02977 1 MANITOBA CLEAN ENVIRONMENT COMMISSION 2 3 4 5 6 7 RED RIVER FLOODWAY EXPANSION PROJECT 8 9 10 11 12 ======================================= 13 Monday, March 7, 2005 14 Delta Hotel, 350 St. Mary Avenue 15 Winnipeg, Manitoba 16 ======================================== 17 18 Volume 13 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 02978 1 APPEARANCES: 2 Clean Environment Commission: 3 Mr. Terry Sargeant - Chairman Mr. Barrie Webster - Member 4 Mr. Wayne Motheral - Member Mr. Doug Abra - Counsel 5 Mr. Dave Farlinger - Technical consultant Ms. Cathy Johnson - Secretary to Commission 6 Ms. Joyce Mueller - Secretary 7 Manitoba Conservation: 8 Mr. Trent Hreno - Chair, Project Admin Team Mr. Bruce Webb - Chair, Tech Advisory 9 Committee Mr. Stewart Pierce - Counsel 10 11 Manitoba Floodway Authority: 12 Mr. Rick Handlon - Counsel Mr. Jim Thomson 13 Mr. Doug McNeil Mr. Doug Peterson 14 Mr. Cam Osler - Intergroup Consulting Mr. John Osler - Intergroup Consulting 15 Mr. David Morgan - TetrES Consulting Mr. George Rempel - TetrES Consulting 16 Mr. Robert Sinclair - KGS Ms. Marci Friedman-Hamm - KGS 17 18 Participants: 19 Mr. Bob Starr - Ritchot Concerned Citizens Mr. Bob Bodnaruk - RM of Springfield 20 Mr. Steve Strang - RM of St. Clements Mr. Orvel Currie - Counsel to Municipalities 21 Mr. Doug Chorney - Coalition for Flood Protection North 22 Mr. Kerry McLuhan - Coalition for Flood Protection North 23 Mr. Rob Loudfoot - 768 Association Mr. Y. Shumuk - 768 Association 24 Paul Clifton - Paul Clifton Mr. Jeff Frank - Rivers West 25 Gaile Whelan Enns - Manitoba Wildlands Earl Stevenson - Peguis Indian Band 02979 1 Participants: (continued) 2 3 Mr. Jake Buhler - Cooks Creek Conservation Mr. Lloyd Crooks - Cooks Creek Conservation 4 Mr. Jon Stefanson - Cooks Creek Conservation Mr. Daryl Chicoine - Counsel 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 02980 1 INDEX OF PROCEEDINGS 2 Manitoba Floodway Authority Questions by Panel 2983 3 Questions by Panel 3189 4 Motion by Ms. Pollock-Kohn 3119 5 6 Presentation by Mr. Paul Clifton 3138 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 02981 1 INDEX OF EXHIBITS 2 3 107 Manitoba Floodway Authority 3263 Infrastructure Canada 4 correspondence 5 108 Presentation on Floodway Expansion 3263 site investigations 6 109 Presentation on Floodway Expansion 3263 7 groundwater modeling 8 110 Presentation on Floodway Expansion 3263 groundwater monitoring status 9 111 Presentation on the floodway 3263 10 conceptual groundwater protection strategy during flood events 11 112 Presentation on health risk model 3264 12 113 Memorandum regarding the 3264 13 submissions before the CEC by the municipalities 14 114 Mr. Clifton's closing comments 3264 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 02982 1 INDEX OF UNDERTAKINGS 2 UNDERTAKING NO. PAGE 3 4 No undertakings given 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 02983 1 MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2005 2 Upon commencing at 9:00 a.m. 3 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Could we come to order, 5 please. Good morning. Welcome all to week four. 6 And it looks like we're on track that this will be 7 our last week, that we'll conclude this part of 8 the process later this week. 9 You have an agenda before you which 10 shows what we hope to cover this week. I would 11 suspect that the better part of today will be 12 taken up with questions from the Clean Environment 13 Commission to the Floodway Authority. I would 14 note to the general public that there are no more 15 opportunities for the general public to ask 16 questions of the Floodway Authority. Participant 17 groups will perhaps later today and tomorrow be 18 making their final presentations. 19 I believe if the questioning by the 20 CEC continues throughout today, we may have to 21 interrupt at one point to let Mr. Paul Clifton 22 make his closing statement because I believe he's 23 expecting to go today and has taken the day off of 24 work to do so. We'll talk with him when we see 25 him later this morning. 02984 1 I understand, Mr. McNeil or Mr. Osler, 2 that you have some undertakings and some 3 presentation on issues of considerable concern to 4 us to address at this point? 5 MR. J. OSLER: Good morning. Yes, we 6 do. Actually about page 690, line 8 of the 7 February 17th transcript, Mr. McNeil obliged 8 himself to an undertaking to come back to the 9 Commission and describe the frequency of operation 10 or potential operation during the summer event. 11 And we've done a bit more work on that. I think 12 at the time that Mr. McNeil provided that 13 response, he endeavoured to say it was inaccurate 14 and he was going to come back with an accurate 15 number. Mr. Rick Bowering will now provide a 16 response to that undertaking and I guess a bit 17 more discussion on that. 18 MR. BOWERING: Yes, good morning. 19 Operation under rule 4. What we did is we looked 20 at all of the records over the years that we have 21 operated from 1969 until the present time and 22 looked at any conditions that would be met by rule 23 4. And what we found is that there would be 16 24 conditions out of those 36 years, 16 conditions in 25 which the rules of rule 4 would be applicable. 02985 1 Now, we should point out though that 2 what rule 4 does is presents the minimum 3 conditions in which you would consider operation. 4 So what that means in those 16 out of 36 years or 5 approximately 40 per cent of the years, when those 6 conditions came, then the government would -- the 7 Department of Water Stewardship would prepare a 8 report to the Minister outlining the conditions 9 and looking at the threat of significant rain and 10 then they would confer with the operation advisory 11 committee. And then based on that, in the 12 discussions, the Minister would make the decision. 13 So, for example, in some years like 14 2000 - 2001 and 1999, the decision would be made 15 at a point -- what happened in those situations is 16 we went into a very stormy period but the most 17 intense rain happened right at the start of the 18 period. So actually, the river level was already 19 down when the intense rain happened in those two 20 years. But as a result of those rains, the river 21 levels came up. 22 So the question is whether, in 23 retrospect with this new rule, that we would 24 decide to operate the gates. Probably in years 25 like that, we probably would decide not to operate 02986 1 the gates because basically the horse was already 2 out of the barn as far as the rain happened. The 3 water level coming up in the city was more a 4 response to the heavy rain as compared to a more 5 typical situation where the water level coming up 6 in the city is a response to run-off happening 7 further south in the basin and just working its 8 way into the city. And then at a time like that, 9 these were the situations that happened in 2002 10 and 2004, the river levels were already elevated 11 and then we looked at is there a potential for a 12 rain storm. 13 So what I'm saying is that even though 14 this analysis shows that 16 times out of a 36 year 15 period, conditions would be ripe under this rule 16 for examining whether we would really want to 17 operate. We wouldn't necessarily operate in all 18 of those times. 19 So that's the detail there. If it 20 would be useful, I could just provide a little bit 21 more detail on rule 4. I know there have been 22 quite a few questions asked about summer 23 operation. If it could be useful, I could just go 24 over it in a little more detail. Would that be 25 helpful? 02987 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, please do. 2 MR. BOWERING: All right. First of 3 all, from the Department of Water Stewardship's 4 view, and I believe from the Floodway Authority's 5 view, non-spring operation of the floodway is 6 unrelated to the Floodway Expansion Project. It's 7 something that we often look back to the year 1993 8 and saw that we could have prevented a large 9 amount of damage. 1993, we were getting pushed 10 and forced to operate but we decided not to 11 operate. 12 And an intense rain storm came and the 13 damages caused in the City of Winnipeg were about 14 $140 million. And it's calculated that the direct 15 effect of the high river levels was about $100 16 million in damages. 17 So when very similar conditions arose 18 in 2002, very similar conditions to 1993, the 19 government was looking at the fact are we going to 20 just sit here and not operate or should we 21 operate? And the government did operate in 2002. 22 So that was really our first operation just 23 because the conditions were so threatening that we 24 operated in 2002. And the operation, the amount 25 of flow that goes down the floodway in an 02988 1 operation like that, in 2002, the flow that went 2 down the floodway was about 8,000 CFS. The 3 current capacity of the floodway is 60,000 CFS and 4 the expanded floodway will be about 140,000 CFS. 5 So there are pretty small amounts of flow that go 6 down the floodway in a summer operation. It's a 7 much smaller scale operation than a spring 8 operation. 9 Similarly, in 2004, when we saw 10 threatening conditions arising again, we operated 11 a little bit more flow down the floodway, about 12 9,000 cubic feet per second. Still pretty small 13 as far as the floodway capacities go. 14 So that's why enlarging the capacity 15 of the floodway really won't have any effect on 16 summer operation. As far as we are concerned, 17 it's really an unrelated event. 18 Now, it's also important to note that 19 summer operation was not envisioned in the 20 original operating rules and it was not envisioned 21 in the operating rules that were approved in 2001. 22 So summer operation is outside of the operating 23 rules and it's important to recognize that fact 24 and to admit to that fact. And really, I believe 25 the authority that the Department of Water 02989 1 Stewardship used when they decided to operate was 2 under the Water Resources Administration Act when 3 the authority is really to operate water control 4 works owned by the province in the most prudent 5 manner, in the best interests of all Manitobans. 6 Even though the operating rules did not envision 7 the operation, the department thought the 8 conditions were so threatening that they did 9 decide to operate. 10 Now after the 2002 operation, was our 11 first operation, the government commissioned a 12 study of the benefits and costs of the operation. 13 Because of course there was a great deal of 14 concern expressed about the operation, obviously 15 south of the City of Winnipeg where the damages 16 occurred as a result of the operation. The 17 elevation went up to about 7 -- just a little 18 under 760 feet. So that's a level that doesn't 19 flood homes but it does flood driveways and does 20 cause considerable distress. 21 So the government commissioned a 22 study. That study was completed. And basically, 23 that study showed that -- and we asked in that 24 study, they look at two things, emergency 25 operation which is only focused on preventing 02990 1 backup of sewer systems, and then secondly, look 2 at non-emergency operation. 3 So non-emergency operation is things 4 like as the premier likes to call Winnipeg "The 5 River City," having conducive river levels in the 6 city all summer so that it's a more attractive 7 city. Now that includes, for example, the 8 walkways, keeping the walkways clear of water. So 9 non-emergency operation is quite a different thing 10 than emergency operation. With non-emergency 11 operation, you would operate more frequently than 12 we do with emergency operation. 13 So we asked the study team in looking 14 at the benefits and costs of operation to look at 15 both emergency and non-emergency operation. Their 16 study showed that for both emergency and 17 non-emergency operation, the benefits to Winnipeg 18 exceeded the costs. And of course, the difference 19 is the benefits are in Winnipeg, the costs are 20 south of Winnipeg where the damages is. And so to 21 take care of that, they also looked at the 22 possibility of compensation. And if we do go to 23 the non-emergency where flooding happens quite a 24 bit, a combination of buy out some of the really 25 low lying property and compensate some of the less 02991 1 frequently flooded. 2 Based on that, and they also 3 recommended that if you were going to go that way, 4 there needs to be more quantification, more study, 5 particularly the bank slumping issue. That's a 6 difficult issue to understand in an engineering 7 wise. To the people that live there, they see 8 their banks slumped and they look to what happened 9 and they say it's a direct result of the floodway 10 operation. 11 The suggestion of the engineers is 12 that's likely not the case. And the reason they 13 give is that in 2002 summer operation, the bank 14 slumping south of Morris, which was not affected 15 by floodway operation, was about the same as the 16 bank slumping north of St. Adolphe. 17 They also looked to a very rigorous 18 detailed study that was done for the federal 19 government in operation of the Lockport control 20 structure. 21 You may recall there was a court case 22 there about the impact of fall drawdown of the 23 water levels there causing bank slumping. And 24 that detailed engineering, very thorough 25 multi-year engineering study suggested that the 02992 1 bank slumping is a natural process and is not 2 related to it. 3 So that is what we're going on now but 4 we would like to do further study of that site 5 specific studies, specifically sites in the area 6 of Ritchot where there is the concern about that. 7 After the summer of 2004 operation 8 when we did the 2002 operation, we thought this 9 was a pretty rare event and we called it a 10 one-time emergency operation. And then two years 11 later, conditions came up again and the department 12 says look, it's looking about the same. We'd 13 better operate again. 14 After that, we started getting a lot 15 of pressure of defining exactly what criteria we 16 are using to make these operating decisions. And 17 so that's how we came up with this rule 4. It was 18 really just codifying the procedure that we had 19 gone through just so it would be a little bit more 20 transparent, a more transparent framework for 21 decision-making. We are also informed that this 22 would better define the baseline for this 23 particular project. And so, therefore, we 24 developed rule 4. 25 One result of defining rule 4 is that 02993 1 the government is now more constrained by the 2 parameters listed in the new rule; whereas, 3 before, each time conditions would come, we'd sort 4 of weigh all of the pluses and minuses. Now we 5 have a guideline that we follow. Unless all of 6 the conditions are in place in rule 4, the 7 government will not even consider operation. 