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 be deemed to be quite a different 20 type of a project whether it might be of 21 significant adverse effects because it is dealing 22 with a fundamental new activity all of a sudden 23 going through this area, it is having water 24 effects and artificial flooding, we have been 25 told, under the existing operation, it has 03082 1 groundwater effects under the existing operation, 2 and that could be very, very material to the 3 processes under CEAA. So, we have to keep a very 4 clear eye as practitioners on what is the 5 environmental effect of the project, and thus our 6 paying attention to that. 7 Now having said all of that, social 8 economist background like mine, I'm not just 9 interested in adverse effects, I'm interested in 10 beneficial effects, things that could improve or 11 remediate or deal with the issues. 12 Under the Manitoba law we have to also 13 look at the stewardship and sustainable 14 development. And one of the principles there, 15 principle number 6, if you can find a way to fix 16 something that's been hurt before, you should do 17 it, if it is feasible. And we are fully open to 18 discuss with you under those contexts, without 19 getting into any trouble under the Federal Act, 20 which also invites looking at sustainable 21 development principles, but just so we don't get 22 ourselves into any trouble, we are very interested 23 in discussing with you any practical options that 24 we may have overlooked that could remediate or 25 improve the effects of the existing floodway, in 03083 1 terms of artificial flooding, in terms of 2 groundwater, in terms of downstream effects in 3 terms of anything. We have spent considerable 4 effort on that and are very proud of the efforts 5 that people have put in to doing that. 6 But we don't want to get that confused 7 with environmental adverse effects of what we are 8 asking you to approve. Because if we do, we are 9 in to conundrums that would affect not only this 10 project, but would affect all sorts of other 11 projects and the licencing of them in Canada. It 12 is a profoundly important distinction. 13 In short, a remediation is a positive 14 effect. We get credit for it. You know, we can't 15 even discuss it that way, if we don't understand 16 that the negative effects that we are remediating 17 would exist without this project. 18 MR. WEBSTER: So, if I understand you 19 correctly then, if in the course of constructing 20 the expanded floodway, if we can remediate a 21 problem that we turn up as a result of the 22 examination of what is there, that in fact, first 23 of all, it is a desirable thing to do. 24 MR. C. OSLER: Yes. 25 MR. WEBSTER: And not to exclude it on 03084 1 the basis that it may in fact not be just 2 associated with the expansion in a narrow sense. 3 MR. C. OSLER: Completely. And again 4 I don't want to say just social economists think 5 this way, but so often we talk about employment or 6 positive training, they are positive things. And 7 some of my colleagues in the biophysical world say 8 that's not really an environmental effect, and 9 they have got a point. But under modern 10 practices, my career certainly in the '90s dealing 11 with the uranium inquiries in Saskatchewan, 12 Federal/Provincial panels, they were frankly far 13 more interested in the issues of how to maximize 14 the benefits to northern people than they were 15 with the rather minuscule issues that were there 16 in terms of the physical pathways to the 17 environment from these relatively pinpointed 18 projects. So, yes, we should look, and in this 19 case we have looked intensely, this team has 20 looked very hard, at ways to remediate, not just 21 not damage more, but even improve the environment 22 that resulted from the existing floodway, and is 23 very interested in being tested on whether they 24 missed something or, you know, it has to pass a 25 practicality test under the Sustainable 03085 1 Development Act or under any common sense rules, 2 it has to be practical, it has to be doable, it 3 has to be feasible, it has to be cost effective. 4 But under those tests, not that it is 5 compelled under Federal environmental law, but 6 because it is common sense and it is totally 7 consistent with the sustainable development 8 principles that we have been asked to assess this 9 project under. 10 MR. WEBSTER: I think what I also hear 11 you saying then is that the concept as to what 12 constitutes environment is perhaps on the table 13 here, as far as your treatment of the project is 14 concerned, basically I think perhaps from our 15 standpoint, the term environment includes all of 16 the things that you just talked about, not just 17 the physical environment. If you are saying that 18 there is no significant effect on the physical 19 environment, separate from the people, and the 20 economy and the society around, then that's a 21 different kettle of fish from saying that there is 22 no significant effect of the thing overall. 23 MR. C. OSLER: Okay. There is a lot 24 of different thoughts there. Let me be careful. 25 The environment under the CEAA, if I can start 03086 1 there, is a defined term and it includes humans, 2 but it is a pathway environment through the 3 physical, biophysical world. And an environmental 4 effect, as we have said many times, is only one on 5 people that flow through that pathway. Very 6 simple example; flooding caused by this project 7 that affects people is an environmental effect 8 under CEAA. Employment to work on the project 9 isn't an environmental effect under CEAA. It 10 doesn't flow through an environmental pathway. It 11 flows through exchange of money. That doesn't 12 mean that our EIS looked only at environmental 13 effects under CEAA. We kept very clear what the 14 environmental effects under CEAA were, but we also 15 looked at other effects on people, such as 16 employment, such as concerns about stress and 17 things like that. So we looked broader than just 18 that definition. But for practical purposes, for 19 the people who had to use our work, we tried to 20 keep the two separate. The second point is one 21 focus of environmental assessment under CEAA is to 22 come up with this thing, an adverse effect, that 23 is significant and likely. 24 We have to pay attention to that in 25 order to assist the people that have to make 03087 1 Federal assessments, the RAs, responsible 2 authorities. That doesn't mean that our EIS was 3 limited only to looking at adverse effects, we 4 also looked at positive ones. And we also looked 5 at ones that were not necessarily likely in order 6 to assess the risks. 7 Thirdly, environmental assessment under 8 CEAA looks at any component of the environment. 9 If I find one significant adverse effect on a 10 component in the environment I have to report it 11 and it could lead to a Federal panel. Sustainable 12 development principles ask us to balance all of 13 these things, the good and the bad effects on this 14 part of the environment versus the other. We 15 certainly have attempted in our work in respect to 16 sustainable development principles to deal with 17 some of the balancing issues and bring them out so 18 you can report on them. That would get us into 19 remediation, would get us into improving things 20 where we can and taking on that challenge. Just 21 because it isn't adverse doesn't mean we shouldn't 22 be challenged under the ground rules that you 23 have, under sustainable development in Manitoba, 24 for licencing a project in Manitoba. You are 25 supposed to look at the sustainable development 03088 1 principles. They go further in my opinion than 2 just looking for significant adverse effects that 3 are likely. 4 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Mr. Sargeant said 5 that I was going to talk about baseline, and I 6 have been talking about much more general things 7 up until this point, but I would like to go back 8 and talk about baseline. Without a lot of 9 preamble, is the term baseline used in fact in the 10 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act? 11 MR. C. OSLER: My understanding is 12 that it isn't, but I could be wrong. The term 13 incremental, I don't believe is used in the Act 14 either. The Act defines an environmental effect 15 and it talks about the obligation to assess the 16 environmental effects of a project. 17 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. 18 MR. C. OSLER: And then in section 16 19 it brings in, among other things, cumulative. But 20 it is again the effects of the project in the 21 context of other actions, past or that will occur. 22 So, straight answer is no, I don't think the word 23 baseline is used in the Act. I know it is used 24 extensively in the guides, under the CEAA guides, 25 so it is not a new term in practice. 03089 1 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Is it in fact 2 used, is the term baseline used in the Manitoba 3 Environment Act? 4 MR. C. OSLER: Again, to the best of 5 my knowledge it isn't, but I could be wrong. It 6 is -- I'm not sure, I haven't reread that Act 7 recently, but I'm not sure that we have terms like 8 existing environment. We have a word like effect, 9 which tends to occur in the statute. And the 10 practitioners say what is an effect? An effect is 11 the difference between what would occur with or 12 without the project. So how do I measure what 13 would occur without the project? Some people tend 14 to say the existing environment, the guidelines 15 talk about the existing environment. But 16 practitioners tend to get into more of the 17 baseline, gets you beyond just what was there two 18 years ago. 19 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. I think the next 20 questions I'm going to ask you are based on our 21 perception that the term baseline seems not to 22 have been used consistently or transparently in 23 the EIS. In other words, before I have you answer 24 to that question, because I want to talk about 25 specifics, okay. In the area -- let's talk about 03090 1 things that are sore points -- in the area subject 2 to artificial flooding, is there a baseline for 3 human health? 4 MR. J. OSLER: That's a particular 5 area that I think that -- chapter 8, 6 socio-economic effects section. We talked this 7 morning about various people from KGS were able to 8 describe groundwater baseline monitoring systems 9 that set up, the testing that was done, the 10 various number of wells, the measurements that 11 were done for conductivity, and we had a 12 discussion about temperature. 13 When you start looking at 14 socio-economic effects, you don't always have the 15 convenience of having these ready indicators, how 16 stressful is somebody, how much -- how well are 17 they coping, what is their capacity to be able to 18 deal with the flood condition? We don't have 19 those readily available to us. 20 However, within the context of 21 developing the baseline for our socio-economic 22 effects chapter within the EIS, if you were to 23 look in volume 2, and the reference is pages 24 2E-102 to 2E-109, we do describe various health 25 indicators, and they are discussed within that 03091 1 context, things like infant and maternal health, 2 mortality, illness, hospital utilization, things 3 like that. But when we, from our perspective when 4 you start looking at socio-economic indicators, 5 the baseline, how do you define that baseline, 6 particularly with regards to health? You have to 7 rely on the expertise of those that are dealing 8 with it. And to that end, we have a fairly 9 extensive direct interview program with 10 representatives from each one of the Interlake, 11 North Eastman, South Eastman, Winnipeg Regional 12 and Central, Manitoba Regional Health Authorities, 13 where we sat down with them and went through the 14 types of issues. I think those are documented 15 fairly well within chapter 8, where we describe 16 the existing condition, and actually spent 17 considerable time documenting an existing, and 18 people's reaction to flooding in general, and the 19 capacity to be able to cope and what lessons have 20 been learned since 1997. 