CANADA
Winning Back Canadian Waters
By Krystyn Tully
House lights go down. Stage lights come up in a renovated waterfront warehouse nightclub. Inscribed on the wall, just visible in the now–darkened room, is a centuries-old description of this location. It is clear that Lake Ontario bears little resemblance to what Elizabeth Simcoe saw when she penned these words shortly after arriving from England in 1791.

It is Toronto Bay, Lake Ontario, June 21, 2003.

Tonight the audience is a collection of some of the most powerful clean water advocates in the world. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. takes the stage and tells the audience, "This lake is the forgotten lake. It was taken over by government agencies and by industry, and stolen from the public." It is now time to take our lake back.

It is the last night of Waterkeeper Alliance’s Annual Conference, the first time such a gathering has been held outside the United States. One hundred fifteen Waterkeepers from the US, Canada, and Latin America are joined by dozens of Canadian activists, drinking in Kennedy’s words, and soaking up the inspiring presence of so many grassroots leaders.

Words spoken this night will resonate for years to come. One member of the audience will bring the message of waterfront renewal to a mayoral candidate who will make it the centerpiece of his winning platform. Another, a pioneer in television broadcasting, will become one of the movement’s most influential supporters in Canada.

As Kennedy’s words ring out over the sounds of clinking beer glasses and periodic cheers, a benefit concert across the street bolsters support for a city ravaged by the deadly SARS virus. In just two years’ time, the headliners of that show, The Tragically Hip, will bring the cry of the Waterkeeper movement to one hundred thousand fans on a cross-country tour.

On this summer night, a corner is being turned. Waterkeeper Alliance has come to Canada.

Canada has always been a country of water. It has the longest shoreline in the world (200,000 kilometres). More of this country is covered by freshwater than any other country (755,000 square kilometers or nearly 300,000 square miles). Canada is home to North America’s second longest river system and the world’s largest bay. It also borders the largest freshwater system on the planet. Water is the reason that Canada is the country it is today. It provided the First Nations and, much later, European colonizers means for travel, trade, and permanent settlement. Water links Canada’s three coasts, nurtures crops, and, even in the coldest northern extremes, provides nourishment for people.

But this wealth is not absolute. If we judge the health of our waterways by our ability to safely swim, drink, and fish, then we see that Canada is increasingly impoverished. The ability to walk down to the shore and swim is central to the health of many Canadian communities; yet, there is an epidemic of pollution in every province. Billions of litres of sewage flow into our waters every single day. Major cities such as Halifax and Victoria dump raw sewage into the ocean without any treatment whatsoever. In summer, every beach on Lake Ontario is polluted with bacteria. In the last four years alone, twenty thousand people became ill because of sewage contamination in their drinking water.

Still, there are things worse than sewage in our drinking water. In August 2003, a power blackout rolled across most of eastern North America. One of the worst hit areas was the petrochemical capital of Canada: Sarnia, Ontario. Located on the banks of the St. Clair River, Sarnia is home to more than twenty major petrochemical manufacturers and petroleum refineries. When the blackout hit, industrial systems failed. One company, Royal Polymers, discharged about 650 pounds of vinyl chloride into the St. Clair River.

The vinyl chloride spill went unreported for nearly two weeks, at which time the Community Health Services Department issued a boil-water advisory recommending that "water can be rendered safe" by adding household bleach to their water. "A faint chlorine smell should be noticeable after proper disinfection." This is an effective strategy for killing pathogens, but utterly useless for toxic industrial chemicals. Residents of Stag Island, downstream from Sarnia, suffered nausea, disorientation, and lethargy. They now must come to grips with the fact that vinyl chloride is a potent carcinogen. No one, it seems, had planned what to do in the event of a blackout. Where were the safety measures to protect against a spill, why did the spill go unreported for so long, and why was the response so inappropriate?

Across the country, the fisheries are also suffering. On the Great Lakes, more than eighty percent of fish habitat has been destroyed in the last century. In New Brunswick, the Moncton causeway wiped out the Petitcodiac’s renowned fishery one generation ago. In British Columbia, some two million Fraser River sockeye salmon were supposed to return to spawn this year; only half a million showed up.

The fish that do survive are frequently contaminated and only safe to eat in limited quantities. On the Great Lakes, The Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish cautions adult males to eat no more than eight meals of fish each month; women of childbearing age and children under fifteen are restricted to four meals. Health Canada also publishes national advisories, suggesting that women and children indulge in fish such as shark, swordfish, and tuna just once a month.

Pollution creates the need for these advisories. Industrial emissions, illegal dumping, and improper waste disposal introduce contaminants such as mercury and PCBs into waterways. Once in our waters, these contaminants build up in fish and birds, posing a threat to the ecosystem and the humans who consume them.

Ironically, Canada has perhaps the world’s strongest laws protecting fish and habitat. Polluting the ocean with sewage is illegal. Poisoning water supplies with chemicals is illegal. Contaminating fish and destroying their habitat is illegal. Yet, Canadians can no longer safely swim, drink, or fish the waters of this nation; here, in the country of water.

Enter the Waterkeepers. Waterkeepers are here to win back our lakes, rivers, and coasts. They enforce the laws that government ignores. They ensure compliance when industry does not. Waterkeepers are restoring this country’s historic wealth one waterway, one community at a time.