8 So it provides a clarification of how 9 the government would operate in the future. And 10 also at the same time, we are doing this analysis 11 of bank slumping south of the city plus a number 12 of -- and the Floodway Authority is also 13 suggesting a number of other studies that we would 14 go through to try to define the effect of rule 4. 15 So now rule 4 applies to all future 16 floodway operations and will apply in the future 17 whether this project is approved or not. As I 18 say, the history and development of this summer 19 operation rule is really unrelated to floodway 20 expansion. 21 Now, as far as non-emergency 22 operation, Water Stewardship would only consider 23 proceeding with non-emergency operation after all 24 potential impacts have been fully examined. And 25 then if the department decides to proceed with 02994 1 non-emergency operation, it would have to apply 2 for -- as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, but 3 as I understand it, it would have to apply for a 4 licence variance. So we are taking, as operators, 5 as our rule 4 has stated now, which is only 6 focused on non-emergency operation, it is 7 specifically not focused on keeping water off the 8 walkways. 9 If the floodway is expanded, then 10 during the construction period, one important 11 issue the minister would have to consider in all 12 the issues that are listed in rule 4 would be the 13 cost of a construction delay that would occur if 14 the floodway is operated during the summer 15 construction period. The Floodway Authority tells 16 us that it would be an additional 30 million in 17 direct construction costs would result and an 18 additional 75 million in potential average annual 19 damages associated with an additional year at risk 20 would apply. Based on these considerations, there 21 is virtually no possibility of operating to 22 prevent sewer backup during the floodway expansion 23 construction period. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, 25 Mr. Bowering. They seem to apply this 30 million 02995 1 overrun in years delay to a number of different 2 things. That's by way of an aside. 3 I think we're going to have some more 4 questions on operating rules later on today but 5 I'd just like to follow up with a couple of 6 questions on your presentation. 7 I've got a copy of a June 18, 2002 8 press release in front of me and it's talking 9 about the first time the floodway was used for 10 emergency non-spring operation, and I quote from 11 it. It says, 12 "The control structure was activated 13 under the floodway operating rules." 14 You just said it was actually operated 15 under some water administration act. Was this 16 sort of a loose interpretation of -- 17 MR. BOWERING: No, no, no. That was 18 precisely correct. And actually, I am glad you 19 brought that up. 20 In 2002 was the first time, I think, 21 maybe people would correct me, but I think it's 22 the first time that summer operation happened as a 23 direct result -- in accordance with the operating 24 rules. It's very seldom that the river level gets 25 high enough that water starts flowing in the 02996 1 floodway. 2 But in June of 2002, the flow coming 3 to the city was actually high enough that water 4 started to flow into the floodway. So that first 5 operation -- there was actually two operations 6 fairly close together in summer of 2002. The 7 first one that you referred to was directly in 8 accordance with the operating rules. Then water 9 levels started to recede. We shut down the 10 floodway. And then another great flush started 11 coming up from The States and we realized the 12 weather conditions were such, very unstable 13 weather conditions of the kind that can produce 14 thunder storms and these intense rainfalls. The 15 key of course is those intense rainfalls happen 16 over the city. But what the river tends to 17 respond to is rainfall south of the city all the 18 way back into The States. 19 In 2002, there was actually two summer 20 operations. The first one we don't consider -- by 21 the definition, we consider that a normal 22 operation. The one you are referring to was a 23 normal operation. A few weeks later then, with 24 this intense rain storm, the water level started 25 coming up quite rapidly and that's when we did the 02997 1 emergency operation. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: I have one more 3 question arising out of this press release. And 4 it says, and I quote again. 5 "The river level will be kept as low 6 as possible without exceeding natural 7 river levels upstream of the inlet." 8 Is that correct? 9 MR. BOWERING: Yes. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Doesn't summer 11 operation automatically involve going above 12 natural? 13 MR. BOWERING: That was not summer 14 operation. That's my point. The first operation 15 was normal operation according to the operating 16 rules. It was a few weeks later, I think three 17 weeks later. I could give you exact date there if 18 you want -- 19 THE CHAIRMAN: That's fair enough. 20 MR. BOWERING: -- when we went into 21 summer operation. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Osler? 23 MR. J. OSLER: Mr. McNeil actually may 24 like to add a couple of points to what 25 Mr. Bowering just said. 02998 1 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, just to 2 support some of the things that Mr. Bowering has 3 just discussed in some detail. We have a letter 4 that we're going to share with you and leave with 5 you dated March 3, 2005 from our CEO, Ernie 6 Gilroy, to Infrastructure Canada to try to clarify 7 some of these issues. I'm just going to read a 8 couple of sentences from the letter and then 9 explain some of the background that led to this 10 issuance of this letter. 11 "The baseline itself must be 12 described, not assessed, as such to 13 the extent that is reasonably 14 necessary in order to establish the 15 context and to determine the existence 16 and significance of incremental 17 effects of the project. In this 18 context, the spring rules of operation 19 of the existing floodway are part of 20 the baseline. They have existed and 21 will continue to exist regardless of 22 whether expansion occurs. In 23 assessing the incremental effects of 24 expansion, including operation of the 25 floodway in its expanded form, the EIS 02999 1 has concluded that after mitigation 2 measures, there will be no significant 3 adverse effects. Non-spring emergency 4 operations of the existing floodway 5 have also occurred in the past and are 6 also part of the baseline. Absent 7 expansion, they will likely take place 8 in the future." 9 So I'm going to leave this letter, as 10 I mentioned dated March 3rd. Now this was in 11 response to a letter dated February 16, 2005 from 12 Infrastructure Canada to MFA. And that letter 13 summarized Infrastructure Canada's position with 14 respect to a few issues on this project. And 15 Infrastructure Canada did place that letter on the 16 Manitoba Conservation public record. And that was 17 a conclusion of many months of legal discussion 18 between Canada and Manitoba about a lot of issues 19 in the project. So there were preliminary legal 20 discussions as far back as last September and they 21 were kept confidential up to this point so that 22 both sides could explore issues in a candid way 23 before definitive pronouncements were made. 24 So now that the federal government has 25 issued their written statement and placed it on 03000 1 the public record, we feel that we could share the 2 exchange of correspondence from October 5, 2004 up 3 to the March 3, 2005 letter. 4 And I have I believe 20 copies here. 5 The copying machine was going like crazy this 6 morning and if you'd like, we can have more copies 7 made and delivered to this room this morning. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: I think that would be 9 sufficient what you have. 10 MR. J. OSLER: Mr. Sergeant, if I may, 11 we have another topic that we'd like to explore. 12 Hopefully it will be some help to the Commission 13 and it's in the area of groundwater. 14 Over the course of the last couple of 15 weeks, there has been considerable discussion 16 amongst experts and interested parties on this 17 particular topic. In fact, the Floodway Authority 18 and the Environmental Assessment Team haven't, in 19 some instances, had a total opportunity to be able 20 to review much of the evidence, some of it showing 21 up at the day that we were talking. But we 22 thought it might be helpful to the Clean 23 Environment Commission if we sort of consolidate, 24 I believe, the existing information that's 25 contained within the EIS on the groundwater issue. 03001 1 And if it's of help to you, we would 2 like to give you three sort of brief 3 presentations. The first one on groundwater 4 investigations, what activities actually took 5 place in support of the development of the 6 environmental assessment. Also a brief overview 7 of the modeling that was used in that development 8 of the EIS. And finally, we've done some work 9 over the weekend and over the last week, I 10 believe, in trying to flesh out a bit more on 11 where we are going with this. Where is the 12 groundwater monitoring that took place in support 13 of the EA but what are the groundwater monitoring 14 follow-up and monitoring activities that will take 15 place subsequent to this process. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 17 MR. J. OSLER: If that's good then I 18 will turn it over to Mr. Bert Smith. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: Please do. 20 MR. J. OSLER: And following that will 21 be Ms. Hamm and Mr. Sinclair. 22 MR. SMITH: Mr. Chair, I have just 23 some paper copies of the overview I'll pass on for 24 your reference. There is some thicker versions 25 here that we won't go into but it's backup if you 03002 1 do have questions. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 3 MR. SMITH: The first one will be the 4 site investigations overview. I just wanted to 5 make it clear that there has been extensive 6 investigations completed in 2000 and 2003 and the 7 work was done by a team led by KGS Group but 8 included UMA Group, Acres, Wardrop and SNC 9 Lavalin. Now this group is, I would say, second 10 to none technically both on the geotechnical and 11 the groundwater components. A very strong, 12 capable team. And we did a very rigorous 13 assessment in the time available. 14 And a little further to that, I want 15 to add that, and I wasn't maybe fully introduced 16 to the group previously, but I've got over 30 17 years experience, both a bachelor degree in 18 geological engineering and a masters degree in 19 groundwater from the University of Waterloo which 20 is the top groundwater school in North America. 21 Mr. Sinclair, my colleague, has a 22 similar background, also a masters for the 23 University of Waterloo in groundwater. And in 24 addition to that, he has a second masters in 25 wastewater engineering. So a very strong 03003 1 combination. And Ms. Hamm, who also is our 2 colleague, worked with us, has a masters degree in 3 water resources and groundwater, specifically 4 modeling, working with Mary Anderson who is 5 probably one of the top modelers in North America. 6 So we have a very strong background to bring to 7 this project and I just want to make sure that 8 everybody appreciates that. 9 So the integrated geotechnical and 10 groundwater investigations approach that we took 11 really reflects the fact that we were trying to 12 solve two issues. There was groundwater concerns 13 and there was also a lot of geotechnical, slope 14 stability and other issues to deal with. So that 15 integrated program we had addressed both of these 16 areas. 17 We had a lot of good background data, 18 21 provincial wells with continuous water level 19 and select water quality data, over 8,000 domestic 20 wells available with all the soils logs. All of 21 this was on a GIS database that we were able to 22 incorporate. 23 During our 2003/2004 investigations, 24 along the channel invert, we put in an additional 25 74 holes plus 55 test pits with a lot of testing. 03004 1 Verified that the till was typically 40 to 60 per 2 cent silt and clay. Had a low hydraulic 3 conductivity, sort of an in situ representative 4 permeability 2 times 10 to the minus 7 which is a 5 pretty low permeability. If you think of beach 6 sand out at Grand Beach, you pour water into it, 7 it just goes right through, that sand would be 10 8 to the minus 5, 100 times more permeable than 9 this. 10 We have established there's till 11 within 180 metres upstream of the outlet 12 structure. We've heard a lot of references to 13 bedrock exposures. We have a test pit, as I say, 14 within 180 metres that went down three metres, 15 didn't bottom out, was still in till. 16 In the remainder of the channel, there 17 was no bedrock exposure to our knowledge. We have 18 inspected the site, talked to various other 19 engineers who were involved in construction. The 20 only conclusion I could come to on the reference 21 to bedrock exposed a kilometre and a half south of 22 Spring Hill or Highway 59 is that I understand 23 from talking to the original construction 24 inspector, there was a large boulder in the till. 25 So this is a piece of loose rock enclosed within 03005 1 the till that they had to remove. That may have 2 been confused with a bedrock exposure. 3 So other than that, right near the 4 outlet, there is obviously bedrock exposed for 5 construction. 6 We did investigations at six bridges 7 for highways and another six rail bridges, a total 8 of 70 holes, cored the bedrock at the sites, 9 installed wells in the till and in the clay. So 10 we've got a very good monitoring base there. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Smith, are those 70 12 drill holes in addition to the other 74? 13 MR. SMITH: Yes. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 15 MR. SMITH: We have a total of about 16 300 holes. The aqueduct, an additional 16 holes 17 and 12 wells in the till, 4 in the clay. Outlet 18 structure, an additional 8 drill holes in the 19 abutments including bedrock coring. And I want to 20 just point out here. At the outlet structure, we 21 did what's called packer test. This is a water 22 pressure test in the bedrock. Conducted five 23 tests there because I wanted to find out is that 24 rock very permeable? Will water pass through it 25 quickly? And the answer is no, most of those 03006 1 packer tests took almost zero water. So again, we 2 were able to get confidence in that quality of the 3 rock there. 