21 At the time of the 1997 flood, for 22 example, the regional health authorities, many of 23 them were just starting up. There has now been a 24 period of time when they have been in operation. 25 There has been lessons learned from the 1997 flood 03092 1 event itself. The level of protection arguably in 2 Southern Manitoba and throughout the basin has 3 improved since then. So the determination that 4 was provided to us by those health care providers 5 was that in fact the capacity, or ability to be 6 able to cope with floods in the future is better 7 than it was in 1997. But that really documents 8 the existing condition. 9 There still has to be, as Cam Osler 10 pointed out, a pathway, a change in the 11 biophysical or physical environment. And the 12 pathway primarily that we see as it affects health 13 are those that relate to water levels or flood 14 risk. And for areas south of the inlet control 15 structure, for example, for all flood scenarios, 16 the water levels or the risk of flood inundation 17 is equal or less than it would have been with the 18 existing conditions. 19 So we can't point to particular 20 indicators or how they may change, but we know 21 what the pathway is, and we know what the 22 relationship of these various -- of how people 23 would be able to cope with a flood, for health, if 24 that's at all helpful to you. 25 MR. WEBSTER: We have had some 03093 1 testimony at our hearing here about some of those 2 effects of, some of the effects of flooding on 3 mental health of individuals upstream. And from 4 what Mr. Cam Osler said, I guess what you would 5 propose is that if in fact the expanded floodway 6 could be designed in such a way that the effects 7 there, which may or may not be associated with 8 the -- well, you are telling me that they won't be 9 any worse with the expanded floodway than they 10 were with the original floodway, but if those 11 could be lessened, that you would see that as a 12 worthwhile objective at this particular point? 13 MR. J. OSLER: I think we are not 14 trying to say you shouldn't be doing that by any 15 means. The point that Mr. Cam Osler was raising 16 is that, based on the physical pathway, the 17 biophysical pathway to these types of effects, and 18 I think we identified -- I'm looking at page 8-94 19 of the EIS where we identify that there are 20 current barriers to achieving better health within 21 certain parts of the flood study region. The 22 first bullet is mental health. Hypertension is 23 another one. Declining in aging populations, of 24 course, and groundwater quality is cited there as 25 well. 03094 1 The point is, with the biophysical and 2 physical pathway as it has been defined from the 3 work at KGS, and in the project description 4 itself, there is no likely significant adverse 5 environmental effect associated with this project 6 on those social and economic indicators. But if 7 there are opportunities over the course of this 8 project, as Mr. Cam Osler has pointed out, to try 9 to address some of these things, we would be open 10 to discussion and commentary on them. I think we 11 are not by any means saying that you don't need to 12 go -- that the opportunity, that you should ignore 13 the opportunities. 14 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Thank you. 15 Mr. Cam Osler has more to add I think. 16 MR. C. OSLER: I think it is a good 17 example of what we are talking about at a 18 conceptual level. There is material that's been 19 just cited to you that went through indicators of 20 the existing baseline, health issues that relate 21 to floods. And we actually had the benefit, if 22 you like, of the '97 flood being fairly current in 23 people's experience, so that the health providers 24 could give us some pretty good indications and 25 some indicators, and they focused on stress. And 03095 1 the issues that you heard about in this hearing in 2 terms of the '97 flood are fully documented, in my 3 opinion, in those pages. And I think I discussed 4 with the chairman on the first day or so, when he 5 pointed out our lack of writing skills, that this 6 is there. And we take it very seriously. 7 So that's happening, and people have 8 said to you in this hearing, frankly, we are even 9 more concerned about summer flooding because we 10 don't think it is justifiable, or whatever reasons 11 they want to give you. And we have certainly 12 heard that. 13 Now, the existing operation under rule 14 4, we would project would continue this way, and 15 would create these anxieties and these stresses, 16 in the summer, in the future. Unless somebody 17 does something to improve on them somehow or 18 other, either buys out the properties, which was 19 one of the options discussed in the supplementary 20 filing material, or provides clear compensation, 21 or does whatever it takes to deal with it. 22 Frankly, our technical opinion is 23 that's not much related to the expansion of the 24 floodway, it is related to the operation of the 25 existing one. And if that is clouding the issue, 03096 1 then maybe people could use the time period when 2 we are building the floodway, when Mr. Bowering 3 has said there is virtually no possibility, the 4 Deputy Minister has said there is virtually no 5 possibility of operating during the summer. Maybe 6 we could all use that time period, four years, to 7 get peace on this front, not just for 8 non-emergency operation, but for emergency 9 operation during summer. 10 And that might be outside of the scope 11 of your technical assessments of the expansion 12 effects per se, but I have certainly seen 13 Commissions make comments outside scope on other 14 matters that they have heard from the public. And 15 that's certainly an area where I wouldn't be 16 surprised if you made some comments. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: But the feds, in their 18 February 16 letter, say that they can't rely on 19 what might happen in the future. 20 MR. C. OSLER: Yes. And the letter 21 they got on March 3rd, from the Floodway 22 Authority -- 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Which we haven't read 24 yet, we just got it this morning. 25 MR. C. OSLER: It tries to address any 03097 1 confusion that might arise in that regard, because 2 the comments in the earlier letter might give rise 3 to some concerns of the type we are talking about. 4 But you can appreciate, in light of that type of 5 correspondence and some of the issues there, why 6 I'm being very concerned about the precision of my 7 language. 8 If this is not an effect of expansion 9 that the feds are funding, then they should not 10 have a concern about it. If they have a concern 11 about the operation of summer operations, then the 12 levels of concern they might have about anything 13 else to do with the existing floodway might also 14 expand. I mean, it is a very material area of 15 precision. 16 MR. WEBSTER: I said I wanted some 17 specifics, and we talked about in the human health 18 area, and clearly that's one of the more 19 challenging ones to get a baseline. 20 Property values is another one that 21 comes to mind, and perhaps that's a little easier, 22 but still rather nebulous. I wondered how you 23 were establishing that in terms of baseline? 24 MR. J. OSLER: No, it is another good 25 example, and it is one that was raised by some 03098 1 residents, particularly upstream of the inlet 2 control structure. 3 First of all, though, and this was an 4 issue that came up when we did earlier work on the 5 Ste. Agathe floodway expansion comparison study, 6 and we looked at it there and we spent a bit more 7 time looking at it. And it is summarized on 8-38 8 within the EIS. But, first of all, property 9 values are really influenced by a complicated 10 array of variables and characteristics. You know, 11 something that I may feel is of value to what I'm 12 looking for in a house may not be the type of 13 thing that somebody else may. And that makes it a 14 complicated calculation or consideration at the 15 best of times. People by and large like to live 16 close to rivers, they like the idea of living -- 17 and so we looked at that, and we actually looked 18 at a bunch of case studies of examples, and they 19 are documented here and I won't go into them in 20 any great detail. But the review of the 21 literature didn't really indicate sort of clear 22 trends on how changes in flood risk might impact 23 housing prices. And that was, we looked at it 24 extensively because it has been an issue that has 25 continually reoccurred, and it is something that 03099 1 we want to, if at all possible, be able to 2 document. 3 However, it appears, like it would be 4 reasonable for us to consider, and that's what we 5 did within the EIS, that the pathway to a change 6 in the property value must occur through an actual 7 change in flood risk. Obviously, if you are faced 8 with a situation where flood risk will be reduced, 9 or at worst no higher than, you should be able to 10 think that then that flood risk is reduced, 11 therefore, the property values shouldn't be 12 adversely affected by it. 13 So that was the consideration when we 14 looked at how it might impact upstream property 15 levels. Obviously, within the City of Winnipeg, 16 because there is greater flood protection, there 17 should be obviously a better, a positive influence 18 on property values, but we didn't go into it in 19 any great depth. 20 And I guess the third part of that 21 would be for homes that are downstream of the 22 outlet control structure. Because as we have 23 modeled, and how it has been described within the 24 EIS, for certain rare events water levels are 25 anticipated to be higher. Therefore, there is a 03100 1 slightly increased risk of flood. 2 Now, we looked at that. They are very 3 rare occurrences and not a substantial increase in 4 water levels. And our determination, based on the 5 evidence that we have been looking at, was that it 6 really would be very difficult to discern any 7 change in property values, looking at the basket 8 of variables that someone would consider when 9 making a determination on property values. 10 It was interesting to note that in 11 fact some of the longitudinal studies that were 12 done on these property values, we were finding 13 that three to five years after a flood event or 14 catastrophic event, there was, immediately 15 following a flood there was a decrease in property 16 values, but when people started replacing 17 basements or repairing homes or restoring things, 18 that there was a bounce back that actually 19 exceeded -- after about a three to five year 20 period it was very difficult to discern any change 21 from flooded properties to unloaded properties. 22 We also augmented our own literature 23 review with actual discussions with planners. We 24 talked just moments ago how we looked at health 25 indicators, and that was the literature, that the 03101 1 review that we had done. When we looked at the -- 2 similar to the discussions we had with the 3 regional health authorities, we actually sat down 4 with the planners for each one of the regions and 5 asked them these specific questions to get their 6 perspectives. By no means are we saying that we 7 are property assessors and have that expertise, 8 but they have the knowledge of what is going on 9 within their various RMs, and how the property 10 values have been, based on the experiences in '97. 