Daniel LeBlanc, Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, was Canada’s first member of Waterkeeper Alliance. He launched his program in 1999 and was quickly followed by programs in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. Today, there are eight established Canadian Waterkeeper programs and many more in development.

As a grassroots movement, Water-keepers in Canada are a powerful force. Waterkeepers have conducted investigations into leaking landfills, leading to convictions through the first citizen-Environment Canada partnership in Atlantic Canada and the remediation of a site where Manhattan Project wastes were dumped. They have fought for improved decision-making processes and challenged Canada’s short-sighted
environmental assessment laws. Waterkeepers’ questioning of federal government policy was supported by the Office of the Auditor General, bringing about improved protections for the Great Lakes.

In October 2004, these Canadians met again in the same warehouse where Waterkeeper Alliance gathered in 2003. With echoes of the first international Waterkeeper conference eighteen months before still in the air, the Canadian Waterkeepers charted a strategy to win back Canada’s waterways. One month later, the Canadian Waterkeepers launched www.waterkeepers.ca – a website that introduces Canadians to their local programs and describes the foundations of the movement.

Two weeks later, Waterkeepers Canada hit the road with famed rock ‘n roll band, The Tragically Hip. Traveling from Vancouver to Halifax, the tour was a resounding success. On tour, the Canadian Waterkeepers introduced themselves and their message. Night after night they set up their booth at the concert hall, met new members and spoke with local media. Fans heard Gord Downie, lead singer of The Tragically Hip, encourage them to stop by the Waterkeeper booth and "help win back your lakes and rivers!" Thousands did. Canadians know that clean water is
central to their communities. They’re ready to fight for it. And they want Waterkeepers.

The explosion of the Waterkeeper movement is not by chance. It has been building for generations. Its seeds were sewn when the first causeway choked a river and the first steel plant spewed out chemical blobs. Momentum intensified when the first government agency turned a blind eye. Across the country, water quality was suffering as public resources were bargained away. So, when Robert Kennedy, Jr. stood on that Toronto stage in 2002 and called Lake Ontario a "forgotten lake," his message resonated. People understood that he could have been speaking about any number of waterways in Canada.

Two years later, there is a new voice for waterways and communities in Canada, and a renewed commitment to environmental law enforcement and grassroots participation.

Remember the company that dumped the vinyl chloride into the St. Clair River? They’ve been charged with four separate violations of Ontario law and are facing fines of up to $12.5 million. A binational collaboration between Canadian Detroit Riverkeeper, St. Clair Channelkeeper, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, and the University of Windsor Law School investigated the chemical spill in 2003-2004 and issued a report recommending that those charges be laid. Further, the provincial government continues to cite the support of Waterkeepers as it defends its tough new anti-spills legislation against corporate interests.

Remember the causeway that choked the Petitcodiac River and wiped out its fishery? The Petitcodiac Riverkeeper led the charge for one of the most comprehensive environmental impact assessments in Canadian history. Experts have just recommended restoring free flow to the river and the legacy of the land bridge will soon be over.

Meanwhile, the Great Lakes Waterkeepers are monitoring and investigating the sewage systems that are poisoning their beaches. In 2004, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper triggered a legal review of Ontario’s beach policy after a three-year investigation revealed that every municipality investigated had broken the law, but had never been charged.

Bringing Waterkeeper Alliance to Canada in 2003 rallied support for clean water in a way the country had never seen before. The Waterkeepers are dedicated. Canadians are passionate. After a century of neglect and disregard, one thing is clear: Canada’s waters are forgotten no more.

Restoring the Free Flowing Petitcodiac River
I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river Is a strong brown god – sullen, untamed and intractable. –T.S. Eliot
The mighty Petitcodiac River, with its signature chocolaty brown flow, once teemed with fish and migrating shorebirds. Prior to the 1960’s, the powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy flowed up the river twice a day, bringing a tidal bore as high as 2 metres and as fast as 13 km/hour. The tide reached the headwaters of the Petitcodiac River system then receded back to the ocean, leaving nutrient-rich mudflats behind.

But in 1968, a causeway built across the river in downtown Moncton cut the tidal river in half, choked the entire ecosystem and changed everything. For the last three and a half decades, the saltwater tide no longer flows upstream of the causeway and fish from the ocean can no longer reach the headwater streams where they spawn.

Since launched in 1999 as Canada’s first Waterkeeper program, the Petitcodiac Riverkeeper has rallied the communities of his watershed towards the goal of restoring this once majestic tidal river and initiated a series of environmental law enforcement measures that promise to win back this historic waterway for the enjoyment of future generations.
Through the tireless efforts of the Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, an end to the 40 year battle to save the Petitcodiac River is now in sight. Experts leading a comprehensive environmental impact assessment on the future of the river recently recommended either the permanent opening of the causeway gates or the replacement of the causeway with a partial bridge. A final decision on the river’s fate will be taken sometime in 2005.

Either option will be a giant leap forward towards restoring the free flow of water and is great news for the fish – experts estimate that nine of the ten species of fish that historically called the Petitcodiac River home will immediately return to their natural spawning grounds, and the tenth, Atlantic salmon, will return after stocking programs.