4 This is the area that I want to just 5 take a minute on, the six select channel sections. 6 As part of the program, we said, well, we're doing 7 drilling all the way along the channel but we now 8 want to focus in on sensitive areas, areas that 9 might be a concern. And there's been a lot of 10 discussion on the springs. That's the basis for 11 selecting these six sections back in 2003. We 12 said let's pick spots where there is more 13 potential for infiltration and do some detailed 14 drilling on those sites and use those sites both 15 for our geotechnical investigation and analyses as 16 well as our groundwater modeling. So that's what 17 we did. And here are these sites. 18 This DeMeyer Road is about a couple of 19 kilometres south of Highway 1. It's in a thick 20 lacustrine clay. We wanted to have at least one 21 section where there was clearly no direct 22 interconnection. At Highway 1, there is a known 23 spring there. It's shown on our drawings. It's 24 written up in our report. We discuss it at some 25 length. We knew there was an issue. That's why 03007 1 we focused there. 2 CPR Keewatin, similarly, we know 3 there's a lot of springs there. There is a very 4 thin clay cover over till. So we did a lot of 5 drilling there and wanted to typify that location. 6 The area of 59, bridge 59 north Oasis 7 Road, which is the wells for the RM of East St. 8 Paul, as well as the Spring Hill ski hill 9 sensitive area, that's where the Birds Hill sand 10 and gravel aquifer crosses the floodway. And it 11 was important to get a good handle on the 12 conditions there. So we, again, did extensive 13 drilling there to get a good definition of 14 conditions. 15 Dunning Road is halfway from Highway 16 59 north up to the outlet structure. That site is 17 in till. There's relatively thick till but, 18 nevertheless, it's a till. It's representative 19 conditions along that section of the channel and 20 we wanted to have a good handle on it. Hay Road 21 is up close to the outlet structure, again in the 22 till. 23 And I'll just mention, on these latter 24 two, when we did the drilling and the well 25 installation, we extended -- well, in fact on all 03008 1 of these sites, if you recall, we had testimony 2 from Mr. Clifton suggesting it would be nice to 3 put wells in the channel. Let's put some on the 4 shoulder of the channel. Let's put some more on 5 the outside and maybe a few further afield and get 6 a good handle on the till and the bedrock as to 7 what the conditions are. 8 Well, I'm pleased to advise you that 9 in fact, that's exactly what we've done back in 10 2003 at these locations. So at these locations, 11 we typically put wells right in the channel 12 bottom. And it wasn't easy, as Mr. Clifton 13 indicated, it's difficult. We installed typically 14 pneumatic piezometers there, ran the leads all the 15 way up the slope, up to the top of the bank so 16 that we can measure pressures in a flood event. 17 We also installed wells right at the 18 top of the shoulder of the channel, both in the 19 till and in the bedrock to get both, you could 20 measure water pressure and water quality. We put 21 additional wells at the edge of the outlet -- or 22 sorry, at the edge of the boundary and then 23 further out beyond that kilometre to where it was 24 appropriate. 25 So in other words, we've got an 03009 1 excellent detailed database at these sections for 2 our analysis and obviously measured the water 3 levels there and established steady state 4 conditions. 5 I jumped ahead a little bit but this 6 is just going through what we've just discussed, 7 the fact that we've had the detailed investigation 8 wells in the bedrock till and clay. I didn't 9 mention, at each of these sites, we also picked 10 them so that they had a provincial well that had 11 been installed from the early 1960s and continuous 12 water level records throughout that period up to 13 present day which was very valuable in working 14 with the overall groundwater models. 15 Now, this is just a summary. You were 16 asking earlier how many. In terms of the number 17 of wells installed, six in the clay, 43 in the 18 till, 16 in the bedrock, so a total of 65 wells 19 just on this program in 2003/2004, and another 70 20 pneumatic piezometers which are typically put in 21 clay or till and they give you an instantaneous 22 pressure reading. So they are very helpful during 23 a flood event. You can see exactly how things 24 respond. 25 There will be a separate presentation 03010 1 after this on some of the monitoring and well 2 issues. 3 Now the reference sources, you are 4 probably aware of them. You have seen them all 5 lined up but I thought maybe I'll go through them. 6 I suspect most people have not had the opportunity 7 to read them and that became apparent throughout 8 the presentations here where there is references 9 to no data when in fact the data is there, maybe 10 not easy to find, but there is a lot of it. 11 So appendix O is the main one 12 compilation of site investigations, all the drill 13 logs and a lot of the data that was done, some 14 good cross-sections and plans of where the 15 locations of all these holes are and where the 16 well installations are in section. 17 Now that was not totally repeated in 18 these later reports. For example, M, the 19 groundwater investigations, we show the sections 20 but we don't repeat all the data that's here. And 21 I wonder possibly if some people didn't realize 22 that and missed that point. 23 But anyway, outlet structures, channel 24 investigations, bridge investigations, test pit 25 investigations, specifically K. This is test pits 03011 1 from Highway 59 north up to the outlet with 2 detailed photos and response of those locations. 3 And then our additional groundwater well 4 installation and testing. 5 So that's just a quick overview of the 6 investigation program. And I felt it might be 7 helpful to you to appreciate what was done. 8 MR. HANDLON: Mr. Chair, just to 9 clarify the documents that Mr. Smith gave in this 10 regard. He went through a brief overview 11 presentation as to the site investigations. And 12 when I brought the packages over, there is a much 13 thicker version which contains, as I understand 14 it, Mr. Smith can clarify this, all of the 15 relevant excerpts from the engineering documents 16 related specifically to the site investigations 17 that he just summarized, so for assistance of the 18 Commission in any questions they may have or just 19 a summary of those. Is that correct, Mr. Smith? 20 MR. SMITH: Yes. Well, it gives a 21 more detailed presentation of the data sources, 22 yes. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Was the thicker version 24 filed as an exhibit? 25 MR. HANDLON: It's with the Commission 03012 1 Secretary, yes. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. 3 MR. HANDLON: And there's a CD of that 4 as well. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 6 MR. J. OSLER: If you have no 7 immediate questions on the investigations 8 component of this discussion, then we would carry 9 on with description of the modeling activities 10 that took place. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. 12 MR. HANDLON: Just for clarification, 13 Mr. Smith, you have a summary overview 14 presentation. As well, there is a thicker bound 15 version as contained in the CD of the greater 16 details of the modeling that was undertaken as 17 contained in the engineering reports? 18 MR. SMITH: That's correct. So I'll 19 go briefly through the regional groundwater model 20 and the sort of official water intrusion models 21 just as a refresher to people. And if there's any 22 questions, that might help as a prompter. 23 So the regional model, it's a large 24 study area. It's centred on the floodway channel 25 in the Red River but it's in the order of 60 03013 1 kilometres. It goes well west of the Red River 2 and east of Anola. And the model that we used is 3 referred to as visual mod flow. It's a 4 three-dimensional finite difference model and I'll 5 just say it's a proven industry standard. It's 6 probably by far the model that's used as a choice 7 of professional hydrogeologists. 8 And for this model, we had an 9 extensive GIS database. We've just gone through 10 that, but a significant number of domestic wells 11 as well as additional drilling that we did during 12 our 2003/2004 program, continuous water level 13 records at the provincial wells and a lot of 14 testing and monitoring at the six select sites 15 along the channel. 16 The model simulations observed water 17 levels and pumping. This is what we addressed 18 then was pre-construction 1960 before the floodway 19 was constructed. We used that to initialize our 20 model. And we looked at post-construction events 21 both 1970 and then in roughly 2000 when conditions 22 had changed. You had the pumping in the St. 23 Boniface area dropped off from the packing plants 24 and the low flow channel is a little bit deeper. 25 And then we also looked at the 1997 transient 03014 1 flood response and pressure mounding. And the 2 goals achieved with that regional model, the 3 calibration. We got a good fit with the water 4 levels observed for the various wells in all three 5 cases versus what the model predicted. And that 6 would have been using the base model with the same 7 hydraulic conductivity for each event other than 8 when we constructed the floodway, we added in 9 what's referred to as a river function along the 10 floodway to reflect the response at springs in the 11 specific details there. 12 And then there was a sensitivity 13 analysis. We varied some of the hydraulic 14 conductivities just to see how the model would 15 respond. And essentially, what happens there is 16 if you have a good fit and you change some of 17 those values, you don't have a good fit anymore. 18 It tells you that that model that you've just 19 built works. 20 Uniqueness. And in that respect, we 21 show that the model was, it's referred to as 22 robust by simulating these different observed 23 conditions and being able to come up with a 24 solution as observed. 25 And validation. When we ran the 03015 1 transient case, now this is a time step over the 2 40 to 60 days that the actual flood occurred in 3 1997 where we had an extensive provincial well 4 network with continuous water level readings. We 5 also had the water level in the channel. So we 6 would superimpose that water level in the channel 7 and the model would tell us what the pressure 8 changes were going to occur in both the bedrock 9 aquifer and the Birds Hill aquifer. And those in 10 fact fit very closely the observed to the 11 predicted. 12 It gave us, then in conclusion, the 13 fact that that regional model is representative of 14 the carbonate and the Birds Hill aquifers and 15 provides a reasonable fit to the observed water 16 levels for pre and post floodway construction. 17 And that's very important. That allows us to take 18 that model and predict changes that could occur if 19 you impose other conditions. 20 Now, with the surface water intrusion 21 modeling, we realized that the regional model was 22 very effective but we needed to get into some very 23 detailed modeling close to the floodway channel. 24 And that's why we went to this second model. And 25 it's again using the basic mod flow but we put it 03016 1 into a two-dimensional category so it's 2 perpendicular to the channel. 3 And that model, we selected four areas 4 that again were of most interest due to the 5 presence of springs and potential for 6 infiltration. And so that included the Spring 7 Hill ski hill area, Birds Hill, Oasis Road where 8 the municipal wells are located, CPR Keewatin 9 where we have a clay over the till and there's 10 known springs at that location, and Dunning Road 11 which is representative of the till that's exposed 12 in the channel between Highway 59 north and the 13 outlet. 14 Okay. I mentioned this already. I 15 guess I'll make it clear. Mod flow is a mass flow 16 movement of the surface water/groundwater 17 interface. Basically, you use a particle tracking 18 mechanism and you can see where the front is. 19 It's based on the average velocity of the water. 20 And at each of those sections, we 21 mentioned then again, we have a detailed 22 database -- oh, sorry. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Smith, on the first 24 page of this presentation, you described visual 25 mod flow as three-dimensional, here it's 03017 1 two-dimensional. 2 MR. SMITH: That's correct. It can do 3 either. So what you do is to create a 4 two-dimensional section, you use the same 5 three-dimensional model and you just put boundary 6 conditions on a narrow vertical perpendicular 7 section to the channel. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. 9 MR. SMITH: So using then that I was 10 going to say it was a pseudo two-dimensional, and 11 that maybe would have clarified it for you. 12 That's really what it is. 13 I guess the key thing here is that we 14 used all of the data from the original regional 15 model characterization. So in other words, we had 16 a conference level in what the hydraulic 17 conductivities were for all the various units to 18 match the regional response. And then we used 19 that as a base. And then we refined with a site 20 specific drilling, the in situ testing and the 21 monitoring wells in the bedrock till, clay and the 22 sands and gravel as I mentioned. And we had 23 anywhere from 10 to 15 wells at these individual 24 sites to use for input to that model. 25 So then the model approach. 03018 1 Initially, we calibrated each of those sections to 2 get a reasonable fit with the observed 2004 spring 3 water levels. 4 And I might just mention, I was going 5 to go through this last Thursday when we were 6 cross-examining Mr. Clifton. And you may recall, 7 I had handed out the sections and I was about to 8 get into this aspect and then he had just said 9 well, I don't need to go there. He didn't believe 10 that we were working with assumed values and it 11 wasn't representative. So that's why I wanted to 12 present this today so you'd have a better 13 appreciation of what went into that model. 