11 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. There is a couple 12 of more specifics I would like to ask you about. 13 In terms of baseline, how do you look at domestic 14 water quality, for instance, in the area 15 downstream of the inlet along the floodway? This 16 is probably not a difficult one since there 17 probably hasn't been a lot of incursion of 18 floodway water into that aquifer, but how are you 19 establishing baseline in that case? 20 MR. C. OSLER: At a simple level, you 21 are looking at, I'm giving my biophysical friends 22 the chance to collect their thoughts because they 23 have never said anything about water quality in 24 this hearing. You are looking at one variable of 25 the environment. The baseline in that context 03102 1 starts off by being studied with wells and the 2 monitoring and quality of what is there today, 3 very, very much the conventional, you know, what 4 is there today. But we do put our mind, to put it 5 in the principle here, how might this evolve in 6 the future? There could be pathogens getting into 7 the water, there could be growth and demands on 8 the groundwater in the area, all of this type of 9 stuff. We do put our minds to it. But again as 10 John Osler pointed out, in sitting down with the 11 professionals in that area, our point is before we 12 get carried away with all of this data, where is 13 the pathway from this project to what you are 14 talking about? Because we can study it to death 15 but the issue is the pathway, the effect. And I 16 think the diagram that Dr. Morgan put up distilled 17 the result of that conversation. It is not 18 acceptable in the end, when we finished all our 19 work, for there to be a pathway that would affect 20 the water. So I have leaped ahead a bit as to how 21 we end up focusing our attention in the end, but 22 maybe Dr. Morgan can make a couple of comments on 23 just the baseline, how you assess it for water 24 quality downstream of the inlet. 25 MR. MORGAN: You are talking about in 03103 1 the river water, not -- the groundwater we have 2 talked about it considerably, right? 3 MR. WEBSTER: I'm talking about 4 domestic water quality for those folks who are 5 drawing water from the aquifer over which the 6 floodway is passing. 7 MR. MORGAN: And what was the 8 baseline? 9 MR. WEBSTER: So what is the baseline 10 in that case? 11 MR. MORGAN: I think there was 12 considerable monitoring done. I guess -- 13 MR. C. OSLER: Just to be helpful 14 here, we are talking, my colleagues are a bit 15 confused here, we are talking about the 16 groundwater essentially, just keep it simple, it 17 is the groundwater that we have been talking about 18 over and over again, don't get confused with inlet 19 structure, right? So how did you deal with the 20 baseline, existing and evolving, for the 21 groundwater? That is what he is talking about. 22 MR. WEBSTER: That's right. 23 MR. MORGAN: About groundwater 24 quality, you mean -- okay, you are talking 25 groundwater quality and the effects of the 03104 1 floodway? 2 MR. WEBSTER: I'm talking about how 3 you establish -- what is your baseline, how do you 4 establish baseline for that source of water as a 5 domestic water supply? I suppose it doesn't 6 matter what kind of use is made of it, you are 7 going to have to establish a baseline for that 8 particular water. 9 MR. MORGAN: Well, there was 10 considerable monitoring done of the existing 11 wells. Are you are talking about as it evolves in 12 the future? 13 MR. WEBSTER: Well, I guess I'm asking 14 you, what is the baseline, where are we starting 15 from? We have used the term baseline during the 16 course of the hearings in the EIS, and this is one 17 specific aspect saying, okay, where are you 18 drawing the line? And I presume that since, you 19 know, the properties of groundwater do change over 20 the course of the year and so forth, I just was 21 wondering, where do you draw the baseline for that 22 particular part of the environment? 23 MR. MORGAN: I guess baseline isn't a 24 single property, so it will vary. Let's make it 25 clear, in our baseline monitoring, we didn't come 03105 1 across any impacted wells, so the baseline is that 2 the water is potable and drinkable. Any effect of 3 the floodway -- and this is where in terms of 4 water quality, it is difficult to tell whether 5 there was already an existing plume from '97 or 6 not. The Floodway Authority has accepted in this 7 case, on water quality, not on water elevations, 8 that it would be difficult to determine what would 9 be an existing and a future effect. So they are 10 saying that any effect, whether it is on water 11 quality, from now on they are taking sort of a 12 zero tolerance. Like if it is shown to be from 13 the floodway, existing or expanded after 14 construction, then they will remediate that. 15 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Let me go one 16 step further and talk about baseline in terms of 17 the water quality in the low flow channel. 18 Because we have had some concerns about water 19 going into that channel which is, shall we say, 20 less than desirable. What is the baseline there 21 as far as the low flow channel water quality is 22 concerned? 23 MR. MORGAN: I guess I'm not sure -- 24 that was documented, Marci Friedman Hamm talked 25 about that. I am not sure, do you want numbers? 03106 1 MR. WEBSTER: In the course of the 2 EIS, in the course of the work that you have done, 3 what was the baseline used in terms of water 4 quality in the low flow channel? 5 MR. MORGAN: Are you looking for a 6 bunch of numbers on water quality? I'm not sure 7 which -- 8 MR. WEBSTER: I guess it is important 9 to know whether, in fact, your baseline for an 10 effect is one that includes intermittent release 11 of sewage from Transcona, or whether in fact it is 12 just water that comes out of the aquifer. 13 MR. MORGAN: Yes, okay, I understand. 14 So the baseline in terms of water quality would be 15 two things. In the winter we have talked about it 16 coming out of the aquifer. In terms of what is 17 baseline, we consider that even though the 18 Floodway Authority has no control over what is 19 coming into it from the municipalities, they have 20 to consider that that water is not potable in 21 terms of its potential to get back in the aquifer. 22 So the baseline is that it is not potable water 23 and, therefore, the pathway has to be studied 24 greatly, and if it is any pathway, then it has to 25 be eliminated or mitigated. 03107 1 MR. WEBSTER: Pathway refers to 2 responsibility for a problem, and I guess baseline 3 refers to what is there in the first place. And 4 you know, the fact that that water currently is 5 not considered to be potable, it is a fairly crude 6 sort of descriptor. I would have thought beyond 7 that you would almost certainly have a whole 8 series of qualifiers for that, based on the kinds 9 of things, or in association with the kind of 10 things that you mentioned earlier this morning in 11 describing water, water quality. 12 MR. MORGAN: You are looking at the 13 indicators of -- 14 MR. WEBSTER: I'm not going to ask you 15 to specify them numerically here, but what I'm 16 suggesting is that you need to give us the 17 confidence that you are looking at those things as 18 far as the baseline is concerned, so that you can 19 detect if there is a problem associated with the 20 use of the expanded floodway. 21 MR. MOTHERAL: If I may interject 22 here, and I'm looking at the confusion here and 23 there. I think what we are trying to say is the 24 presentation that we had this morning included, 25 you know, most of the wells and the monitoring up 03108 1 to, you know, including the Spring Hill, but there 2 never was anything mentioned beyond the outlet. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: He is talking about the 4 inlet here, just downstream of the inlet -- 5 MR. MOTHERAL: Okay. Now I'm 6 confused, sorry. 7 MR. C. OSLER: While we are collecting 8 our thoughts too, I think that what might help in 9 response to your question is this, Dave Morgan, I 10 think you are looking at, you do have indicators, 11 you don't have to go through all of the numbers, 12 did you look at them? How would you look at them 13 to describe the baseline for the low flow channel? 14 You have said in simple crude terms that it is not 15 potable. That's a layman's term of saying, that 16 means we have to treat it like it is a risk to 17 health. He can describe for you the various 18 things that would go into that, but he is 19 professionally not really focused on that, because 20 he has made his key conclusion, it is a risk to 21 health and, therefore, if we do anything in 22 developing this project that would create an 23 ability for that risk to health to get into the 24 aquifer, that's a no, no. That's a significant 25 adverse effect if it is sustained and continues, 03109 1 and not mitigated. 2 And the authority has taken that to 3 heart and said, don't deepen. Engineers get 4 ready, put in sentinels, come up with a proactive 5 monitoring. And to the extent that they do all of 6 these things, then it passes more into the 7 monitoring techniques, of how they monitor it and 8 what they look for that we were describing to you 9 this morning, than it gets into Dr. Morgan going 10 through indicators of something that he has 11 already said the key thing, as far as he is 12 concerned. He might tell you how many different 13 ways it is dangerous, but, frankly, it is 14 dangerous, don't let it get there. 15 Maybe he could tell you about some of 16 the indicators he looks at professionally. 17 MR. WEBSTER: But the term potable and 18 not potable is sort of a threshold? 19 MR. C. OSLER: Yes. 20 MR. WEBSTER: I guess what I'm looking 21 for is the assurance that not only do you know 22 that that water is at this point not potable, but 23 you have got some other descriptors that you have 24 on there which will tell you that in fact it is 25 not potable because of certain things, and we know 03110 1 what those levels are. That's what I am looking 2 for. 3 MR. MORGAN: Some of the things that 4 we looked at was the bacterial indicators, fecal 5 coliforms and stuff. And the Floodway Authority 6 has talked about a groundwater monitoring program, 7 there will be a baseline monitoring program done 8 along the floodway to pick up what is happening 9 preconstruction, during construction and post 10 construction. Because this is not only -- the 11 surface water quality is not only a drinking water 12 issue, it is an aquatic issue also, so it is being 13 studied for aquatic and drinking water issues. 14 Things that are important in drinking water are 15 things like nitrates. That's often much higher in 16 surface water than would be acceptable for 17 drinking water, and you don't want that to get in 18 too. 19 We also looked -- there has been so 20 much discussion on the groundwater and everything 21 that there is a whole -- I guess my focus is going 22 to change -- there is a whole section on surface 23 water that's in the aquatic effects, and that was 24 looked at considerably, what are the potential 25 effects of the project? 03111 1 And we looked at things like, there is 2 potential during the erosion that sediment will 3 get into the channel, and that will have to be 4 controlled so it doesn't have an effect on fish in 5 the river. There is potential when you are 6 re-establishing vegetation that you could be using 7 nutrients, and we looked at how do you control 8 those so it doesn't have an effect on the river 9 and downstream. And some of those are also 10 drinking water, because there could be nitrogen in 11 the fertilizer used to help regrowth. And if 12 there is any pesticides used, those have to be 13 monitored pre and post to make sure that the 14 project doesn't have an effect. 