Review of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Studies

163 Pages·2006·2.73 MB·English

by  National Research Council, Committee to Review the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Studies

eview of the
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Lake Ontario–St. Lawrence River Studies

Committee to Review the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Studies

Water Science and Technology Board

Division on Earth and Life Studies

in collaboration with

The Royal Society of Canada

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COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE LAKE ONTARIO-ST.
*
LAWRENCE RIVER STUDIES

JAMES L. WESCOAT, Chair, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
PATRICIA CHOW-FRASER, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
DESMOND N.D. HARTFORD, British Columbia Hydropower Authority, Burnaby,
Canada
JANET R. KEOUGH, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota
LYNN ALISON MAGUIRE, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
JOSEPH C. MAKAREWICZ, State University of New York at Brockport, New York
DAENE C. MCKINNEY, University of Texas, Austin
DAVID H. MOREAU, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
SLOBODAN P. SIMONOVIC, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
P. ANDY ZIELINSKI, Ontario Power Generation, Toronto, Canada

National Research Council Staff

LAUREN E. ALEXANDER, Study Director
ELLEN A. DE GUZMAN, Research Associate

*The activities of this committee were overseen and supported by the U.S. National
Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board (WSTB) in collaboration with the
Royal Society of Canada (RSC). The WSTB members are listed in Appendix D. Dr.
Jeremy N. McNeil, chair of the RSC committee on expert panels, served as liaison from the
Royal Society. Biographical information on committee members is contained in Appendix
E.
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Preface

This report reviews selected works of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River
Study for the International Joint Commission (IJC). The IJC is a bi-national or-
ganization created in 1909 to consider water and related issues along the U.S.-
Canada boundary. In 1999, the IJC prepared a plan of study on the effects of water
level and flow regulation on various stakeholder interests in the basin, and it estab-
lished the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Study Board to implement that plan.
As in its own mandate, the IJC directed the Study Board and its committees to,
“assure that all significant issues are adequately addressed,” serve in “their personal
and professional capacities, and not as representatives of their countries, agencies,
organizations, or other affiliations,” and “endeavour to conduct all of their work by
consensus” (IJC, 2000, pp. 2-3). This charge extended to the IJC’s nearly century-
long deliberations on water supply, navigation, and hydropower into the broader
domains of environmental, coastal, recreational, and participatory dimensions of
Great Lakes water regulation.
The Study Board adopted a “shared vision” planning approach to its five-year
program of research on the effects of water level and flow regulation. Shared vi-
sion planning involves a collaborative process of water resources inquiry, systems
modeling, and stakeholder participation that strives to converge on water regulation
plans worthy of consideration by the IJC. The study board commissioned scores
of studies involving over 150 specialists on topics that included wetlands, species at
risk, coastal erosion, and flooding, selected summaries of which are reviewed in this
report.
Toward the end of the five-year study period, the IJC arranged with the U.S.
National Research Council (NRC) and Royal Society of Canada (RSC) to carry out
this independent review of studies, reports, and models prepared for the study
board, including its shared vision model.
A special committee was formed for the assignment and to prepare this report.
The committee worked intensively and on a fast-track between June and August
2005 and held two meetings. The first meeting was on June 13-15, 2005 at Niag-
ara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada in a workshop setting, which allowed the com-
mittee to extensively interact with IJC and the Lake Ontario-St Lawrence River
Study scientists. The workshop setting also provided a venue for the committee to
receive explanations on study questions and points of clarification. After various
experts (study leads) made presentations, the committee made exhaustive efforts to
gain clarity on review topics.
The committee wishes to thank the following presenters: Joseph Atkinson,
University at Buffalo; Lisa Bourget, IJC; Joe De Pinto, LimnoTech, Inc. ; Jana
Lantry, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Wendy
Leger, Environment Canada; Todd Redder, LimnoTech, Inc.; Albert Schiavone,
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Eugene Stakhiv,
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