14 So we initialized it with the 2004 15 spring water level. So we get a confidence level 16 that the model fits what's observed. The 17 hydraulic conductivities we assume at those 18 sections fit. The stratigraphy, the thickness of 19 the till, the bedrock, the clay are representative 20 of what's actually out there at that section. And 21 then we simulated with that base model the 22 observed water level conditions at adjacent 23 provincial well. 24 Now this was first a steady state case 25 during the '97 flood. And then a transient case 03019 1 over the four to six weeks where we stepped up the 2 water level in the floodway channel itself and 3 then simulated what that response would be at the 4 well, at the provincial well, and then compared 5 that to what was actually observed. And we got a 6 very close fit. That's all in our appendix N -- 7 sorry P is the surface water intrusion model. And 8 in the annex there, you can see the plots of those 9 fits. 10 The bottom line is we only had the one 11 well. That's all that existed. That's the best 12 we could work with but it did fit very well. 13 Then we did do sensitivity analyses 14 and this is the crux of it. We said okay, we have 15 hydraulic parameters that fit the observed water 16 levels very well. However, what happens when we 17 do sensitivity analyses and increased the till 18 permeability by a factor of 10 or 100 and 19 increased permeability in the bedrock? And when 20 you did that, I will say that typically, what 21 would happen is that the observed fit up here 22 would no longer fit. 23 In other words, when we superimpose 24 these kind of sensitivity values, it's clear that 25 they are not representative because we no longer 03020 1 are able to generate the water levels that we know 2 actually were observed. 3 However, regardless of that, we ran 4 the model anyway and said let's see what happens, 5 because this is the key to it. What happens if 6 you happen to have another location somewhere 7 along the channel that is more permeable? It may 8 be 100 times, it may be 10 times more permeable 9 than what we know as the typical representative 10 values. 11 And when we did that, we were able to 12 establish that, yes, the front -- it's possible to 13 reach the boundary of the site depending on the 14 location. It was 145 days or possibly a bit 15 longer. But the key conclusion there is that you 16 can have surface water infiltrate in some of these 17 sensitive areas. 18 So in conclusion, we felt that the 19 representative conditions along the channel bottom 20 consist of -- and this is in the north area where 21 there is the most concern -- of a till with 40 to 22 60 per cent silt and clay and the hydraulic 23 conductivity of 2 times 10 to the minus 7. I just 24 wanted to emphasize that because that means it's a 25 relatively low permeability. So we don't have a 03021 1 lot of infiltration all the way along the channel. 2 And visual mod flow was an effective 3 tool to establish the potential for surface water 4 intrusion to migrate to the right-of-way 5 boundaries and beyond based on these sensitivity 6 analyses of the hydraulic conductivity, when 7 again, we pushed them to a 10 or 100 times more 8 permeable. And those obviously could represent a 9 local spring condition. 10 So the portion of the channel with 11 this representative till base is unlikely to have 12 significant infiltration into the bedrock aquifer 13 and this is consistent with the observations 14 during the 35 years of operation of the channel to 15 date. 16 The areas with potential high 17 hydraulic conductivity interconnection to bedrock 18 such as springs, in those areas there is a 19 possibility for surface water to infiltrate into 20 the bedrock aquifer and migrate to the boundary 21 and potentially beyond. Therefore, our approach 22 is to say rather than doing further modeling, when 23 you quite often have limited field data, is to 24 take a proactive approach with ongoing monitoring, 25 particularly in these areas that are sensitive 03022 1 such as the springs and provide an early detection 2 of impacts on the groundwater system and I guess 3 remediation measures to respond to that. 4 So that's all I wanted to say on that. 5 MR. J. OSLER: If you have no 6 immediate questions of Mr. Smith, we'd like to 7 proceed to Marci Hamm, who has a brief discussion 8 on the monitoring activities. 9 MS. HAMM: Mr. Chairman, Marci 10 Friedman Hamm speaking. I'll be speaking about 11 the groundwater monitoring status of the project, 12 and we are addressing this today because some of 13 the presenters have questions if baseline 14 groundwater data has been collected, and they have 15 wondered what the monitoring programs for the 16 future will be at the floodway. 17 You have the presentation in front of 18 you, and slides 1 to 44 contain a summary of the 19 groundwater baseline program from the engineering 20 reports submitted. I just want to emphasize that 21 this information before you on baseline monitoring 22 is not new, it's all contained in the appendices, 23 particularly appendix M, R and O, and the 24 supplementary drilling report for Spring Hill. 25 The maps that are in here were prepared from some 03023 1 of the layers of the drawings in appendix M, 2 drawings 2 and 3, to clarify some of the locations 3 because there have been questions about those 4 locations in the discussions here. 5 I'll go quickly through the first part 6 on the baseline monitoring, so please stop me if 7 you have any questions. And the rest of the 8 presentation will cover the Manitoba Floodway 9 Authority plans for additional monitoring programs 10 which would begin this spring. 11 I'd just like to make a few overview 12 points on the baseline monitoring. These programs 13 have been done and they've been done for domestic 14 wells, for monitoring wells, and for base flow and 15 springs in the channel, because there have been 16 some questions about that. 17 They have included analysis of 18 historic water chemistry and water elevation data 19 from the provincial monitoring well network. And 20 just some numbers, this is all new work, and that 21 has included 200 private well inventories, 25 22 private well chemistry samples, 175 private well 23 conductivity samples, 19 monitoring well chemistry 24 samples, 31 monitoring well conductivity samples, 25 and the multiple groundwater elevation readings at 03024 1 150 new installations. 2 Mr. Smith has already emphasized that 3 the sampling locations have been focused in these 4 sensitive areas, and he's pointed them out. I'll 5 show them to you on the map. And that they have 6 been taken from wells installed in all three of 7 the units, including the bedrock, the till and 8 clay, and in the area of the Birds Hill aquifer, 9 the sand. And that they are spread across the 10 channel so that we can monitor effects from the 11 channel outward in at least two, maybe three zones 12 outward from the channel. And all of that is 13 consistent with comments made by both Mr. Hayes 14 and Mr. Clifton in their presentations. 15 There have been questions about 16 channel base flow, what measurements have been 17 done at the springs. And it has been measured at 18 Dunning Road and at base flow spring water 19 quality -- sorry, channel base flow has been 20 measured at Dunning Road, the actual flow in the 21 channel, and we've taken water quality samples of 22 base flow at about 31 locations along the channel. 23 Additional baseline monitoring is 24 planned. And it's important to note that it can 25 be collected before construction and also as 03025 1 construction progresses along the channel. 2 Finally, a major focus of the 3 monitoring program is to look for evidence of 4 surface water intrusion during flood stages. And 5 we do that by looking for evidence of cold, 6 dilute, low dissolve solids water. And I'll get 7 back to that point in a moment. 8 There is a few slides here that will 9 explain the definitions of baseline groundwater 10 monitoring that are used in here. I'll let you 11 look at those on your own. And I'll skip to slide 12 number 10. 13 Some of the goals of the monitoring 14 program, groundwater monitoring program are to 15 look at the effects of project construction, to 16 evaluate the success of the mitigation measures, 17 and to provide long-term monitoring during 18 non-operating and operating conditions, again with 19 a major focus at looking for surface water 20 intrusion during flood stages. 21 I also want to provide a timely 22 analysis of the data and reporting to designated 23 regulatory authorities and a public liaison 24 committee. And Mr. McNeil will speak a little 25 later about the public liaison committee. I want 03026 1 to work with them to respond to any groundwater 2 impacts detected and to coordinate with rural 3 municipalities and provincial agencies that are 4 concerned with groundwater. 5 I'd just like to give you a bit of an 6 overview of water quality to outline the 7 differences in water quality between the river and 8 the groundwater, and using the dissolved solids 9 content of the water. That's measured by 10 something we call conductivity, and it doesn't 11 matter the units, just to say that the Red River 12 water quality during the spring flood has a low 13 conductivity, 300 to 500 units; whereas, the 14 bedrock groundwater quality in the project area 15 has a typical conductivity that's much higher, 16 1,000, 1,500 to 2,000, although it varies in some 17 areas. 18 So you can see a large contrast 19 between the two types of water, and it's that 20 contrast in water types that's really the primary 21 way that we will be able to differentiate river 22 water intrusion from groundwater. In the Birds 23 Hill aquifer, the conductivity values are 4 to 24 600. 25 In addition to looking for those 03027 1 dilution effects of the lower dissolved solids 2 river water in flood stage on the higher dissolved 3 solids groundwater, we are also going to be 4 looking at specific changes in trace parameters, 5 such as nitrate, which we know to actually be 6 higher in the river water in the spring than it is 7 at other times, and we'll look for microbiological 8 indicators. But it's important to note that the 9 first step is to find evidence of dilute cold 10 river water moving into the aquifer. 11 These are the baseline monitoring 12 periods that we have considered. We have 13 completed the historic analysis and preliminary 14 design, and that information is in your reports. 15 For preconstruction, there are some new programs 16 being considered now, and preconstruction 17 monitoring will be 2005 onward as the new 18 construction areas are reached. 19 This monitoring data can be collected 20 while the project proceeds. 21 There is the construction period of 22 monitoring, and a five year post-construction 23 period, and then the long-term monitoring period, 24 2014 onward. 25 Some other objectives are to obtain 03028 1 some basic well inventory data from private wells 2 through interviews, to obtain groundwater quality 3 data, to obtain groundwater elevation data, and 4 groundwater flow data on the discharge to the 5 floodway. 6 We'll look at the baseline monitoring 7 that has been completed. First, there has been a 8 historic review, and the preliminary -- sorry, 9 during the historic review and preliminary design 10 period. 11 This is a well inventory form that was 12 used to collect information from the 200 homes 13 visited during this program. We have collected 14 information on the well location, if the people 15 knew their well, what their well log was, their 16 water use, if they had any problems with their 17 well, if they knew the well depth, the pumps, any 18 taste or odour or surface water problems that they 19 had with their well, and we store that in this 20 database. 21 I'm showing this because this will be 22 used for proposed programs for future domestic 23 well sampling. And it has in it on the top room 24 for putting information on any specific pumping 25 tests done in those wells. So it provides a very 03029 1 good basis so far from 200 homes and will be used 2 in the future. 3 I'll talk about the private wells. 4 This map shows the distribution of the samples 5 taken for private well sampling. The larger red 6 dots are the 25 private wells that were sampled 7 for laboratory water quality, and the small green 8 dots were sampled for field conductivity. There's 9 the red dots and the small green dots. So all 10 told, this shows the distribution of the private 11 well sampling and inventory that we had in the 12 north portion of the floodway and in the south 13 portion. There will be additional coverage in 14 areas in future programs. 15 Monitoring wells were also sampled, 16 focusing on the detailed investigation areas. And 17 we have, this is the Dunning Road section, so we 18 have wells in the bedrock, in the till and in the 19 clay. This is the channel, and this line here is 20 the piezometric surface of the aquifer. 21 And you can see that we have wells 22 stepped out starting here at the channel base, at 23 the shoulder in a distance, in this case on both 24 sides, as Mr. Smith was commenting. 25 And this arrangement is typical of all 03030 1 the six sections. 2 This next map shows the location of 3 the water sampling for the monitoring wells. 4 There were some questions about whether samples 5 were taken only in the older provincial monitoring 6 wells or were they taken in new wells, and they 7 were taken in both. The blue squares represent 8 the bedrock provincial monitoring wells where we 9 took groundwater samples for laboratory analysis. 10 The orange boxes are the new monitoring wells 11 where we took monitoring samples. And the circles 12 represent the location of the sections that 13 Mr. Smith was talking about. I'll just point them 14 out. This is the Hay Road section. This is the 15 Dunning Road section, highway 59 south and Spring 16 Hill, Keewatin. Yeah, sampling at Dugald Road, 17 but we had a section here at Trans Canada Highway 18 and at DeMeyers Road. 19 In addition, we looked at provincial 20 monitoring well data, and this is long-term water 21 quality data at provincial monitoring wells where 22 it existed. In some cases, that data went all 23 through the record. In some cases, the emphasis 24 was detailed monitoring in the early '60s to '70s, 25 but through some very detailed monitoring through 03031 1 some of the major floods. Those are the red dots, 2 sorry, the red stars here is a provincial 3 monitoring network for a water quality. 4 To spend a moment on the base flow 5 water quality, the base flow refers to groundwater 6 discharge into the channel. And the springs and 7 low flow channel and local sand zones are major 8 contributors. The low flow channel from highway 1 9 north has water in it all year, and the base flow 10 water quality reflects the bedrock groundwater 11 quality from discharge zones with mixing along the 12 channel. 