15 So there was a specific monitoring 16 program discussed, what needs to be done in the 17 EIS in terms of surface water, and also in terms 18 of -- surface water aquatic effects and also 19 potential to affect drinking water. 20 MR. WEBSTER: As I said earlier, the 21 baseline concept is one that is relatively 22 general. And you have given us a conceptual idea, 23 you gave us a conceptual -- Mr. Cam Osler gave us 24 a conceptual view of that I think back towards the 25 beginning of the hearing. But quite clearly there 03112 1 are a number of areas here where some were more 2 specifically easily defined and some of them were 3 not. But I think that for the confidence of the 4 public and the Commission, we need to know that 5 you have been looking at things more than whether 6 or not the water is potable, and whether or not 7 the water contains fecal material or not. 8 Let me go on to one more thing, 9 because we are going to come back to some of these 10 things again in some other questions that we have 11 for you later on. But I think the final question 12 would be, in terms of baseline, what is your 13 baseline -- and this is a really tough one -- for 14 bank stability? And in this particular case we 15 are looking at downstream of the outlet, because I 16 think that's the one that people are concerned 17 about. 18 MR. MORGAN: That was one area which 19 was studied extensively, immediately downstream of 20 the outlet. And I guess the baseline is looking 21 at whether the rate of erosion would change 22 significantly or not. And here is an example of 23 where, as Mr. Cam Osler talked about earlier, 24 where you apply the principles of sustainable 25 development. We have to rebuild the outlet 03113 1 structure. In doing this, we want to bring it up 2 to a greater ability to dissipate energy, 3 therefore, reduce erosion due to the energy from 4 the flow and the wave action that it can create. 5 So the outlet structure has actually 6 been designed now so a flood of the same magnitude 7 will actually have less effect of the erosion on 8 the opposite bank. In addition, there is also 9 additional bank stabilization going to be proposed 10 as part of this project, which again it is an 11 example of trying to -- it wouldn't have been an 12 effect if they didn't do anything, but they are 13 doing something, and we have to compensate for 14 that because it is potentially a fisheries habitat 15 effect. 16 So every time you do one of these 17 additional ones, not only do you have to assess, 18 okay, that's a good thing to do in one case, as 19 practitioners we have to assess, does it have a 20 likely adverse effect elsewhere? And it is a good 21 example of when you are doing something additional 22 to try and improve something, like erosion in the 23 Red River, we have to assess it saying there is a 24 potential habitat effect, and that has to be 25 considered. 03114 1 And DFO and the Authority are talking 2 about this, how are we going to deal with this and 3 how are we going to compensate for that elsewhere? 4 So we have to consider, when we do these 5 additional things that are trying to remediate 6 something from the past, that if it does, we have 7 to consider the effect of that and how to 8 remediate that effect, so it can go on that way. 9 So we consider all of that stuff when we look at 10 the project. 11 MR. C. OSLER: Just one point on sort 12 of the concept. Technically, the baseline for 13 erosion downstream is the type of erosion that 14 would occur without the project, without the 15 expansion. Now, that is easy. My job is to make 16 that point. 17 Then the practitioners say, yeah, but 18 geez, there is erosion going on, this is one of 19 the most difficult things in the world to do, and 20 it isn't just this study, it can be any other 21 study. 22 Practically what is happening is 23 people have looked at it, I think you saw in one 24 of the earlier days how the waves coming out of 25 this are actually being reduced. This project is 03115 1 perhaps mitigating some of the effects that would 2 otherwise have occurred without it, in terms of 3 wave action coming out of the outlet structure. 4 Nonetheless, for a series of reasons, 5 people have said we can remediate erosion 6 downstream and do some riprapping. So that's like 7 a positive step, without getting into whether it 8 is necessary or not necessary. Having done that 9 step and making it part of the project, the moment 10 we make that decision, it becomes an element of 11 the project. 12 That brings DFO in saying, wait a 13 minute, you are affecting fish. And we have to 14 deal with that as an effect of this project. 15 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. You are giving me 16 a good integrated answer here. What I'm looking 17 for is, what is the baseline in terms of that bank 18 stability? Have you got some kind of concept as 19 to what occurs naturally? This is kind of an 20 incremental sort of a thing. What is normal and 21 what isn't, and how do you define that? 22 MR. MORGAN: This was looked at 23 actually quite in detail with hydraulic, three 24 dimensional hydraulic models which looked at -- 25 this is a good example -- baseline are not only 03116 1 existing conditions or the '97 condition, they 2 also looked at what would happen if you had a 700 3 year flood. So the baseline in that case was 4 looking at what would be the effect of the 5 existing floodway conditions with the 700 year 6 flood, and erosion downstream, and what would be 7 the effect with the expanded floodway? So in that 8 case it was done on modeling. 9 And you know, there are certain 10 parameters that if you can reduce wave action, if 11 you can reduce velocity -- if the velocities 12 aren't uniform and they are much higher in a 13 section near the bank, then you will have higher 14 erosion. So by looking at the velocities and 15 waves as a surrogate for erosion, they are able to 16 show how they can reduce the effects of the 17 erosion into the future that would have been there 18 with the existing floodway outlet. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Just before 20 we break for lunch, I believe Ms. Pollock-Kohn 21 wishes to raise a procedural matter. Could you 22 briefly state the intent of your matter, and then 23 we will have a brief discussion on the when and 24 what. I am sorry, she is representing the three 25 municipalities. 03117 1 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: And I am here on 2 behalf of Orvel Currie as well. We are just a 3 little bit confused, because it is our 4 understanding that there were processes and 5 guidelines as to the disclosure of information. 6 And I wasn't here this morning, but it is my 7 understanding that there was new information 8 presented. And if that is the case, we are asking 9 for the opportunity to be able to, number one, 10 have full disclosure of such information if we 11 haven't already been provided with same. And 12 second, be allowed to review and examine that 13 information in order to allow our experts to 14 either, one, review it, and two, if necessary to 15 cross-examine on it. We've been allowed to do so, 16 so far, and our experts have provided us with 17 reports and been presented before you on certain 18 conclusions and certain facts. So those are our 19 concerns right now. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. What I would 21 like to suggest Ms. Pollock-Kohn, is that at some 22 point, preferably this afternoon, perhaps 23 immediately after lunch -- and I will look to Mr. 24 Handlon or Mr. Schwartz for some indication on 25 this -- you can make your pitch, they can respond 03118 1 to it, and then the panel will recess, either 2 immediately or a bit later, and come to a decision 3 in that respect. 4 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: Okay. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Handlon or Mr. 6 Schwartz, would you be prepared to deal with this 7 immediately after lunch or would you rather do it 8 later in the afternoon? 9 MR. HANDLON: We should be able to 10 deal with it immediately in the afternoon. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Immediately after 12 lunch, okay, let's do that. Is that fine with 13 you, Ms. Pollock-Kohn? 14 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: That's fine. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: I think you have laid 16 out the gist of your argument, if you want to 17 flesh it out after lunch, you are quite welcome 18 to. Let's break now and come back at 1:15. 19 20 (Proceedings recessed at 12:15 and 21 reconvened at 1:15 p.m.) 22 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Can we come to 24 order. I would just note that once we finished 25 with the lawyers having their say, we will hear 03119 1 from Mr. Paul Clifton who will make his closing 2 argument. 3 The panel will not immediately recess 4 to make a decision on the motion argument. We 5 will probably take a slightly extended break at 6 the regular afternoon break and do it at that 7 time. So we'll hear from Ms. Pollock-Kohn first 8 followed by Mr. Handlon or Mr. Schwartz, 9 Mr. Handlon? 10 MR. HANDLON: Yes. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: And that will be about 12 it. Ms. Pollock-Kohn? 13 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: Good afternoon, 14 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. We want 15 full production of the new information presented 16 here today and the opportunity to examine it and 17 possibly cross-examine. There are reasons that 18 the Commission has rules on disclosure of 19 information which is primarily to ensure that 20 fairness is done. I understand that the 21 Commission has followed rules of disclosure so 22 much so that Mr. Clifton's report, there was a 23 possibility that it might be removed due to 24 disclosure. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Wayne Clifton. 03120 1 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: Correct. The 2 bottom line is we should be given the opportunity 3 to review the evidence. To come up with new 4 evidence at the last moment, it is respectfully 5 submitted an attempt to sandbag the other side. 6 To quote a case that most of us lawyers know quite 7 well, it's Strass v. Goldsack which is out of the 8 Alberta Supreme Court. I have a copy for you if 9 you'd like a copy and I have a copy for -- 10 It's Justice Moir stating that a trial 11 is not a sporting event, and it is respectfully 12 submitted that neither should a hearing be. 13 We require an opportunity to attest 14 the accuracy of the information, the new 15 information that's been presented and it's 16 respectfully submitted that it hasn't been tested. 17 We can't tell what prejudice there has 18 been until it has been analyzed but it is 19 prejudicial not to have an opportunity to have the 20 new evidence reviewed by our experts. 21 To say that it's not prejudicial is a 22 catch 22 because we don't know what the arguments 23 are or will be. It's trite law to say you can 24 introduce new evidence by asking and cases are 25 clear, it should be disclosed earlier. Natural 03121 1 justice demands that the opposite side has an 2 opportunity to review the evidence. 3 It appears, at least it's respectfully 4 submitted, that we've been somewhat successful and 5 the public has been somewhat successful as other 6 registered participants at criticizing the 7 evidence. 8 Now that the MFA is bringing new 9 evidence, it appears we might not and others might 10 not have the opportunity to successfully 11 criticize. 