Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 14, Number 3 • Summer 2006
Lake Ontario
Basin Update
Is the Fisheries Act Under Attack?
By Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
One of Canada’s most powerful
environmental laws is under siege. The
Fisheries Act – which prohibits the
release of harmful substances into
Canadian waters and the destruction of
fish habitat – is being eyed by
corporations and government agencies
hoping to lower national environmental
standards.
In early May Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
and the other Canadian Waterkeepers
filed our objection to the federal
government’s plan to change the
Fisheries Act regulation that controls the
quality of mining effluent. The
proposed changes would allow mining
companies to dump mining waste into
natural ponds, destroying fish habitat
forever.
A company’s proposal to use two
natural waterways to dump waste from
its copper and zinc project in westcentral
Newfoundland prompted the
proposed change. Even though a federal
environmental assessment concluded
that, “fish habitat will be harmfully
altered and/or destroyed,” Environment
Canada stated that preserving the
status quo (i.e., the Fisheries Act
standard) would significantly impact
employment and the other anticipated
economic benefits of the project.
Meanwhile, the provinces and federal
government are collaborating on another
set of rules for municipal wastewater
treatment. Like the mining regulations,
these new rules would also weaken the
Fisheries Act. For two years, the
Canadian Council of Ministers of the
Environment has been holding
meetings and leading discussions about
a “Canada-Wide Strategy for the
Management of Municipal Wastewater
Effluent.” The current proposal includes
creating a new regulation that would
exempt municipal wastewater from
the traditional Fisheries Act test
(“deleterious to fish”) and move to a
risk-assessment model that would
mean different levels of protection for
different waterways and different
communities.
Currently, the Fisheries Act protects
every waterway in the country where
fish live, spawn, or eat. Waterkeeper
and other Canadian environmental
organizations, such as Sierra Legal
Defence Fund, have relied on powerful
protection of the Fisheries Act to hold
polluters accountable in places like
Kingston, Hamilton, Toronto, and
Moncton. Defendants could never argue
that they had economic priorities more
important than obeying the law, or that
they were innocent because they did not
destroy the waterway entirely (an argument
akin to letting impaired drivers go
free as long as there were no fatalities).
With the help of the Fisheries Act,
Waterkeepers and other environmentalists
have also been trying to stop
chronic sewage pollution from urban
treatment plants. Municipal sewage
treatment plant operators are meeting
these efforts with strong resistance:
instead of following the rule (ensuring
discharges are not harmful to fish),
municipalities began lobbying to
weaken the law.
Like the proposed changes to the mining
regulations, the plan to weaken
restrictions on sewage treatment plant
effluent represents a concerted effort to
undermine the Fisheries Act. In the
hands of lobbyists and other pressure
groups, the very purpose of the Fisheries
Act is evolving – from pollution
prevention to pollution permission.
For more information:
Krystyn Tully, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
245 Queen's Quay West
Toronto, ONT M5J 2K9
PH: (416) 861-1237
E-mail: krystyn@waterkeeper.ca
Website:www.waterkeeper.ca
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