13 These diamond areas represent the 14 locations at which we took base flow quality 15 measurements, and they were chosen at the section 16 locations in areas of historic spring flow. There 17 were 12 areas, and we also took additional samples 18 at bridge piers and along the channel base where 19 seeps were noticed for a total of 31 locations. 20 And I've copied out that separate package there 21 from appendix M, annex F for you. So you have 22 that information right in front of you, what 23 quality was done. 24 Groundwater elevation monitoring has 25 been very comprehensive on the floodway. It forms 03032 1 the basis both of the environmental monitoring and 2 also it's critical to the geotechnical 3 information. So we have obtained information from 4 the new monitoring wells at all the locations that 5 we have, and that's about 150 locations. We've 6 taken them, taken multiple readings from the time 7 they were installed in the 2003 period until last, 8 or up through last spring, including during the 9 spring floodway operation in 2004. So in some 10 cases, we even have real time transducer data, 11 continuous data for some of those events. And 12 that program is continuing. It's starting up 13 again this week for this year. 14 There is also information from the 15 special investigations in the Birds Hill aquifer 16 near Oasis Road. 17 These are the locations, the 150 18 locations. In general, you have seen all the 19 water quality locations. We have water elevation 20 at all of those locations also, and at each of the 21 bridges, and at the geotechnical sections in the 22 north and in the south. 23 This last figure puts everything 24 together on one which just has a visual 25 representation of all of the baseline monitoring 03033 1 programs conducted to date in the north and in the 2 south. 3 So I hope that these maps will help 4 separate out some of the information that's 5 condensely packed in the figures in appendix M. 6 I want to mention the base flow 7 discharge programs. These are programs to tell us 8 how much flow there is in the channel. And last 9 year, we were able to put a weir in at the Dunning 10 Road site and get discharge measurements there. 11 Okay. That brings us to March this 12 year, and there is proposed channel 13 construction -- sorry, skip back a minute -- 45, 14 page 45, thank you. This brings us to March of 15 this year, and I'd like to go through some of the 16 pre-construction baseline programs that are going 17 on right now. 18 Right now there are temporary weirs 19 that have been installed at four locations along 20 the channel at highway 44, at Dunning Road, CPR 21 Keewatin and Spring Hill, and that's to look at 22 the varying amounts of base flow in the channel in 23 order to get a better handle on where spring 24 locations are and how much flow they contribute to 25 the channel. Those are temporary weirs. They 03034 1 will be out as soon as the spring melt comes. 2 There are water quality samples being taken from 3 those locations, including potable water 4 parameters and bacteria. 5 A second program that is focused on 6 the spring discharge locations has been a traverse 7 of the floodway from Highway 1 to the outlet, done 8 recently, and that's included mapping, the 9 locations of open water using GPS and locations of 10 thin ice; those are both indications of where 11 springs might be found. There have been field 12 water quality conductivity samples taken in those 13 areas, and then we've gone back to check areas of 14 historic spring locations. 15 I want to move forward to proposed 16 programs, and for 2005 there are three programs, 17 three events proposed. One to be starting in 18 March, one in the event of floodway operation this 19 spring and one in the fall to obtain seasonal 20 background data. An extensive domestic well 21 monitoring and monitoring well sampling program is 22 proposed. 23 This is an air photo of the floodway 24 from the inlet to the outlet. There is a black 25 line inside. I'll show you a blowup in a moment, 03035 1 and that represents the right-of-way of the 2 floodway. 3 For domestic wells, this monitoring 4 program in March would be to select domestic and 5 community wells that are adjacent to the floodway, 6 and the primary zone would be within 200 metres of 7 the right-of-way of the floodway. And that 8 includes the closest roads to the floodway, the 9 road that's right next to the floodway that goes 10 down through here, it includes that road. And in 11 areas where there are no roads in homes right 12 close to the floodway, that area will be extended, 13 that's the red line, to pick up homes that are 14 closest to the floodway on both sides. 15 There are extensions of that area in 16 several important areas. One are in the areas, 17 the sensitive areas of the proposed -- sorry, in 18 the sensitive areas where we have monitoring 19 sections already. For instance, at Spring Hill or 20 Dunning Road, we've got great instrumentation with 21 the monitoring wells, so we would extend that out 22 and sample domestic wells on either side of those 23 sections to provide very detailed coverage, and be 24 able to try to track some of these questions that 25 we have been trying to answer. 03036 1 The other extensions are at the bridge 2 sites, and that will provide good information for 3 construction dewatering and other construction 4 programs for baseline. And of course, other areas 5 can and will be added as issues come up. 6 Here is the black line for the 7 floodway right-of-way. This is the inlet 8 structure, the 200 metre distance and the extended 9 areas. And the next one is from highway, Trans 10 Canada to Spring Hill and north of Highway 59. 11 I want to emphasize that a separate 12 construction dewatering investigation and 13 monitoring plan will be developed, and that will 14 have input from the public liaison committee. 15 That plan will be submitted for approval to the 16 provincial regulatory agency before construction 17 dewatering activities. 18 The water analysis for this program 19 will include potable water chemistry parameters 20 and bacterial analysis, and we will disinfect taps 21 that we take these samples from. The bacteria 22 will include total coliform and E. coli. 23 Monitoring wells will also be sampled 24 during this program, and we're going to focus on 25 wells in the bedrock aquifer with some monitoring 03037 1 of sand and till well installations. And that 2 also is consistent with the comments made by 3 Mr. Clifton. The locations will again include 4 those detailed investigation areas and the bridge 5 crossings. 6 We'll be looking at potable water 7 chemistry. And for these monitoring well 8 programs, we're actually going to disinfect our 9 monitoring wells, and then be able to take 10 bacteria samples from them. So hopefully we'll be 11 able to track any progress of bacteria or any 12 infiltration of bacteria in the monitoring wells 13 close to channel in a detailed scale. 14 There has been a lot of discussion on 15 what type of monitoring network on a larger scale 16 should be had here at the floodway. And 17 additional monitoring wells will be drilled in 18 2005 and onward to expand the monitoring network 19 that you've seen already. The locations for the 20 expanded monitoring will be determined during the 21 final design process. 22 And I want to emphasize that that's an 23 ongoing process and it will be modified if new 24 information becomes available during the beginning 25 of construction and with the monitoring 03038 1 activities. 2 Sentinel wells will be selected and 3 new ones will be drilled. They will be provided 4 with monitoring probes that can measure real time 5 changes in conductivity and temperature to track 6 that low conductivity flood water. That's 7 consistent with monitoring practice and consistent 8 with the information mentioned by Mr. Clifton. 9 We'll look at provincial monitoring wells adjacent 10 to the floodway and we will look at any new 11 results from Water Stewardship. 12 Water elevation will be taken, and 13 water quality for the domestic. For floodway, if 14 the floodway is operated this spring, we are going 15 to a second program, and that would be a subset of 16 the first program where we would sample wells that 17 had already been sampled in March to provide 18 continuity and wells at the detailed sections. 19 We'd look at water quality again, and bacteriology 20 and water elevation. So that's potentially two 21 programs in the next several months. 22 For the fall, there will be follow-up 23 monitoring, again on a selected set of wells, to 24 provide continuity and detail in areas of spring 25 discharge and to address other issues. 03039 1 During construction, the monitoring 2 program will be developed with the public liaison 3 committee, and it will be subject to approval by 4 the regulatory authorities. Wells will be 5 selected based on the proximity, construction, and 6 continuity to past monitoring. 7 And after construction, the five year 8 period after that will be the post construction 9 monitoring period. And that focus will be to look 10 at the effects of project construction and to make 11 sure that any of the mitigation measures put in 12 are successful. 13 That will be followed by a long-term 14 monitoring program, and that's looking at ongoing 15 monitoring of selected domestic wells and 16 monitoring wells. That will be based on a major 17 review of the project data and any other new 18 regional data that is available at that time. 19 Mr. Sinclair will give some further details on the 20 monitoring of sentinel wells. 21 The follow-up analysis would focus on 22 the evidence of intrusion of river water. And 23 additional modeling will be done, as needed, to 24 refine the network as the data becomes available. 25 All the data will be reported to the designated 03040 1 regulatory provincial authority and public liaison 2 committee. And the Floodway Authority would 3 coordinate the monitoring program with others, 4 including the liaison committee, the water branch, 5 Water Stewardship and Manitoba Health. 6 And just to note that the region of 7 groundwater study as proposed by the Province is 8 an important initiative, and it has the ability to 9 address many of the municipal and public concerns 10 that we've heard discussed here. The groundwater 11 data for this project will be a valuable asset for 12 the groundwater management studies and 13 initiatives. 14 The pre-construction monitoring 15 start-up is proposed for right now, March 2005, 16 with adjustments to the program to be made as 17 additional inputs available. There will be a 18 preparation of a formal monitoring plan for the 19 review and approval of provincial regulatory 20 authorities, tentatively by June 2005. 21 And just on a final note, the 22 understanding of the groundwater conditions today, 23 in 2005, has advanced substantially from what we 24 knew two years ago when the groundwater 25 investigations had begun. 03041 1 Future monitoring of this project, as 2 we have proposed here, will further increase the 3 groundwater information base and it can be used to 4 address the project design issues regarding 5 groundwater. Thank you. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Hamm, I think you 7 said at the beginning that, or you or somebody 8 else said that all of this information in these 9 presentations, none of it is new, that it's all 10 contained in the various appendices. 11 MS. HAMM: The baseline information 12 and the map, the baseline information that's in 13 here is contained in the appendices. The 14 information about future monitoring programs is 15 new information. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: That's new information. 17 When was that developed? 18 MS. HAMM: It's been an ongoing 19 process throughout the monitoring. It's been in a 20 preliminary phase, looking at different programs. 21 Pulling it together has been developed in the last 22 week or so in order to present it in a more 23 thorough manner. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 25 MR. J. OSLER: I believe that 03042 1 Mr. Sinclair wanted to add some comments on the 2 sentinel welling and the monitoring programs in 3 the future. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Just before he does, 5 Mr. Webster has -- 6 MR. WEBSTER: You mentioned for water 7 monitoring that you were also looking for the 8 intrusion of cold water. And I wondered if you 9 can enlighten us as to what you do there. You 10 were measuring water temperature in the 11 groundwater? 12 MS. HAMM: Yes. That would be, if we 13 are looking -- groundwater would have a 14 temperature somewhere around four degrees. And 15 very cold river water in the spring flood could 16 have a temperature that's very close to freezing, 17 one degree, two degrees. And so typically, if 18 you're looking for surface water intrusion in 19 those events, you would actually look for a 20 decrease in temperature in your wells. And you 21 can do that by putting in probes that can measure 22 temperature, many readings a day, and be able to 23 track the intrusion of water like that if it is 24 intruding. 25 MR. WEBSTER: That's a pretty narrow 03043 1 temperature range. I'm interested to know that 2 you can measure things that well under those 3 circumstances. What's your error in measuring 4 those temperatures? 5 MS. HAMM: I think Mr. Sinclair could 6 probably address that a little bit more, he's 7 going to talk about those probes. 8 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Thank you. 9 MR. SINCLAIR: Regarding that item, 10 the groundwater temperature, Marci, is a little 11 bit warmer than that, it's closer to 6.5. So 12 we're looking at a 3 to 4-degree temperature 13 range, and I'll get into that a little bit with 14 some of the monitors that are certainly capable of 15 degree measurements and fractions of degree 16 centigrade. That's part of my presentation. 17 MR. WEBSTER: What is the error 18 inherent in your measurements of temperature, plus 19 or minus? 20 MR. SINCLAIR: Plus or minus .2, 21 .3 degrees C. 22 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sinclair. 24 MR. SINCLAIR: I'll just pass out my 25 presentation to the committee. 03044 1 THE CHAIRMAN: On a procedural note, 2 while Mr. Sinclair is passing out this material, 3 could I ask the Floodway Authority to make copies 4 of all of these documents available to, at least 5 to each of the registered participants? 6 Thank you. Mr. Sinclair. 7 MR. SINCLAIR: Thank you, 8 Mr. Chairman. My presentation is fairly focused. 9 We're looking specifically at what kind of 10 monitoring and what can we do during the actual 11 flood events. It's certainly part and parcel of 12 what Ms. Friedman Hamm has been discussing. 