12 And those are my submissions. I can 13 give you a copy if you -- 14 THE CHAIRMAN: That would be helpful 15 for the record if you'd just give it to the 16 Commission Secretary. Thank you, 17 Ms. Pollock-Kohn. Mr. Handlon? 18 MR. HANDLON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 19 Let me say I don't think we're on a different 20 footing as far as the principles of natural 21 justice are concerned. Certainly I tell this 22 Commission there's no attempt to sandbag in any 23 way. Really the question is, is this new 24 evidence? And I suggest that it's not. The 25 presentation by Mr. Smith this morning was purely 03122 1 consolidation of all of the documents in the 2 engineering reports that related to specific 3 engineering investigations as it related to water 4 levels, water quality and issues related to 5 groundwater. 6 Further, Marci Friedman Hamm had 7 raised the issue on monitoring in her presentation 8 and I believe she said at the outset that slides 1 9 through 40 approximately really contained the 10 essence of what was in the EIS as far as -- or the 11 engineering reports as far as the monitoring and 12 testing were concerned. 13 Throughout the course of this hearing, 14 an initial submission by the Floodway Authority, 15 it was stated very clearly that there would be 16 further monitoring and testing that would be 17 undertaken. And I will just simply refer to a few 18 excerpts from the EIS itself and some of the other 19 references to the evidence. 20 And in the EIS at page 5-19, this was 21 dealing with the section dealing with surface 22 water intrusion, a statement made about MFEA'S 23 groundwater mitigation policy. And I'll just read 24 some excerpts from that. There's a number of 25 bulleted points. 03123 1 "Throughout the pre-design, final 2 design and construction stages, 3 groundwater will be monitored. The 4 monitoring may extend beyond 5 construction if necessary." 6 Again, on that point, it was clear 7 from the evidence by the panel at the beginning 8 that that would continue into the future. Reading 9 again, 10 "The preferred approach for dealing 11 with groundwater effect is to prevent 12 the effect." 13 And it goes on. 14 "If a potential effect cannot be 15 avoided through project design, 16 mitigation of the effect would be 17 pursued." 18 And just carry on in that same bullet point. 19 "Examples of mitigation include 20 lowering pumps and individual wells, 21 deepening existing wells, installing 22 new wells for tempering impacts, 23 delivering water. Affected property 24 owners are to be involved in 25 determining mitigation and MFEA is 03124 1 open to their suggestions on 2 mitigation alternatives." 3 And again at page 523, and this was a 4 quote, and I put this in my cross-examination to 5 Wayne Clifton when he was giving his evidence and 6 he questioned the issue of future monitoring. And 7 I put this question to him or I put this statement 8 to him from the EIS. 9 "Groundwater elevation and water 10 quality monitoring will occur during 11 construction to establish the response 12 of the bedrock at the Birds Hill 13 aquifer and to identify any 14 interconnections to the carbonate 15 aquifer, baseline groundwater 16 elevation and quality data has been 17 collected. Groundwater monitoring 18 programs will be required along the 19 floodway including the bridge and 20 aqueduct dewatering sites and a 21 monitoring plan will be developed 22 during detailed design prior to 23 construction." 24 And I put that quote to Mr. Clifton. And if you 25 recall, also in that question to Mr. Clifton, I 03125 1 summarized to him what other statements had been 2 made in the evidence to date in the direct 3 examination and cross-examination of the panel. 4 And I put to Mr. Clifton, 5 "I have read you what commitments are 6 that had been made during the course 7 of this hearing and that in addition 8 to the monitoring stated in the EIS 9 that I just read to you, in addition 10 to the response to the information 11 request," 12 and again, that was a reference to there was an 13 information request asking for further detail on 14 monitoring, 15 "that would be post-construction 16 monitoring follow-up. And we have 17 also heard evidence here that there 18 would be regular consultations with 19 the municipalities. For example, 20 monthly or bimonthly meetings with the 21 Floodway Authority provide updates on 22 the project and progress that's 23 regular consultation leading up to and 24 through construction that's been 25 stated. Further, the Floodway 03126 1 Authority plans to form," 2 and it says in the transcript "community", it 3 should be "committee", 4 5 "with Water Stewardship, a community 6 liaison committee for each dewatering 7 site. So for each dewatering site for 8 the bridges for the aqueducts to 9 involve municipal officials and nearby 10 residents to ensure their involvement 11 in the development of the groundwater 12 monitoring and mitigation related to 13 the project components." 14 And I just put that because that was I 15 believe a summary of the evidence that had been 16 given by the Floodway Authority, you know, in a 17 summary fashion on that issue. 18 There are other transcript references 19 in the evidence to ongoing monitoring and testing 20 throughout the, and I won't give, unless it's 21 necessary, give you all those references. You 22 certainly remember those. And certainly, the 23 import of the EIS and the information request that 24 were requested information in this regard was to 25 the effect that the Floodway Authority would be 03127 1 continuing to monitor and test groundwater 2 throughout construction and after construction, 3 that there was a commitment to consult with the 4 stakeholders to set up committees, to ensure that 5 the stakeholders were informed and that they would 6 have input. 7 And certainly the evidence given by 8 Ms. Hamm this afternoon was no different. It 9 pulled together details of what had been done as 10 far as monitoring to date, what was happening in 11 the course of the last number of months as part of 12 the final design and what the anticipation was for 13 future monitoring. But that was no different than 14 what was contained in all of the information 15 leading up to this hearing and the evidence that 16 was given at this hearing. 17 There was some other information given 18 here today, specifics and that as to the sentinel 19 wells. And I believe Mr. Clifton had raised the 20 issue, I think Mr. Sinclair has indicated 21 Mr. Clifton had referred to them as soldier wells. 22 And again, he gave conceptual detail of what could 23 be put in place, what the intention is to be put 24 in place. But all of this was subject to ongoing 25 design parameters and also, after construction, 03128 1 what is determined from the details of 2 construction. 3 So perhaps this is a long way of 4 saying this is not new evidence. It was evidence 5 before the committee from the panel at the outset 6 and I note there was an exchange of 7 cross-examination on this point by Mr. Currie. 8 And it is right at the end of his 9 cross-examination of the panel which took place on 10 February 21st. And it's starting at page 1096 11 where he poses a question to Mr. McNeil. And 12 Mr. McNeil states, 13 "Public consultation, as we move 14 forward through detailed design and 15 construction, will probably take 16 different forms. We don't expect a 17 formal hearing process if that's what 18 you are asking. But, for example, 19 when we are dewatering at the bridges 20 during bridge construction, we 21 anticipate to have some form of 22 working committee that will involve 23 the RMs and are public representation 24 to mitigate any associated impacts 25 that dewatering may have on local 03129 1 wells. That's one form of that public 2 consultation. We have also said that 3 we will carry on with public 4 consultation in a general sense 5 throughout the construction to keep 6 residents and municipalities informed 7 of the progress of this project of any 8 changes to this design, et cetera. We 9 haven't laid out exactly when and 10 where and who and what halls and what 11 time of day or night we're going to 12 have public consultation. It will be 13 similar to things that we've had in 14 the past. And I was just reminded 15 here that the environmental protection 16 plan is submitted to Manitoba 17 Conservation for approval prior to 18 construction getting under way." 19 Now I appreciate Ms. Pollock has not 20 been here throughout the course of these hearings 21 but although, perhaps the most that can be said of 22 the evidence this morning is it pulled all the 23 evidence together and perhaps in some of the later 24 slides given by Ms. Hamm, there was greater detail 25 but certainly not new evidence. 03130 1 And so as a result, I don't believe 2 there's -- certainly if there was new evidence 3 that had come forward that was different than what 4 was in the EIS, if there was some substantially 5 new point, then certainly agreed. It would be as, 6 Mr. Chairman, you said at the beginning, the rules 7 of procedure here are to be flexible and common 8 sense and I certainly endorse that. But I submit, 9 using that broad definition of approach, that it 10 is not necessary. There is no prejudice here. 11 There was full opportunity to cross-examine on 12 these points that were laid out in the material 13 and there is not new evidence. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Handlon. 15 Ms. Pollock-Kohn, can you give us any specific 16 examples of what was presented this morning that 17 you consider to be new? 18 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: I just have a few 19 comments and then I'll respond directly to that 20 just on the basis of what Mr. Handlon just stated. 21 It's true, I haven't been here for all 22 of the hearings, but I was here for a portion this 23 morning. And maybe I'm getting confused but I'm 24 sure that I heard the term "new information." 25 Someone asked, there was a question asked and the 03131 1 answer was yes, this is new information. So I'm a 2 little confused as to the definition of "new 3 information." 4 THE CHAIRMAN: I asked a question that 5 actually took a little while to get an answer but 6 I asked the question as to whether the public 7 liaison committee to cover the entire floodway was 8 a new concept. And finally, it was answered that 9 it was yes. Mr. Handlon has just noted that there 10 are many references in the testimony and in the 11 EIS indicating that there was an intent to pull 12 together committees of stakeholders. 13 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: And with respect to 14 your question about pointing to the information, I 15 would have to refer to the municipalities on that. 16 But isn't the question to be directed to the MFA 17 itself? And I mean I think the pointed question 18 that I know that I think should be asked is, 19 again, and have an answer no, that is there any -- 20 was there any new information presented today? 21 And I understand that Mr. Handlon went through a 22 number of different things. But is that the MFA's 23 position? And then I'll just take a brief moment 24 and speak to my client as to pointing out the new 25 information. 03132 1 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't want to speak 2 for the MFA, but I took it from Mr. Handlon's 3 comments that it's his position or the MFA's 4 position that there was no new information. I'll 5 let Mr. Handlon speak for himself. 6 MR. HANDLON: That was my position. 