requirements can be modified if circumstances so dictate. The federal government's involvement in monitoring is focused on scientific and technical leadership for monitoring methodology and on the design of data base systems to support monitoring programs of national interest. The federal, provincial and territorial governments are currently engaged in harmonization discussions and have developed a draft Environmental Management Framework Agreement (EMFA). It addresses, among other topics, the proposed roles of each government in monitoring. The Study Board supports the intent of these discussions.
Monitoring of water quantity, flow or discharge touches on all aspects of water use and is thus of central significance to water management. After an initial survey, a gauge to measure the river level may be sufficient for estimating discharge. Recalibration of the relation between gauge height and discharge is necessary periodically to account for changes in the river cross section. The federal government has played a leading role in monitoring flows in major river systems in Canada, a role which is currently being reviewed. The Study Board views close cooperation between the federal and provincial governments as desirable.
Time series of available hydrologic data are relatively short for the northern Rivers. They do not provide an adequate basis for projecting hydrological characteristics that are relevant to such matters as water quality, flood control and sediment transport. The prospects of climate change heighten the need for monitoring of flows.
Environmental impact monitoring is a logical sequel to environmental impact assessment. In conformance with a federal government proposal, the Province of Alberta is currently implementing the pulp mill Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM) program, which involves characterizing the effluent, describing the plume at various levels of flow, and monitoring the environmental impacts of the effluent. Quality assurance and quality control measures are necessary for field sampling methods as well as for laboratory analyses and data analysis.
The EEM program is designed to be undertaken by industry on a three-year cycle. Each EEM proposal is reviewed by a team of experts with representation from Environment Canada, Alberta Environmental Protection, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. While the administrative agreement signed under the Fisheries Act designated the Province to take the lead in coordinating the EEM, neither the study proposal nor the review team participation will be altered. The province will serve as the one-window contact and coordination body.
This delegation to industry would not address cumulative effects, nor would it gain universal public confidence as providing independent assessments of environmental impact.
Methodologies of environmental impact assessment are continually being refined. Every effort should be made to standardize methods and to develop techniques for detection of long term trends in abundance and health of plants and animals. This is a particular problem for the northern rivers that are much less known than those that are southerly. A strategy for monitoring should be developed that spells out the details of methodology including the frequency with which various measurements should be made and the possibility of "pulsed" monitoring with intensive studies at intervals of several years.
The number of substances entering the northern rivers from effluent discharges is very large. Municipal effluent alone contain the wide variety of things that are used in every day life, ranging from paint remover to birth control pills. Industrial effluents have an equally wide variety of organic and inorganic constituents that includes the residues of chemicals used in processes and the products of their interaction with substrate materials such as wood. Treatment reduces some of these effluent materials but what is discharged still bears a "fingerprint" of its source of origin. A river receiving several effluents gains a composite fingerprint. Only a small proportion of the substances involved may be identified but their molecular weights will show up in the output chart of a mass spectrometer, like individual peaks of a mountain range, a sort of fingerprint of what a sample contains. This technique, known as broad spectrum analysis is currently used by Alberta Environmental Protection. Its further development has been pioneered by the study. Broad spectrum analysis is an effective tool for comprehensive assessment of the contents in effluent and ambient water. This technique has potential for enabling detection of changes in effluent loadings and rapid identification of their specific sources.
Public participation in monitoring has been practiced in some jurisdictions in the United States and was advocated in representations to the Study Board. The objectives of volunteer monitoring programs include acquisition of local knowledge, public education, the provision of data for water quality and impact assessment and an enhanced public auditing function. The quality of the data determine the uses to which they can be put. For some measurements field sampling methods are technically demanding in both equipment and expertise and are probably best attempted by volunteers only after specialized training. But most routines are readily handled after brief training and can provide valuable supplementary information to government agency monitoring programs. The values of public involvement are self evident both for the volunteers and those with whom they associate. Whether the data collected by volunteers is sufficient for watchdog purposes depends on the quality and quantity of the data and how systematically they are collected. The Study Board endorses the concept of public participation in monitoring.
Monitoring is undertaken by several interests: industrial, municipal, provincial, territorial, federal and in the course of research projects by university and other researchers. To gain a comprehensive picture of what is going into the rivers and what effects it has on the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the rivers requires the assemblage of a diverse package of information. There are inconsistencies in the quality of data, and in their methods of analysis and archiving. For purposes of cumulative assessment, some parameters are measured at intervals that are too infrequent, others are measured more often than is necessary, or to a degree of precision that is not warranted, still others that should be measured are not measured. The various shortcomings of the various monitoring activities have arisen in part because events have overtaken them. New philosophies of ecosystem assessment together with new technologies and new understandings require that the approach to monitoring should be dynamic, evolving to meet changing circumstances. Moreover, as the requirements for more and better monitoring expand, the value of coordination of efforts is increasingly apparent. Similarly, greater consistency in the software used to record monitoring data is necessary if data from different sources are to be readily accessed and compared.