13 In terms of sentinel wells, we use 14 that term, and there's a whole variety of terms 15 for that type of well, guardian, century, 16 sentinel, I think Mr. Clifton used soldier, but 17 there's a variety of those names that are bantered 18 about for it. 19 What we're looking at, and we're 20 certainly looking at focusing on the spring areas. 21 What we're concerned with certainly is during the 22 flood events at the spring areas, if water is 23 going to go through the bottom of the floodway 24 into the aquifer, we want to deal with that on a 25 proactive basis. The focus is on the floodway -- 03045 1 or sorry, the focus is on the bedrock aquifer but 2 includes the sand and gravel as well. We're 3 looking at multiple wells along the right-of-way, 4 and within the actual floodway zone, up the banks. 5 As Mr. Smith was saying, we have put in pneumatic 6 piezometers and been able to trace the wires up to 7 the top of the banks to allow measurements within 8 that zone. And we're looking at the same thing. 9 Ms. Friedman Hamm was discussing the 10 use of real time monitoring, and I'll get into 11 that a little bit more. But what it is, is there 12 is available instruments that allow you to measure 13 temperature, pressure, conductivity on a 14 continuous basis. You can make readings, you can 15 do them down to, if you're really, you know, in 16 certain scenarios if you're looking at it down to 17 seconds if you want. 18 This technology has allowed things to 19 certainly evolve in the monitoring. I've been 20 involved in sites where we are looking at cut-off 21 wall assessments for hydraulic leakage, and we 22 were doing measurements on a 10 second basis. So 23 we were pumping on one side and measuring flows, 24 or measuring the effect of how leakage would occur 25 on a 10 second basis. 03046 1 So what it allows, and in terms of the 2 wells, we are looking at wells that are basically 3 much the same as the domestic wells that are out 4 in that area. They are a little bit bigger. 5 We're looking at wells probably in the 6 to 8 inch 6 diameter range. Most of the domestic wells out 7 there are in the range of 4, 5 and 6-inch. A lot 8 of them are plastic wells. We're looking at steel 9 wells, but what they do is allow us to do both 10 monitoring, and if we get into a scenario where we 11 want hydraulic control, we can actually pump any 12 of these wells and allow us to draw out impacted 13 groundwater and put it back in the floodway. And 14 I'll get into that a little bit more. 15 As I say, we're looking at steel 16 casings. We need -- this instrumentation program 17 has to be secure. We're looking at periods where 18 we may be looking at 10 per cent usage, or even 19 less over the long-term. And there is certainly 20 folks that want to have a fair amount of activity 21 in this area, and we have to have a secure system, 22 we can't have these open, so we're looking at 23 something that's secure, solid, locked, and that 24 is not open to the locals, vandalism, et cetera, 25 that could cause significant problems in that 03047 1 area. 2 Conceptually I've laid out just a 3 little plan of what we can do, this one at CPR 4 Keewatin. What we've got is we've got two wells 5 down the embankment, and five wells -- and this is 6 just again conceptual, but looks at what we can 7 be. So we've got two wells in this area and five 8 on this side. Our focus is mainly on the west 9 side. We see from all the intrusion modeling and 10 et cetera that we've done that we feel that the 11 west side certainly is the major concern. We are 12 not going to abandon the east side, but at this 13 point, we are looking at lesser amounts. And if 14 it's required, with time, we will bump up the 15 monitoring on the east side. 16 And you can see there, we've got a 17 couple of wells, sentinel wells. They are maybe a 18 little closer together than we'd actually put them 19 in the field, but basically that's it. We're 20 going to put them in the bedrock. So we are going 21 to have a set that's down the floodway towards the 22 right-of-way and then a setup on the top closer to 23 the right-of-way boundary. 24 Next slide. So the sentinel wells 25 closest to the low flow channel, we're looking at 03048 1 real time monitoring. What we're talking about 2 there, again, is electronic transducers that allow 3 us to measure pressure, temperature, 4 conductivities continuously. Every five minutes 5 there is a reading taken. We connect, with being 6 able to bring this information up to the top of 7 the bank, once a day or a couple of times a day, 8 we can download this information and know whether 9 there is any concerns. 10 Now, as Marci was saying, with 11 temperature, the water in the floodway typically 12 cooler and colder than the water in the 13 groundwater, which is closer to 6 and a half 14 degrees. If we have that temperature 15 differential, we'll actually get a curve and we 16 will start to see the temperature starting to 17 drop. And that will tell us that we are starting 18 to get water from the floodway in, similarly with 19 conductivity as well. 20 What we'll do, too, is we'll look at 21 pumping them a little wee bit just to extend the 22 zone. We don't want to pump them too much but 23 just a little bit of pumping that will allow us to 24 draw in water from a little wider zone around the 25 monitor, and that will give us a little more 03049 1 confidence in that we are collecting water and 2 nothing is sneaking by us. 3 Near the right-of-way, similarly, 4 we'll have multiple daily monitoring during flood 5 events. And we could install certainly real time 6 monitoring in there but we feel that what we're 7 looking at is sort of the early warning down the 8 banks at this area. If we haven't got impacts, we 9 won't be needing that sort of real time monitoring 10 but it's certainly something we may include in the 11 system. And again, it does the same thing, 12 levels, temperatures, and conductivities that we 13 could measure in the wells. 14 Sentinel wells a distance from the 15 right-of-way, we haven't considered it strongly at 16 this point. We're really feeling that, our basis 17 for this is we really want a zero impact or zero 18 tolerance to water beyond the right-of-way, or 19 certainly getting towards any domestic wells. We 20 are looking strongly at this particular system as 21 being functional to that degree. By putting wells 22 at distance, we have a lot of domestic wells in 23 between. And if we're looking at monitoring at a 24 mile or a kilometre, another kilometre, there's 25 hundreds of wells in between from the domestics 03050 1 that are already in that location, so they could 2 be incorporated into this system. But as I say, 3 we're really looking at a zero tolerance to 4 impacts, and for that reason, at this point, 5 unless we really have data, we're not looking at 6 going too far out from the edge of the 7 right-of-way. 8 Next slide. So now in terms of that, 9 we're looking at, if we do, for example, start to 10 see water intruding along the floodway into our 11 first row of wells, we start to see real time 12 impacts. From that point then, we're going to 13 have to get ourselves mobilized a little bit and 14 look at what we can do to do the pumping on these 15 five wells that are at the perimeter, or five or 16 seven or whatever it ends up with. 17 Our proposal at this time is based on 18 looking at airlift pumping, which would be a 19 compressor similar to what you see when you're 20 going down the road and they're breaking up 21 asphalt. You got a guy with a jackhammer, it is 22 the same kind of a compressor system. It allows 23 us with that kind of a unit to pump multiple 24 wells, seven, eight, any number basically, and 25 allow us to pull out two, 300 gallons a minute per 03051 1 well and have it go back into the floodway. So by 2 putting it this way, what we're doing is, there is 3 a disadvantage, we are pulling a little water 4 again from the floodway closer to these wells. 5 But on the backside, it's pulling in some water 6 from the area where the residents live and 7 ensuring that there's no water going in that 8 direction. So that's certainly what we're looking 9 at with that part of the pumping. 10 And that was really the hydraulic 11 control that Mr. Clifton talked about. He talked 12 a little bit about recharging as well, and 13 pumping, and we're focusing in our case, certainly 14 at this point we are looking at the pumping side 15 of things. 16 Now, from the modeling that we've 17 done, we don't see it, certainly in terms of the 18 time that the floodway is in operation, we don't 19 see that the travel times are such that it's going 20 to extend past the right-of-way, but, again, we're 21 going to be doing this monitoring to check things 22 out. 23 We have to develop a few options, 24 though, if there is something that does occur 25 that's showing impacts, moving towards or beyond 03052 1 the right-of-way, there's a number of things we 2 have to do; certainly get our program together and 3 look at working with the public liaison committee, 4 and coordinate with a proposed regional 5 groundwater study. We're seeing that this is 6 going to be more likely long-term types of things 7 that will involve certainly groundwater study. 8 Some of the potential options that we 9 are looking at, if we start to see concerns right 10 at the right-of-way, one of the things we'll 11 consider, and that can be done very short-term 12 within a day or so, would be to bring in hauled 13 water for anyone along there. So we can have 14 hauled water within a day or even less -- well, 15 say within a day, and this would go for a few 16 weeks while we look at other options. 17 Other options that we've considered 18 for permanent protection of wells along the 19 perimeter would be a new well cased deeper into 20 the aquifer which would mean we could cut off the 21 upper two-thirds of the aquifer and draw water 22 from below. We need a little more study on this 23 one just to ensure that there is this sort of 24 scenario at work. But from our drilling, we 25 certainly see layering in the bedrock, we 03053 1 certainly see zones that are thick. I've seen the 2 core where there is locations there where it's 3 what we call massive bedrock, it is three, four, 4 five feet thick, and it is continuous and there's 5 very little fracturing in it. So we see there is 6 potential for zones below that may not be impacted 7 by the floodway itself within the bedrock. 8 And ultimately water treatment, we've 9 been involved in some where these are being put 10 into domestic wells, and certainly filtration, 11 ultra filtration can be put into wells. They 12 provide a significant barrier, in fact, to all 13 microbes, including viruses. The ROW is a system 14 that's used on ships to produce water from salt 15 water, so it can do a significant filtration job, 16 and that will be an option if there was concerns 17 long-term where we couldn't deal with it, we could 18 put these in. 19 Now again, we're looking at a scenario 20 where after 35 years or a little more of 21 operation, we really haven't seen impacts on any 22 scale. We have no documented cases. But this is 23 a sort of plan we're putting together, certainly 24 on the long-term monitoring that Ms. Friedman Hamm 25 discussed. And this detailed monitoring during a 03054 1 flood event to really focus in on ensuring that 2 the impacts do not pass from the floodway and 3 beyond. 4 And I think that's about what I have 5 to say. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Sinclair, 7 presumably if you had to initiate any of these 8 three options, these should be at the expense of 9 the Floodway Authority? 10 MR. SINCLAIR: That's the plan, yes. 11 MR. MORGAN: I'd just like to put 12 some -- 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead. 14 MR. MORGAN: I'd like to put it in a 15 context in terms of the environmental assessment, 16 and later a little bit about health risk. I've 17 got about three slides that will just sum up some 18 of the things that have been discussed. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: How much longer will 20 this presentation take? 21 MR. MORGAN: It is only about five 22 minutes. I've got about three slides, just to sum 23 up some of the key points. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you. 25 MR. MORGAN: First off, in terms of 03055 1 the environmental assessment context, Mr. Smith 2 discussed a lot of the investigations, which were 3 a thorough definition of the baseline. He also 4 discussed some of the modeling, which again 5 described the baseline. The modeling was also 6 used to determine the effects. And in both cases, 7 it is expected the likely effects would be -- it 8 was unlikely to have significant effects when we 9 do the expansion. I will get into that a little 10 bit later. 11 Then Ms. Friedman Hamm talked a bit 12 more about the baseline. She also followed up on 13 some of the monitoring follow-up which is talked 14 about in the EIS. And that is new material. It's 15 talked about in the EIS in general saying we want 16 to have monitoring wells along the west side. It 17 is going to be fleshed out more in terms of an 18 environmental protection plan. So we've been 19 working on the environmental protection plan in 20 parallel with detailed design. And they are now 21 telling me some of the things which will be in the 22 environmental protection plan which will be shared 23 with the regulators and with the public as it's 24 done. 25 One of the things that came up in 03056 1 discussions or questioning of the Commission with 2 Mr. Peter Hayes was a health risk model. And we 3 wanted to put this in a bit into context of what 4 we did in terms of a health risk model. 5 Just as a little bit of a background. 6 Health risk modeling is not something new which 7 has come out of Walkerton, Ontario's experience, 8 it's a very well commonly known thing with water 9 resources, people who provide water supply or do 10 environmental assessments. In fact, I remember 11 being involved in a health risk assessment 12 workshop for the City of Winnipeg in 1995. Five 13 years before Walkerton, we were doing stuff like 14 this in Manitoba. 15 So this is not a new concept but we 16 thought we'd put it on there since there's a lot 17 of questions about what is he talking about when 18 he's talking about source, pathways, receptors. 19 If you look at what could be 20 conceptually a health risk model for this whole 21 region in terms of groundwater, sources could be 22 the water in the floodway, gravel pits, lagoons, 23 septic fields, agricultural, land drainage and Red 24 River. 