7 And I said I think that at the most, in one area, 8 there may have been greater detail, conceptual 9 detail. Certainly there was discussion in the EIS 10 about monitoring mitigation and there is a 11 reference to the soldier wells or the sentinel 12 wells. But that specifically came out of evidence 13 from Mr. Clifton himself. And it certainly is the 14 appropriate way of dealing with it on redirect 15 because it was an issue that was raised by counsel 16 for the municipality's own witness. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Ms. Pollock-Kohn? 18 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: So just so I'm 19 clear, the only new information the MFA is stating 20 has come out of Mr. Clifton's cross-examination? 21 MR. HANDLON: There's no new evidence. 22 There's some greater detail that was provided on 23 one particular issue. It was pulled together 24 dealing with the public consultation but there is 25 nothing new. There was a reference to public 03133 1 consultation at minimum during the evidence as to 2 specific community liaison committees dealing with 3 each individual site. And Mr. McNeil has 4 clarified it, there is certainly an intent to have 5 an overall liaison committee and that was 6 something that was spoken to a general fashion 7 during his original evidence. So it's nothing 8 new. 9 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: I'm just going to 10 take a moment. But before I do, I just want to 11 state one thing. Greater detail is a matter of 12 definition to me that I would respectfully submit 13 is new information. 14 MR. HANDLON: I don't want to go back 15 and forth, but the indication at the beginning was 16 that new detail would be developed. So the fact 17 that new detail is coming forward at this stage 18 was not unexpected. It was an indication that it 19 would. And for the benefit of the committee for 20 this Commission, we thought it was important to 21 bring forward any further detail that evolved to 22 the present time. 23 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: And it's our 24 submission, as I stated before, based on the new 25 detail that we be provided with the full 03134 1 production of the new detail as well as the 2 opportunity to review it and examine it. But if 3 it's okay, I'll just take one moment. 4 5 (OFF THE RECORD DISCUSSION) 6 7 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: Can I have a five 8 minute recess? 9 THE CHAIRMAN: To what end? 10 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: To consult with my 11 clients as to the new information. That was a 12 question posed to me. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Five only. 14 15 (BRIEF RECESS) 16 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Could we come to 18 order, please. Ms. Pollock-Kohn. 19 MS. POLLOCK-KOHN: I've been advised 20 that it's the specifics of the EIS that weren't 21 available before that now have become available 22 specifically with respect to monitoring and well 23 locations, that we would like to have had that 24 information before. And now that we have it, we 25 would like to be able to have the opportunity to 03135 1 examine it and have our experts examine it and 2 then be able to possibly have the opportunity to 3 cross-examine, if necessary, as well as the other, 4 the new details. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 6 Mr. Handlon? 7 MR. HANDLON: Just one small point. 8 Mr. Smith put it clearly in perspective just at 9 the break. The EIS, the original evidence, 10 indicated that the monitoring and testing would 11 evolve. And there would be liaison, there would 12 be committees that would be formed to study the 13 detail of that. What was clarified is that the 14 stakeholders would be involved. The 15 municipalities, which my learned friend 16 represents, will be part of that process. 17 So to say that this is new evidence, 18 to say that they will be part of the process that 19 will affect the result is not anything new or 20 certainly not anything that requires further study 21 by their consultant. As you recall, their 22 consultants were posed a number of questions and 23 gave very general but not specific answers about 24 types of monitoring. 25 So the detail that was given here 03136 1 today is just really nothing new and the irony 2 perhaps is that it indicates clearly that the 3 stakeholders and municipalities, the participant 4 to this committee will be involved in that process 5 and that's the commitment that has been made 6 throughout and is reinforced today. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Handlon. 8 Final comment to you, Ms. Pollock-Kohn. 9 MR. HOLLAND: Mr. Chairman, I don't 10 know if you would allow me to comment briefly. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Very briefly. 12 MR. HOLLAND: Reeve John Holland, the 13 RM of Springfield. I wasn't present this morning 14 for all of the presentation. I was here for a 15 significant part of it. And there was a lot of 16 information placed before the Commission and 17 before the participants. As one very small 18 example, I had understood Ms. Friedman Hamm to 19 suggest that the only level of investigation into 20 potential contaminants in the floodway channel was 21 a bacteriological investigation. Now obviously 22 that falls considerably short of the range of 23 contaminants that we felt should be identified. 24 I think really it's simply the timing 25 of this really because our lawyer at the moment is 03137 1 scheduled to give his final argument tomorrow. We 2 would propose some very very specific monitoring 3 and follow-up and citizen involvement. And it 4 seems to be a bit of a waste of the Commission's 5 time if in fact they come perhaps very very close 6 together in terms of where we want to go for 7 monitoring and for citizen involvement. But to 8 say that there may well be a citizen liaison 9 committee and that they will have a part in this 10 process sort of begs the question, well, what 11 process or what input into that process? 12 I mean we've been involved in the 13 environmental impact assessment throughout and the 14 public meetings but I mean that doesn't mean that 15 we feel we had a -- 16 THE CHAIRMAN: I think you're starting 17 to debate issues rather than the procedural matter 18 that's before us with all due respect, Reeve. 19 It's certainly open to you and 20 Mr. Currie I assume will be making the closing 21 argument on your behalf, it's certainly open to 22 him to make any kinds of recommendations in 23 respect of these matters. And if your 24 recommendations happen to be close to what was 25 presented today, then all the better for you. If 03138 1 it's different, then that's up to us to make some 2 decision on where we think the final decision in 3 that regard should go. 4 I think we've heard enough on this 5 issue right now. We're going to proceed to 6 Mr. Paul Clifton immediately. Following his 7 presentation, we'll take a break of approximately 8 20, 25 minutes and during that time, the panelists 9 will consider the motion or the procedural matter 10 that was before us. Thank you, Reeve Holland. 11 Okay. That should be an easy act to 12 follow. Legal arguments aren't the most gripping 13 so, Mr. Clifton, over to you for your closing 14 statements, please. And as I noted to you off the 15 record, and I will note to all other participants 16 who will be giving closing statements, you are 17 going to be strictly held to one hour. 18 MR. P. CLIFTON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 19 You're going to have to indulge me on the front 20 end here a little bit. I understand I have an 21 hour to speak. I will likely be the full hour. I 22 don't come with any props and I won't be quite as 23 animated as I was before but I will still be very 24 passionate and I'm not going to apologize for my 25 passion in this. 03139 1 You know, I'm going to ask and indulge 2 if we could see a show of hands from yourselves or 3 whoever. This weekend, who in this crowd had some 4 difficulties or got stuck on the prairie because 5 of the flood protection measures that they 6 presently have? Who in this crowd has been 7 flooded through basement flooding three times 8 since the 1997 flood because of their selection of 9 the flood protection for the City of Winnipeg? I 10 pointed before to my battery, my artillery battery 11 of Cliff and Helen Nizol and they've been flooded 12 three times for the flood protection of the City 13 of Winnipeg since 1997. They have a ring dyke. 14 Paul Clifton, Maxine Clifton are up on 15 a hill. As it gets mild, you know, the wheels of 16 the vehicle will go through that snow or you will 17 slip and slide and not get up your hill. There is 18 no easement. There is nothing. How do we cut the 19 side hills and that? These are the types of 20 things we are dealing with. 21 You can't just dismiss what we're 22 talking about. You know, I've tried repeatedly to 23 bring attention to issues. And you know, one of 24 the most credible piece of representations that 25 happened, and thereby the grace of God it 03140 1 happened, was CBC's Reg Sherren was on the dyke. 2 Somehow he got through the road blocks and he 3 slipped through. And he was panning the horizon 4 water, water, water. 5 And you know, I look in the 6 transcripts and unfortunately the court reporter 7 doesn't record what was said on the transcripts 8 and it's critically important. And so there's a 9 couple of things I'm going to do. First off, I'm 10 going to not write another page or not type 11 another page for a month or two at least I would 12 say, sir. And so formally, on the record, I 13 provided as a DVD, because the content is so 14 large, to Mr. Trent Hreno, to Mr. Ernie Gilroy via 15 Mr. McNeil and Ms. Joyce Mueller. So on a public 16 record, I have transmitted my representation of 17 March 2nd. I'm going to talk about March 2nd in a 18 bit, too. 19 I'm also going to talk about tentative 20 steps. And I'm going to talk about tentative 21 steps of the City of Winnipeg. I'm going to link 22 it together. I'm going to link it together with 23 my representation on March 2nd. It's got my ugly 24 mug on the front and the CBC logo in the bottom 25 corner. There is representation of Mr. David 03141 1 Anderson back to Clifton, about two letters I 2 wrote to him. And he also referenced a letter to 3 Mr. Dithers. And I have the letter to Mr. Dithers 4 in here. And I'm going to talk about that and I'm 5 going to try and work through some difficult 6 issues. 7 I'm going to thank people again. I'm 8 going to thank Mr. Gary Filmon and Mr. Lloyd 9 Axworthy for saving the day. I'm going to thank 10 Mr. Richard Bowering for his diligent efforts over 11 eight long years dealing with the likes of me. 12 I'm sure those folks remember the International 13 Inn where we could have lynched them and that we 14 didn't. We still talk about it, we still write 15 about it. 16 And Mr. Bowering was one of the folks 17 that saved Winnipeg. He's retiring this summer 18 and he's got to be commended. But there's some 19 people that's still in the valley that still rely 20 on people to do it right. 21 I wrote about the West Dyke, the West 22 Dyke extension, the illegal West Dyke extension 23 and I write to the former director. And you know, 24 most of the food fellows are passing, retiring, 25 our demographics are getting older. But I wrote 03142 1 to Mr. Strachan, sat down with Mr. Webb, and I 2 thanked him very much for granting me a meeting 3 with short notice. I appreciate the department 4 had not yet shot the messenger and we can continue 5 to dialogue. 6 I had said my lobbying for sound, 7 rational, sustainable development is not for 8 greater personal benefit as we had made 9 significant flood proofing of our home and 10 property our own personal priority. 