Our harbour’s looking better

[Spiel]

Our harbour’s looking better

 

 

May 30th, 2009

Eric McGuinness / The Hamilton Spectator

 

 

Water’s cleaner, but more must be done

 

Hamilton should be proud of its harbour cleanup progress, even though problems persist.

 

So says an area water watcher, Gail Krantzberg, director of McMaster’s Centre for Engineering and Public Policy and member of the International Association for Great Lakes Research.

 

“We should look at all of the gains made in habitat protection, of sewage plant upgrading, combined sewer overflow capture, in fish population recovery and control of destructive carp in Cootes Paradise.”

 

Krantzberg said the June 13 centennial of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between Canada and the United States is a good time to take stock of progress in restoring Hamilton Harbour.

 

The remedial action plan target is to get the harbour off the list of Great Lakes pollution hot spots by 2015, but Krantzberg said we should acknowledge what has been accomplished.

 

“Once Randle Reef is cleaned up, whether or not you delist the harbour right away, that’s a tremendous celebration. A huge chunk of toxic sediment being removed from recycling into the ecosystem. That is worth a celebration.”

 

Krantzberg wrote a paper in the late 1990s in which she said the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement could be judged a failure if measured only by how many of the original 43 areas of concern had been removed from the list. (Three to date.)

 

“But if we measure habitat restoration that’s happened around the lakes, how much pollution has been stopped from going into the lakes, then we have had tremendous success.

 

“To celebrate that also requires people to document that and publicize it. I don’t think people are doing that well enough. I think Hamilton has a song to sing, and they’re not singing it loudly enough.”

 

The original 43 areas of concern included 12 in Canada, 26 in the U.S. and five shared.

 

Three have been delisted — Collingwood Harbour and Severn Sound on Georgian Bay and the Oswego River in New York State. Spanish Harbour on Lake Huron and Presque Isle Bay in Erie, Pa., are areas of concern in recovery.

 

Progress on others is mixed, with the IJC complaining that some, particularly in the United States, haven’t even been precisely mapped.

 

The aim is to delist many in this country in the next 10 years, according to Environment Canada.

 

Is that good enough? Sam Speck, an American member of the International Joint Commission, earlier this year said: “Progress on cleaning up AOCs has been slow by any reasonable measure.”

 

Each area has developed a remedial action plan (RAP) and Hamilton has gained a reputation for its work in this area.

 

“When I go around talking about RAPs, and when many other people write about them, often Hamilton is up at the forefront. This is the only way to do it right, folks, and you know people should be proud of that,” said Krantzberg.

 

She points specifically to how the Hamilton Harbour RAP identifies stakeholders responsible for meeting targets, so they can be held accountable.

 

John Hall, who co-ordinates implementation of the Hamilton RAP, talks of the huge improvements in reducing levels of phosphorus, a plant nutrient that feeds algae growth.

 

“They’ve been cut in half. They were so high it precluded light penetrating deep into the harbour, so we didn’t have plants growing in the nearshore area. The drop results from sewage plant improvements and industrial abatement, but we’re stuck now and have been at 34 micrograms per litre, still twice what it should be.”

 

He hopes the next big improvement to Hamilton’s huge Woodward Avenue plant will help, but going beyond that will depend on events upstream in the harbour watershed, doing things like reducing silt runoff from construction sites and better controlling storm water.

 

“It’s important for people to understand when we point a finger at the problem, increasingly the finger is pointed back at ourselves…

 

“If people ask me what is the one thing I can do to help, I tell them to use fertilizer … with a zero middle number for phosphorus. That’s one way people can reduce the nutrient load into the harbour … you really don’t need the phosphorus number to be pumped up to keep your grass green.”

 

Krantzberg has a similar take. She stresses that industry and governments have done a lot; the work ahead requires individuals to do such things as save water, stop using toxic products that end up in sewage plants and stop using lawn fertilizers that spur algae growth in the harbour.