25 The first step is determine is this a 03057 1 potential source of contamination? This is what 2 we did in terms of the water in the floodway. And 3 there seems to be some misunderstanding from what 4 we put in the EIS. In the EIS, we are very clear 5 that total coliforms, which are an indicator of 6 contamination, are present in the water. And we 7 are very clear that we know that when wastewater 8 discharges from lagoons in St. Clements and from 9 land drainage, agricultural drainage and land 10 drainage from the City of Winnipeg is in the 11 floodway water. So the first definition is this 12 is not potable water. 13 The information Mr. Palmateer 14 explained, if you were to find no fecal coliforms, 15 or you were to say I think this gravel pit is very 16 clean and you don't have to worry about 17 protecting, making sure there's not a pathway to 18 your water supply, then you would go through an 19 extensive microbiological survey to try and prove 20 that. 21 We have accepted from the beginning 22 that this water is not potable and, therefore, we 23 expect to do a lot of work on pathways. The 24 extensive work done in terms of the groundwater, 25 potential groundwater pathway was just shown to 03058 1 you. And that's how that kind of fits into the 2 context. We did not look at all other pathways so 3 we don't declare this as a health risk model in 4 the EIS. We looked at the concepts of the health 5 risk model but we didn't do, you know, a complete 6 one across the whole boards. 7 So in terms of receptors, the model 8 that the Floodway Authority has in their mind is a 9 very simple one. They don't want any bacteria, 10 viruses, whatever, getting from the water in the 11 floodway through the groundwater to any human 12 receptors at wells. They are not looking at 13 something probabilistic. You know, it could 14 happen to ten wells or something, that is good 15 enough. They don't want any and they will 16 mitigate if that happens. 17 Next one. But this is what we studied 18 here extensively, and the focus was on pathways 19 because it was accepted that this water is not 20 potable. 21 Next one. So the critical thing that 22 was looked at is to look at ways, as Mr. Sinclair 23 talked about, of ensuring that even though it's 24 not expected, that we have done sensitivity 25 analysis which looked at where the potential paths 03059 1 could come from, unlikely paths. And we will 2 monitor those in order to protect the receptors. 3 So that's how this all fits into kind 4 of an overall health risk model. However, there 5 is still other potential sources, other potential 6 pathways to wells in the region. 7 Next slide. So just to sum up, I 8 think this is in the slides, the same thing I 9 said. We accept there's a source. We spent a lot 10 of time on pathways and were investigated 11 thoroughly. There's not expected pathways, there 12 is unlikely ones which will be monitored in the 13 following monitoring programs of the Floodway 14 Authority. 15 The other one, I think this has been 16 fairly clear, that no likely pathways from the 17 floodway during inactive conditions due to the 18 upflow of groundwater. The focus was on during 19 the flood, the pathway is of concern. The surface 20 water intrusion was modeled. And Mr. Smith made 21 very clear that the method they used was a very 22 cautious approach when they looked at sensitivity 23 analysis. Sensitivity analysis shows these 24 unexpected paths which will be monitored. 25 And I also have a background in 03060 1 groundwater, that's what I did my PhD on, on how 2 do you deal with uncertainties? And some people 3 get confused thinking by using more complex 4 models, you are more cautious. 5 The modeling that KGS did looked at a 6 very cautious approach. They assumed that that 7 whole silt till, which is fairly impermeable, is 8 considered to be a sand base. That's a very 9 cautious approach. So don't get confused that 10 complexity means more caution. Cautious is what 11 they looked at, a very cautious approach. 12 The key thing how this fits into the 13 EIS is this was done for the existing condition. 14 It was also done for the effects of the expansion 15 of the project, and no adverse effects are 16 expected on well water. Sensitivity analysis is 17 also done on the expanded floodway option. 18 Another key thing about the project, 19 as has been described by Ms. Hamm, is that the 20 project will include extensive monitoring, 21 sentinel wells, things like that. These are part 22 of the project so they are part of the protection 23 of the groundwater in that area. And the project 24 will also include other attributes like erosion 25 control to avoid further deepening of the low flow 03061 1 channel. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We will 3 take a break now, and if you have any concluding 4 comments and any questions that we might have, 5 we'll come to them after the break. So come back 6 at just a couple minutes before eleven o'clock, 7 please. 8 9 (Proceedings recessed at 10:43 a.m. 10 and reconvened at 11:00 a.m.) 11 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Could we come 13 back to order, please. Mr. Osler, was there any 14 more to this presentation? 15 MR. J. OSLER: There is none. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. I think we may 17 have the odd question. You refer to a liaison 18 committee, a public liaison committee, is that 19 what it is called? 20 MR. MCNEIL: Doug McNeil. Yes, Mr. 21 Chair, during these proceedings we have talked 22 about public liaison committees at specific 23 project sites that would include the general 24 public, specifically owners of houses close by a 25 bridge, for example, that we would like to have 03062 1 involved while we are getting ready for the 2 construction and looking at dewatering, et cetera. 3 What we felt is that we would have an overall 4 public liaison committee for the whole project and 5 then have sub committees for each of the sites 6 where dewatering would occur. And the membership 7 would include, again, members from the general 8 public, likely members from municipalities, 9 throughout the reach of the floodway and the west 10 dyke, and we would expect that Manitoba Health and 11 Water Stewardship, the Office of Drinking Water 12 and the groundwater approvals people would also be 13 involved. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Was this included in 15 the EIS or is this a new development? 16 MR. SMITH: Bert Smith here. In the 17 preliminary engineering reports we did reference 18 having these committees, I believe. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: Was there -- this 20 reference to one public liaison committee for the 21 whole floodway with these different parties, is 22 that referenced in the materials? 23 MR. SMITH: In particular there was 24 reference on the construction dewatering 25 components, and that was where the prime focus was 03063 1 during construction, to have the liaison 2 committees representing each of the individual 3 bridge sites. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: So what Mr. McNeil just 5 talked about, having one for the whole Floodway 6 Authority with sort of regional sub committees is 7 a new development? 8 MR. MCNEIL: Yes, it is, and it is in 9 direct response to public concerns over 10 groundwater, and a lot of the comments that we 11 have heard during these hearings. Mr. Gilroy has 12 said this over and over again, we are just trying 13 to demonstrate that we are listening and reacting 14 to those concerns. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Fair enough. Thank 16 you. Any other questions? 17 I think we are going to turn now to 18 questions from members of this panel, as was our 19 original order of business for today. We have a 20 number of areas in which we wish to canvass. We 21 are going to, each of us, in some turn will cover 22 different areas, and then I believe that we may 23 have some additional questions at the end that may 24 be a little scattered all over the place just to 25 sort of clean up a lot of loose ends. 03064 1 I'm going to start off and ask a few 2 questions, and we have touched on this before, and 3 I think Mr. Currie in one of his 4 cross-examinations of Mr. Rempel, I believe, asked 5 some similar questions. But there is some 6 uncertainty as to just who the proponent is, 7 whether there is just one proponent or whether 8 there should be co-proponents. Our terms of 9 reference ask us to look at the construction and 10 operations of the floodway, of the expanded 11 floodway. You know, we learned that the 12 operations is actually going to be the purview of 13 the Provincial Government under the Department of 14 Water Stewardship. So, I guess my question is, 15 are there co-proponents, in particular as far as 16 licencing goes? As far as licencing goes, are 17 there co-proponents? Are both parties going to be 18 seeking licences? I mean, is the operating 19 licence separate than the construction licence? 20 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chairman, let me 21 first answer that as the representative of the 22 Manitoba Floodway Authority. The Manitoba 23 Floodway Authority is the proponent for this 24 project. And if you look at all of the 25 documentation that's been produced, the 03065 1 engineering reports and the EIS, it is our 2 agency's name that is listed on there. Now, I 3 would like to turn it over to Cam Osler to talk 4 about some of the details of that. 5 MR. C. OSLER: Mr. Chairman, just to 6 sort of go through a bit of the sequence, the 7 application, the environmental EIS at page 1.1-1, 8 makes the point that the Manitoba Floodway 9 Expansion Authority, as it was then known, or 10 Manitoba Floodway Expansion as it is now known, 11 has this mandate. And at page 1-3 it restates the 12 mandate that the corporation has been given, and 13 it includes establish arrangements with the 14 department of Water Stewardship to coordinate the 15 floodway expansion with the department's ongoing 16 operation of the floodway. But the main mandate 17 that we started off with at page 1-1 was to 18 undertake the necessary engineering, environmental 19 consultation and other related activities to 20 obtain environmental authorizations to commence 21 construction of the project. 22 Looking at the mandate in that 23 context, MFA then is the proponent. And the EIS 24 has proceeded on that basis. But it has also made 25 it very clear, as it did at page 1-1 and elsewhere 03066 1 in the application, that the floodway would be 2 operated by Manitoba Water Stewardship. In this 3 context then, MFA's job is to get the licensing on 4 behalf of, in the case of operation, Manitoba 5 Water Stewardship. And this is specifically, I'm 6 informed, reflected in section 5 of the Floodway 7 Authority Act, as well as in the EIS. 8 Looking at the Environment Act, it 9 tells you how proponent is defined. And in that 10 Act, I'm advised that in section 12.1, the 11 proponent is defined in the Act as being a person 12 who is undertaking or proposes to undertake a 13 development, or who has been designated by a 14 person or group of persons to undertake a 15 development in Manitoba on behalf of that person 16 or group of persons. 17 In summary, Manitoba Floodway 18 Authority, therefore, has been designated by the 19 Province, including Manitoba Water Stewardship, to 20 expand the floodway and obtain all approvals for 21 floodway expansion. One such required approval is 22 the licence to operate the expanded floodway by 23 Manitoba Water Stewardship. In that context then 24 Manitoba Floodway Authority is the only proponent 25 under the Act, and is undertaking the development 03067 1 as a Crown agent on behalf of the Province. Since 2 the Manitoba Floodway Authority itself will be 3 undertaking the actual floodway expansion, it 4 requires a licence to construct the expansion. 5 Manitoba Floodway Authority's proposal also 6 requires a licence be given to Manitoba Water 7 Stewardship for the continued operation of the 8 floodway after expansion. Manitoba Water 9 Stewardship is the department of Government with 10 whom Manitoba Floodway Authority is acting to 11 coordinate the floodway expansion and for whom 12 Manitoba Floodway Authority is acting for the 13 purposes of obtaining a licence to operate the 14 expanded floodway. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: So, I think I 16 understand you, but let me try it. You will be 17 seeking a licence to operate the expanded floodway 18 on behalf of Water Stewardship or you will be 19 getting that licence yourself or the Floodway 20 Authority itself, and then delegating it to Water 21 Stewardship? 22 MR. C. OSLER: At this point we get 23 into the legal stuff. My understanding is the 24 first of your two options. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: So, Water Stewardship 03068 1 will be the owner of a licence to operate? 2 MR. C. OSLER: That's my 3 understanding. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: And is that both 5 Federal and Provincial licences? 6 MR. C. OSLER: Again, at some point 7 this may get into law or does get into law, but I 8 will deal with it at my understanding level. We 9 are talking about a licence under Manitoba 10 statutes is required under the Environment Act. 11 In the Federal context it is not quite the same 12 mandate and framework. It is by exception. It is 13 when do we need to get authority for a Federal 14 decision maker or responsible authority, and in 15 this case that would be Infrastructure Canada 16 because it is putting money into the project and 17 perhaps DFO if it has to make some authorities, 18 the Fish Act Authorization, and then the question 19 of the Navigable Waters. So nobody actually gives 20 us a licence to operate the project. They make 21 decisions that they have to make under Federal 22 statutes that we need to get authorities in 23 certain contexts, or to get funding authority. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: And once the floodway 25 is expanded, this licence will be to operate the 03069 1 new or expanded floodway, it won't be just to 2 operate the increment? 3 MR. C. OSLER: That's correct. The 4 issue which we will probably discuss in a few 5 minutes of environmental effect has to focus on 6 the increment. But the reality in terms of a 7 licence is to operate the entity as expanded, and 8 there is no ability to separate from an 9 operational perspective in terms of licencing the 10 entity that existed before the project and the 11 entity that exists after the project. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: And this licence to 13 operate the expanded floodway also includes the 14 right to operate it under rule 4, the summer 15 emergency operation? 