11 You know, we personally started at 12 768.5. I'm going to set the basement windows, the 13 bottom of my basement windows at 778.5. That's 14 where I'm going to start. And I'm going to step 15 all the way back. And when we're done, maybe we 16 have a little bit of personal security, a little 17 bit. But that's where it started. 18 And you know, nobody ever understood 19 why it costs so much money, why it took so long 20 and what the hell are you doing, Mr. Clifton. 21 They never came out to ask, you know. 22 I'm going to read into the record 23 because they didn't transcribe it, but I'm going 24 to suggest that we've got some tough medicine to 25 take. 03143 1 You know, Mr. Steve Strang, from St. 2 Clements, talked about Buckley's. He talked about 3 taking Buckley's, tastes awful. It's good for 4 you. You know, I'm going to proposition you, sir, 5 that I have given you a record. And within your 6 record, Mr. Chair, it's a little bit different 7 than anybody else's. The second page of your 8 record is a record of reference, reference from a 9 senior minister of the Government of Canada saying 10 Mr. Clifton is a pretty good guy. And, you know 11 what, he's actually thinking Mr. Clifton -- does 12 yours say "TS" on the top corner? You'd better 13 get the one that says that and stop your clock, 14 please. I provided six and one of them had "TS" 15 on the top corner. You are Terry Sergeant, aren't 16 you? 17 THE CHAIRMAN: I am indeed. 18 MR. P. CLIFTON: That's what "TS" is 19 about. In that, there is a letter of reference 20 about Mr. Clifton. Senior Minister, Mr. Reg 21 Alcock, now, senior Minister of Manitoba is 22 thinking, you know, Mr. Clifton I think you have 23 some insights here and I think you can maybe help. 24 Mr. Chair, I suggest to you that we've 25 got some tough medicine. And the tough medicine 03144 1 is for Mr. Doer. And I think if you and I can 2 work together, you are independent of government 3 and you can make some strong recommendations. But 4 I think we can give Mr. Doer some medicine that he 5 needs to take. And he might spit up the first 6 spoonful but we'll give him a second one. And he 7 might spit up that, too, and we'll try again. 8 You know, and I think, sir, that you 9 and your independents can recommend that we delay 10 things just long enough to sort out some of this 11 stuff. We're going to build the damn floodway. 12 Some of us are not going to like it. We're going 13 to have to take some medicine and we might spit it 14 out but we can all work together. Gall darn-it, 15 sir, we're all in this together. That's my point. 16 That's where I'm coming from, sir. 17 You know, in this, the presentation 18 I've got before, International Joint Commission. 19 You know, those people heard. And there's one 20 name, I'm going to make a personal recommendation 21 here, there's only one name that's common 22 throughout that has to set aside. We have to move 23 him on because there is such contempt. There is 24 such anger, there is such frustration. On the 25 first page, I represented on February 11, 1998 to 03145 1 the International Joint Commission, task force the 2 International Joint Commission. It sets the 3 presenters there. The second line of the 4 presenters is a name of a gentleman. That 5 gentleman has to be set aside. That gentleman has 6 to go back to the City Water and Waste Department 7 and that gentleman has to go back and start 8 working on their sewer systems. And you know, 9 sir, you know that man was, I feel, was the 10 hangman. He's the guy that advanced emergency 11 operation. 12 You know, it's like driving through a 13 strange city. That's Montreal, for Canada. Or 14 even better, Boston, Massachusetts. You know, 15 we've got a tough road to hold here. I don't know 16 this city. Gall, there's lots of cars. Is it 17 ever busy. Do they ever drive fast. 18 You know, kids, it's going to be a 19 rough ride, let's just shut up in the back. You 20 know, Winnipeg, it's going to be a rough ride, we 21 built the thing for 169,000 CFS. We've got water 22 coming down the river. You know what, the kid in 23 the back said, dad, go this way. And dad turned 24 that way and gall darn-it, he got lost. And he 25 set an attitude that he's going to be making just 03146 1 a damn mess, scratch up the car and all of that 2 because Winnipeg wasn't ready. 3 You know what, ice has got to clear as 4 it has repeatedly cleared through the river 5 channel, not the manmade channel, through the 6 river channel. And you know, they've got to have 7 their infrastructure there. The ice has got to 8 clear through the river channel as it has for 9 10,000 years or more. We don't start operating 10 the floodway until the ice is clearly cleared. Or 11 we spend a couple hundred million dollars and take 12 the plug out and we put an ice structure in there 13 that can take that. 14 But do you know what, in 1979, they 15 had to dynamite the ice. And it was ineffective. 16 In 1997, the city wasn't ready, they 17 were clamoring, clamoring, clamoring, get that 18 floodway going, and they operated it at night. 19 Woke me out of bed with dynamite and it was 20 ineffective. And they floated it. 21 They should be recommending that they 22 always operate at eight in the morning. If you're 23 going to operate the floodway, it's going to be at 24 eight in the morning for sure so everybody can see 25 the drastic change that happens. Not overnight in 03147 1 the dark of the night but eight in the morning so 2 we can all see. 3 Okay. I represented to the task 4 force, the IJC, I represented to the IJC on 5 May 15, 2000 and I want to read into the record so 6 that this thing ends up on your website so anybody 7 across Canada can see this. Anybody across Canada 8 can scan this. Everybody can understand where I'm 9 coming from and where my neighbours are coming 10 from and what we need to work through. 11 Additionally, I'd like to again thank 12 the CBC Television Network for their interest in 13 Cliftons and their continued interest in this 14 story, and my use of their copyrighted material. 15 The recording starts, CBC National News, May 2, 16 1997. 17 ANNOUNCER: CBC news. 18 PETER MANSBRIDGE: (Anchor) 19 Tonight, winning the war against the 20 Red. 21 MAYOR SUSAN THOMPSON: I feel a lot 22 more comfortable, as does our city. 23 PETER MANSBRIDGE: Winnipeg stays dry. 24 MAXINE CLIFTON: We're going to lose 25 it. 03148 1 Crying on my shoulder. 2 PETER MANSBRIDGE: Not so outside the 3 city. You can clearly see the 4 floodway and the Brunkild dyke and its 5 extension protecting the City of 6 Winnipeg. And below, a huge spread of 7 blue. That's the flooding, 40 8 kilometres across at its widest point 9 tonight, and that's the problem area, 10 south of the City of Winnipeg. It's 11 been a terrible day for the people 12 south of the City of Winnipeg. The 13 CBC's Reg Sherren begins our coverage 14 tonight with their story. 15 REG SHERREN: (CBC reporter) They 16 may be holding water back just fine, 17 but people just to the south are 18 starting to feel like sacrificial 19 lambs. Paul and Maxine Clifton are a 20 good example. 21 MAXINE CLIFTON: Water Resources feel 22 very sorry for us. They said they are 23 putting us under to protect more 24 Winnipeg homes. 25 REG SHERREN: To control the water 03149 1 upstream of the city, officials are 2 adjusting the huge floodgates, backing 3 up water and flooding people upstream. 4 You know, Larry Whitney, credible engineer, he 5 couldn't be part of this because he couldn't go 6 from 768 to 778 telling a lie. He retired. He 7 retired because he couldn't be part of what these 8 folks are trying to do. We'll talk. 9 LARRY WHITNEY: I can't tell them how 10 to feel certainly, but you know, we 11 can't help them very much by operating 12 the floodway, certainly, you know, 13 they are not being sacrificed, they 14 are not being helped by the floodway. 15 This is... 16 ROBERT STARR: Paul Clifton. Paul 17 Clifton's place. He's still hanging 18 in there. 19 PAUL CLIFTON: I'll just yell out to 20 him, if you can cut down. See, 21 they're not letting up on Winnipeg. 22 They are holding Winnipeg at 24.5. 23 ROBERT STARR: That's right. 24 MARIVAL TARUC: 24,000 Manitobans 25 are now forced to leave their home. 03150 1 Many are from low-lying areas in and 2 around the city. The evacuation is 3 orderly but a few choose to stay 4 behind and fight. It's a sight Maxine 5 Clifton sees everyday and she brings 6 in supplies to her husband who chooses 7 to stay behind and fight for their 8 home. They live on Red River Drive. 9 MAXINE CLIFTON: I used to have a 10 real nice chain link fence around our 11 property, three buildings now gone 12 through it. Here's Paul's shop. I 13 don't know how....with a ten foot 14 ceiling in it, and that's all that's 15 left. Here's my home and our dyke 16 here now. You have put it up, haven't 17 you? 18 MARIVAL TARUC: While all their land 19 and property is under about seven feet 20 of water, the eight foot dyke around 21 their home is holding, no thanks, they 22 say, to the floodway. 23 PAUL CLIFTON: That has backed the 24 water up somewhat, and we've seen 25 increases anywhere from eight inches 03151 1 to a foot overnight. So we've always 2 had a battle to get enough sand bags. 3 MARIVAL TARUC: The Clifton's home is 4 only one of two there left in the 5 neighbourhood that hasn't flooded. 6 Paul Clifton says the reason is 7 simple: Despite the mandatory 8 evacuation order, he has refused to 9 leave his home. 10 PAUL CLIFTON: Yeah, it's too 11 late to be tired. It's just 12 something...we've got to win, we've 13 got to beat this thing. 14 REG SHERREN: As we head back in, 15 Paul Clifton feels like weeping 16 himself. He fought hard to keep his 17 home and he is not ready to give it up 18 yet. 19 PAUL CLIFTON: Plain effort, and we 20 hope to win here. We hope to win." 21 Then I go on and talk about rules, rules, 22 inclusion, I talk about apportionment of water. I 23 talk about 1962 agreement. I talk about 24 Environment Canada's responsibility, I talk about 25 Federal approval. I talk about the '84 program of 03152 1 operation. I talk about rules as it relates to 2 consultants in the study of the work. I talk 3 about KGS being conveniently mute on the issues of 4 upstream flooding. Rules as it relates to flood 5 easement, damage compensation. And to KGS's 6 credit they present the Ste. Agathe detention 7 option, noting the need for flood easement, flood 8 damage compensation. And you know what, I went on 9 further, and you know what, Mr. Doer is too 10 stubborn, too pig-headed, or just ill-informed, 11 but he's not reading the signs. And Canada is 12 clearly giving him the signs. I write in here, 13 "Following the 1950 Red River flood, a 14 Royal Commission study, the detention 15 option was dismissed as a non-starter. 16 We collectively must get the flood 17 waters to Lake Winnipeg in the 18 mightiest of all ditches, in full 19 consultation with all interested 20 stakeholders in setting rules that we 21 can all live with. At least then we 22 can spend a megawatt or two and send 23 our friendly neighbours to the south a 24 bit of power At least we can push the 25 power uphill. We are tired, but let 03153 1 me assure you we're going to win this 2 thing." 3 Mr. John Godfrey, the guy that's funding this 4 project came to town. He said, Mr. Doer, I'm in 5 with you on the western power grid. We don't want 6 to go west to Alberta because they can undercut 7 us, we want to go east to Ontario. And I'm going 8 to give you a couple of billion dollars to build a 9 power line west. And you know, forever you're 10 going to make revenue off that power line, and 11 you're going to have lots of money coming into 12 this province. You're going to build Conawapa, 13 you're going to expend power, and you are going to 14 make money. And let's spread the wealth. 