Monitoring is central to the allaying of public concerns about whether it is safe "to drink the water and eat the fish". Monitoring must be seen to be efficient, effective and rigorous, and that can be seen to be doing impartial assessments using state-of-the-art science and technology. Recent research on assessment of environmental impacts on rivers has emphasized the necessity of holistic ecosystem approaches. Water quality and effluent emission standards are at best only an indirect measure of what the biological effects may be of discharging effluent. Much better indicators are the plants and animals themselves and the properties of the ecosystem of which they are constituent parts.
The Board is also of the view that the time has come to follow the lead of other jurisdictions in involving the public in monitoring, perhaps on a modest basis as a start, as well as ensuring unfettered public access to monitoring information. To be credible, monitoring by volunteers must be well managed and technically adequate. Meaning well is not enough.
The importance of ongoing research in support of monitoring cannot be over emphasized. The technologies of industrial operations evolve continuously. Research elsewhere in the world creates awareness for monitoring of substances not previously known to have environmental effects. New techniques of analysis bring greater sophistication to data interpretation.
In Canada the leading roles for research related to monitoring have been played by the federal government laboratories with some participation by universities and by industrial associations such as the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada (PAPRICAN). These have been successful national arrangements and should be continued, placing emphasis on maintenance of the strengths of federal government laboratories.
Conclusion
The Board has heard many comments on the subject of monitoring and is aware of current "harmonization" discussions between the federal and provincial governments. The Board has considered various options for rationalizing and improving monitoring including the establishment of a "completely independent" agency such as the Clean Air Strategic Alliance (CASA). It is the view of the Board that the best approach is to ensure that current monitoring efforts are coordinated, on an ongoing basis, and assessed for adequacy. Consistent with the principles it has espoused, the Board is convinced of the importance of an ecosystem approach to monitoring with all that is implied.
The Board has been conscious of the importance of first class scientific advice in the interpretation of monitoring data and fully recognizes the need for research guidance in the continuing evolution of monitoring techniques. Collaboration among the various agencies is much to be desired as a means of ensuring relevance and excellence at least cost.
The Board recommends that:
Among its activities the IEMC would:
| a) | evaluate and standardize protocols for design of data collection and management, quality assurance / control and data analysis, giving particular attention to the frequency of monitoring for various contaminants in fish and sediments; |
| b) | establish a standardized database for the basins; |
| c) | recruit and oversee volunteer organizations and individuals into the monitoring activities providing orientation and training as required; |
| d) | establish a small independent panel of experts on the technical aspects of monitoring to advise the IEMC on its program implementation, data interpretation and scientific recommendations; and |
| e) | play a lead role in setting the research agenda for the northern river basins as it relates directly to monitoring of effluent discharges and their individual, synergistic and cumulative effects. |
Preamble
The presence of contaminants in the food chain including fish is a concern for many local residents of the northern river basins who rely extensively on traditional foods for subsistence.
For the various Study projects, a large number of environmental samples and fish samples was subject to various chemical analysis. While, in general contaminant levels do not constitute an immediate health problem, a review of the findings indicates that there are opportunities for various contaminants to enter the food chain that leads to the dining tables of northern residents. Such contaminants include dioxins, furans, toxaphene and mercury. The daily intake of these compounds may be limited by fish consumption advisories in some reaches of the river systems, but based on current knowledge, intake is low and appears to be without appreciable risk to health.
Of all of the contaminants found in the northern rivers, none is of more widespread concern to human health than mercury. Most of the mercury is of natural origin, augmented by contributions from the atmosphere at a rate of roughly one per cent each year. Large reservoirs behind dams, such as the Williston Reservoir, flood soils and produce quantities of methylated mercury for many years after they are first filled.
At several places in the Peace and Athabasca systems concentrations of mercury in filets or livers of predatory fishes (e.g., pike, walleye, burbot and bull trout) approach or exceed national standards (e.g., Williston Lake, western end of Lake Athabasca and the Lower Athabasca River). Appropriate health advisory warnings have been posted. The risks of mercury poisoning are proportional to the rate at which fish are consumed as well as to the content of mercury in the fish and to what part of the fish is eaten. Fish livers concentrate mercury as well as other contaminants because the liver is the detoxification centre of the body.
In general, mercury levels are at levels that are not a threat to human health for the great majority of fish eaters, but for the few heavy consumers in localized areas there could conceivably be problems. In the future if mercury levels continue to rise from atmospheric fallout, the threat to human health will increase.
Traditionally, fish consumption guidelines have been defined by first establishing an experimental threshold in animals. A fraction of the threshold concentration obtained by applying a large safety factor is then denoted as the standard. From a human health perspective, however, it is important that a balance be found between eating fish, which provides an excellent source of protein, and the potential danger to health due to contaminants. Factors such as, the movement of fish, the geographic variation of concentrations, the types of fish contaminated, trends of concentrations over time, to mention just a few, also have to be considered in developing and reassessing fish consumption advisories.
Conclusion
The Board noted the existence of fish consumption advisories in various reaches of the Peace-Athabasca-Slave Rivers system. There is a need to review existing advisories in the light of the new information about contaminants in fish and for the development of new, human health based policies, standards and guidelines.
The Board recommends that:
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