16 MR. C. OSLER: The simple answer is 17 yes. The point, though, is that the licences to 18 operate, from our perspective the operation that 19 would exist without this expansion project and the 20 operation that exists with it, we are told the 21 same operating rules are to apply. Again, I don't 22 want to stray -- in my simple language that's 23 rules 1, 2, 3 and 4, the way they have been 24 described in this hearing, and I'm advised there 25 are some other rules that are not as important 03070 1 that we don't talk about. I'm also advised that 2 the province always retains authority to act in an 3 emergency as it sees fit. So I just want to make 4 all of those points on the record in terms of 5 rules and everything else. 6 So, the case of expanding the 7 floodway, we are operating from the purposes of 8 doing the environmental assessment that we are 9 presenting to you that the operating rules, 10 whatever they are, aren't changed in any way, 11 shape or form by the expansion. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, does the EIS 13 address effects of summer operation? 14 MR. C. OSLER: The EIS addresses the 15 effects of the expansion under the condition of 16 summer operations, and it reviews the baseline 17 conditions of the floodway operation today or in 18 the future without the expansion under summer 19 operations, particularly emergency summer 20 operations or non-spring operations. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: For example, to be a 22 little more specific, have you quantified the 23 potential damage to property as a result of 24 emergency summer operations? 25 MR. C. OSLER: We have reviewed the -- 03071 1 I am trying to quantify any effects of the 2 expanded floodway on the environmental components 3 under the relevant conditions, including summer 4 operating conditions, we haven't found any basis 5 for concluding that there was any measurable 6 effect of the expanded floodway on summer 7 operations or non-spring operations. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: An incremental effect 9 or an effect? 10 MR. C. OSLER: Any incremental effect, 11 we couldn't find any measurable basis for an 12 incremental effect of the expanded floodway. Now 13 in terms of the baseline, we did review the 14 information that's available on the effects of the 15 current floodway under summer operation 16 conditions, and in the supplementary filing there 17 is a reference to a study that I know our firm 18 participated in with KGS before the EIS on 19 reviewing the effects of summer operation, and 20 John Osler at some point can elaborate on that, if 21 that's your interest. So in terms of reviewing 22 the baseline without the project, summer 23 operations was reviewed in terms of its effects 24 and there was some discussion of effects, I 25 believe, in that earlier study on property, lands, 03072 1 activities, but I'm not personally familiar with 2 that study. Others would have to speak to it. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, could somebody 4 then speak to that? Maybe John Osler. Just to 5 whether or not property and even non-commercial 6 damage as a result of summer, or summer emergency 7 operations, whether that's been quantified? I 8 mean whether it is an incremental effect of the 9 existing floodway or an incremental effect to the 10 existing floodway operations, or it is just an 11 effect of the operations of the expanded floodway, 12 it is still an effect. 13 MR. C. OSLER: Mr. Chairman, if I 14 could, just so we don't get the detail of what the 15 study shows mixed up with your question, there is 16 no mystery to summer operation or spring operation 17 in the context of what you and I are discussing 18 right now. If the new floodway is operated in the 19 spring, we have been studying the changes that the 20 expansion would create to that operation. And we 21 have said that is the effect of the project we 22 have been asked to assess. If the operation, the 23 floodway is operated in the summer, for emergency 24 operations, we have looked at the operation in the 25 summer for emergency purposes and assessed the 03073 1 extent to which the expansion would make any 2 difference to its impacts, upstream in particular. 3 When looking at groundwater we have done the same 4 thing. When looking at the effects of operating a 5 floodway throughout all of those lands, and 6 permanently changing the communication and 7 transportation and stuff between people living on 8 either side of it, we have done the same thing. 9 When looking at health or anything else, we have 10 done the same thing. So summer operation is 11 conceptually and everything else no different a 12 problem for us than all of the other ones that we 13 have been talking about. And I think that the 14 importance that it is receiving reflects the fact 15 that, as Mr. Bowering pointed out, it has only 16 occurred in 2002, 2004, and a rule has emerged in 17 2004, in the fall, and it is attracting a great 18 deal of attention because it has come forth in 19 this way. And we do have studies that have been 20 done in 2004 -- since 2002, to look at the effects 21 of this existing summer operation. And that's 22 what Mr. John Osler will speak to. 23 But I think it is very, very important 24 to understand that this new issue of summer 25 operation, new in the context of the whole 03074 1 floodway's existence, is totally distinct from the 2 expansion. And if we don't have the expansion, 3 the summer operation I'm advised will operate 4 under rule 4. It could operate in 2005, for 5 example. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: I realize that. But we 7 are being asked to make recommendations in respect 8 of operating the expanded floodway. And whether 9 it is a different effect, a lesser effect or a 10 greater effect, it is still an effect. Does CEAA 11 talk about incremental effects, for example? 12 MR. C. OSLER: CEAA talks about the 13 effect -- what we are asked to assess under CEAA 14 is the environmental effect of the project, same 15 issue. We are asked to assess the environmental 16 effect of the project during all of its life, 17 construction, its operation, its decommissioning 18 and even its planning in reality. So, the 19 definition of the project is the new action under 20 CEAA that is being asked to be authorized. The 21 definition of the environmental effect, without 22 getting into the details in the Act about what the 23 environment is, but the effect, in our submission, 24 is the change that this action, if approved, would 25 bring about, which is the situation that would be 03075 1 with the project versus without it, not just today 2 but in the future. 3 And I think where cumulative effects 4 is helpful is that it reminds us that we have to 5 look at the future and all of the things affecting 6 the environment in order to define the baseline. 7 We can't just get away with looking at what 8 happened yesterday. We have to look forward. It 9 is a planning tool, CEAA, planning authorizations 10 for future action. But our submission is that 11 CEAA, to the extent it gives you guidance in the 12 Act, focuses your attention that you are assessing 13 the effect of the action that's being specifically 14 asked to be authorized. And when you go to the 15 guide the word incremental is very clearly used, 16 as I put out in exhibit 41, to do with cumulative 17 effects, which is where we get our mind clearly 18 orientated towards the future, in my opinion. 19 So, I don't think there is any 20 difference in my submission whether we are dealing 21 with summer operation, spring operation, 22 groundwater, ice, anything. What you are being 23 asked to do, what we were asked to do, what the 24 responsible authority was asked to do under CEAA, 25 what the Minister is asked to do under the 03076 1 Manitoba Act, is to make a decision based on the 2 effect of the action that it is being asked to 3 authorize or licence or approve. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: I should have prefaced 5 my questions in general by saying that in the next 6 week or two or three, the three of us at this 7 table are going to have to make some decisions 8 about some relatively complicated issues, 9 including the one that you just described, Mr. 10 Osler. And I think what we are looking for now is 11 just clarification on a lot of these issues to 12 help us in our decision making. So I say that to 13 all of you who are going to be answering our 14 questions over the rest of today. Mr. John Osler, 15 did you have some comment to make? 16 MR. J. OSLER: We had actually sat 17 down over the weekend and looked at putting 18 together a brief presentation, given what Mr. Cam 19 Osler has just talked about, that the effects of 20 operating the floodway during the summer will 21 occur with or without this project. But noting 22 that there had been previous work done on this in 23 terms of a study that was done by KGS, Mr. David 24 McMillan, who is behind me, is prepared to provide 25 you with an overview of what environmental 03077 1 considerations were made or discussed in that 2 report itself. But it doesn't really lend itself 3 to the issue, I believe, that you are pursuing, 4 which is are they related to the floodway 5 expansion project. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: This report that Mr. 7 McMillan is prepared to make, this is in respect 8 of some of the broad environmental issues, 9 aquatic, terrestrial, et cetera? 10 MR. J. OSLER: There were a bunch of 11 environmental issues that were identified over the 12 course of the project itself. They are documented 13 within that report. They really point to much the 14 same message I think that Mr. Bowering and others 15 have given this morning, that there is further 16 study required to define them and look at ways to 17 mitigate or resolve them. But if it is helpful to 18 the Commission, by all means we are prepared to 19 give you -- 20 THE CHAIRMAN: I would like to defer 21 that. We do have a general section of questions 22 in that regard that we will come to in a little 23 while. Perhaps we can hold it off until then. 24 I think I will leave it there for now 25 in respect of operations. We may come back to 03078 1 other questions in this regard later on. Barrie, 2 you wanted to ask a question or two about the 3 elusive baseline. 4 MR. WEBSTER: Just before we do that, 5 I was going to follow up on the discussion that we 6 just had, I have to admit I'm still not clear as 7 to whether we are looking for two licences or one. 8 I understand that you have been employed to look 9 at the expansion of the floodway, but the expanded 10 floodway is of no use to anybody unless it is 11 operated. So, are we being looked at to make 12 recommendations on one or two licences? 13 MR. C. OSLER: Again, I can't give you 14 any better answer than I have given you. The 15 licence -- if the department in its wisdom thinks 16 that it has to give only one licence, then I guess 17 they will think through how to do that, so that 18 the authority passes from Manitoba Floodway 19 Authority to Water Stewardship to operate it. If 20 the department believes that they should give two 21 licences, then we are here as proponent, on behalf 22 of Water Stewardship, to ask you to provide two 23 licences. But that is a mechanic of the licensing 24 process that I don't have any further advice to 25 give you on. 03079 1 MR. WEBSTER: Do you understand the 2 profound importance of what I have just asked you, 3 because we are -- we are sitting here with a 4 superb set of consultants in front of us who are 5 working for an organization that is asking us to 6 do something that we really wonder if it is the 7 entire job that we should be looking at. And I 8 see the problem that you are having is one of 9 defending your integrity as consultants as well as 10 trying to defend the project, and I see you having 11 more success with the first than the second, 12 frankly, because I don't see how we can possibly 13 licence just the expansion. 14 MR. C. OSLER: Let's be very clear, 15 the request is clearly stated in the first page of 16 the EIS, that a licence is required to operate the 17 project as well as to construct it, and that 18 Manitoba Floodway Authority has the statutory 19 authority to request, as proponent, the licensing 20 of the project, but that the Manitoba Water 21 Stewardship will be the authority that operates 22 it. So we are seeking those licences, that's 23 clearly laid out. I just am not the person -- it 24 is a legal question of mechanics as to whether it 25 is two licences or one licence. But whether it is 03080 1 two licences or one licence is in my opinion 2 before you a technicality. We have to provide you 3 with the effects of the operation of the project 4 as well as its construction, as well as all of its 5 other aspects. So we are not dodging that one 6 bit. 7 MR. WEBSTER: The problem is that the 8 entire EIS is based on the premise that your 9 mandate was to look simply at the effects of the 10 expansion and, in fact, what we have been hearing 11 is concerns to do with the operation of the 12 floodway as expanded. And if we ignore that, we 13 ignore that at our peril. 14 MR. C. OSLER: If your question is, is 15 there some way that this application is viewed as 16 a back handed way to get a licence for the 17 existing floodway, and therefore, should the 18 entire EIS have taken into consideration that we 19 should be assessing the effects of the existing 20 floodway, having been licensed under this back 21 door way, if that's the question, then I would 22 like to deal with it directly. 23 MR. WEBSTER: That's not my question. 24 My question is that the floodway, as expanded, the 25 licence is needed for the floodway as expanded, 03081 1 and we have perhaps an opportunity here to correct 2 some of the issues that are concerned with the 3 original floodway, but are nevertheless something 4 that we might be able to handle in terms of curing 5 those difficulties as we construct the new 6 floodway. 7 MR. C. OSLER: I think that's fair. 8 But in terms of the language, the effect of the 9 project that we are before you on, the expanded 10 floodway, still remains the change that would be 11 there. That's very, very important when looking 12 at CEAA, because if we were to assess something 13 different than that, and we were asked to assess 14 the effects that would be there, even without this 15 expansion, if somebody was to put that to us and 16 say that's our job, then there could well be 17 material issues as to whether or not this project 18 should be a screened project under CEAA, whether 19 it shouldn't b