15 I'm suggesting to you, sir, that you 16 and I, with that recommendation, I think that you 17 can go to the premier and I think he would likely 18 listen to you, through your Minister. You can 19 recommend that this guy goes back to where he came 20 from because we have to talk this through, we 21 don't have to do it in this forum, but we have to 22 give some medicine. It will be you and I and 23 we'll call -- 24 And if we need some help in time, 25 we'll get a Federal court judge, and we'll give 03154 1 Mr. Doer the -- I have insights, I have knowledge, 2 I have worked on my default position for seven 3 years. My default position was these people 4 aren't going to listen. I'm playing out my 5 default position. 6 I am today presenting closing 7 statements to the Clean Environment Commission, 8 March 7th. You know, the other day I had 9 something on, I had to get to the CEC hearing 10 downtown, and gall darn-it, I forgot my laptop. 11 So I go home, get changed, because I had worked up 12 a sweat, that servo bridge was heavy. And you 13 know what, I was on the way back in a hurry 14 because I was late for Mr. Sargeant's meeting. 15 You know, Winnipeg's finest, they saw Paul Clifton 16 screaming down the road and they stopped me, red 17 lights come on. Oh, driver's licence, 18 registration, yeah. Going a little fast. Yeah, 19 I've got a meeting downtown with Mr. Sargeant. 20 Well, you are exceeding the natural. Yeah, I am 21 exceeding the natural. He says, well, just sit 22 down in your van, we'll get back to you. 23 You know, I was exceeding the natural, 24 I was going 94 in a 60, I was well over the 25 natural. Yeah, I was exceeding the natural. You 03155 1 know, he came back after 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 I'm thinking I'm late, I'm late, hurry up. And he 3 comes back and says, you were speeding. 4 Mr. Clifton, you were going 94, you were exceeding 5 the natural. He says here is your summons. He 6 said, you know, you can appeal this. And you 7 know, I had this jovial laugh, I haven't had a 8 jovial laugh in about seven years. Maxine said, 9 you know what, I remember that laugh, Paul. 10 Appeal this? I'm not going to appeal this. I'm 11 going to pay it, I'm going to pay the $230 because 12 I was exceeding the natural. That's what society 13 is about. 14 You know, appeal it? Fight it? Fight 15 it? I don't have deep pockets like Manitoba. I 16 don't have deep pockets like Canada. But, you 17 know, I exceeded the natural so I've got to pay. 18 You know, that's what it's about. That's what 19 it's about. 20 Cumulative environmental effects, you 21 know, we have talked lots about this, and we're 22 going to talk more. You know Websters home office 23 dictionary, cumulative, to heap together, heap up. 24 Some of it's in a heap all right. Cumulative, 25 becoming greater by successive addition. We've 03156 1 done additions, we've shifted, we've shifted. 2 We've shifted water out in the valley, and we just 3 don't have a damned agreement, but we'll just keep 4 shifting or trying to shift. I've got to push 5 back, I need your help to push back. 6 As presented, it cannot and will not 7 satisfy the requirements of the Canadian 8 Environmental Assessment Act. This is likely all 9 a dry run. This is likely all practice. 10 You know, I have been here to the 11 Clean Environment Commission six, this is the 12 sixth time I have been presenting to this guy. 13 But do you know why I have such a problem? He 14 didn't do it, he didn't protect Winnipeg. He 15 didn't save Winnipeg, he was the opposition 16 leader. And they almost lost Winnipeg, they 17 almost lost Winnipeg, and they could never lose 18 Winnipeg, so they advanced floodway. 19 Then in June of 1997, they advanced 20 the project we're talking about now. With federal 21 funds, they topped up the West Dyke by five and a 22 half feet, the existing West Dyke, without 23 provincial licence. They went in and they beefed 24 up the gates. I tried to bring it in here, 25 because we can look in books, and that, talk about 03157 1 that. They beefed the gates up, because you know 2 what, we can't ever let Winnipeg flood. But, by 3 God, be honest, be honest. 4 Now there's a real problem here, 5 because you know what, Lloyd Axworthy cut a deal 6 to do that, Minister Lloyd Axworthy cut a deal to 7 do that. Jon Gerard, you know, all these names, 8 they ended up before a Federal Court judge. Jon 9 Gerard, the Liberal leader of Manitoba, was the 10 Minister of Western Economic Diversification when 11 they fronted $15 million. 12 You know, Deputy Premier Jean Friesen, 13 she was involved in cutting the deal with water, 14 to get the sign off of the people -- Deputy 15 Premier of this province. Mr. Doer got in because 16 the last guy was shenanigans in the Interlake. He 17 inherited this mess, and we've got to live with 18 whatever the politicians do. But, you know, the 19 trouble was, Lloyd Axworthy tasked the 20 International Joint Commission. And Paul Clifton 21 goes up there and shows that God damned video. It 22 says they are flooding the valley. And you look 23 at it and you see it across the country, and they 24 were flooding the valley. 25 You know, and some poor lady asked me, 03158 1 can you help? You know, we've been at this all 2 '69, '74, '76, '79, '96 and '97, can you help get 3 the engineers to listen up? This wasn't -- you 4 know, the engineers were given an impossible task 5 to sell this politically-driven thing. The way it 6 should work, engineers come up with a project, 7 they come up with a perfect project, and they take 8 it to the politicians. And the politicians sell 9 it, not the other way around. We're going to 10 build a floodway, but we're going to expose this 11 stuff and we're going to have to talk. 12 I showed, I got all this stuff. And 13 you know what, Canada wants to help. So I haven't 14 been shaming them. Stuff that tells and details 15 this, 54 federal cabinet records are sheltered 16 because it would prove it. 17 Mr. Filmon's transfer of government 18 records goes over to the archives. Executive 19 council records go to the archives. We go to the 20 archivist and they say, you can't see that it -- 21 it is going to take five years, and you can see it 22 five years after the change of government. So I 23 say, you know what, I want to see it, it's been 24 six years since change of government. They come 25 back and say no, no, 30 years, 30 years from a 03159 1 change of government we can look at the records. 2 So we've got to stop this project for 3 23 years, we've got to hold this project for 23 4 years, and then we'll look at that and we'll know 5 about the deal. 6 City of Winnipeg's infrastructure. 7 You know, they flew the plane into the ground 8 because the city wasn't ready. The city had 9 connived and changed this thing, and 10 systematically changed this thing and 11 systematically changed this thing, it's gone from 12 flood protection from the Red River flood topping 13 the primary dykes to sewer relief. 14 As the city grows you need permanent 15 pumps to pump over these primary dykes. But it 16 was 17 dry years and they said, let's put in 17 temporary. So they put a pipe in. If there's a 18 spring flood, we bring the pumps in, put it down 19 there and pump. What about summer heavy rains, 20 guys? 21 Flood protection level. They said in 22 this report, floodway operating rules committee, 23 residents weren't allowed to go to that, they said 24 it is going to cost 270 additional million dollars 25 to bring this city to the legislated flood 03160 1 protection level. We have legislation to follow, 2 all of us. But the city's governance was the City 3 of Winnipeg Act, and now it's the City of Winnipeg 4 Charter Act. Different, but we're all in this 5 together. 6 International Joint Commission. You 7 know what, the trouble was Mr. Axworthy tasked 8 these guys. Mr. Axworthy said, let's look at 9 this. And they came back with a recommendation 10 saying, they've got to do this, including this, 11 including that. 12 You know what, the former director, 13 Mr. Larry Strachan, got a letter from Mr. Ernie 14 Gilroy. Mr. Gilroy writes to him and says, you 15 know, Mr. Strachan, I am the CEO of the Manitoba 16 Floodway Expansion Authority. I want to remove 17 flood protection infrastructure from the City of 18 Winnipeg from the project. I want to remove 19 dredging as well. 20 Three days later he writes a letter, 21 yeah, we'll remove that, yeah. We'll trust the 22 City of Winnipeg, they'll get to it, they'll get 23 to it. 24 Trust, medicine, Buckley's, you and 25 me. 03161 1 Yep, December 4, 2003. You know what, 2 2002 in October, Canada, Manitoba, City of 3 Winnipeg undertook this is what we had to do, and 4 it included this significant -- the ice has got 5 to, got to, got to clear through the river 6 channel, not the floodway channel. If it has to 7 go to 24.5 James to clear the ice, before we start 8 operate the floodway, it has to do that, it has 9 to, has to, has to. 10 Primary issues to resolve. Well, I 11 told you that they already selected the floodway, 12 they selected the floodway in 1997, about June. 13 But what sort of capacity? Well, they said it was 14 one in 700. Well, that's fine. But they talk 15 about this, whether or not reliance on raising the 16 water levels above the state of nature. You 17 weren't tasked with allowing to look at natural. 18 It's likely, it's in the Hansard -- not Hansard's, 19 it's in the transcripts that you likely don't have 20 privy to do that. 21 I don't agree with how they calculate 22 the natural. That is fundamental to operation. 23 And then they are saying, you as a citizen of 24 Canada, living in the valley, you can't have any 25 benefit from the $660 million, this is for 03162 1 Winnipeg. How is Mr. Dithers going to sell that 2 to the people in the valley? 3 So, when forced to be necessary by 4 extreme floods is it acceptable to Manitobans? I 5 would sense that you would find that it's not 6 acceptable. If these people come into your 7 kitchen and explain, don't have these things that 8 say okay, I'm going to come into Ste. Agathe, and 9 I'm going to go to Howden Hall, but I am not going 10 to go into St. Adolph, the biggest ring dyke 11 community, I'm not going to talk to those people. 12 You know what, they are intimidated by engineers, 13 slick three-piece suits, big bucks. You know, 14 they are just common folks that, you know, nothing 15 wrong with them, but, you know, floodway 16 operation, operation, operation, operation. I 17 don't care what you build. Build whatever you 18 want. Spend two billion dollars, build whatever 19 you want, but I've got an opinion on how you 20 operate it. I've got a strong opinion on how you 21 operate it. 22 You know, it was built 60/40, Canada 23 60, 40 Manitoba. Spring operation, there was an 24 emergency operation in the original plan, but we 25 will argue that. You know, you and I will argue 03163 1 that with Mr. Doer, Mr. Filmon if we need to, 2 Mr. Cummings, all of those people know what it was 3 originally for. 4 There wasn't an emergency operation 5 until 1972, or '70 in their program, but they only 6 distributed it publicly. I represented to 7 Mr. Terry Duguid. He said to people, my job is to 8 report, report what you said. If you listen to 9 the tapes, I said 1962 or so. You look at the 10 brief submission of record. It's been edited and 11 it says '72. Mr. Terry Duguid didn't know that. 12 These folks are editing my representation. 13 Operation -- summer emergency. There 14 is not an agreement to have summer emergency. 15 Summer emergency is almost, almost but certainly 16 as it relates to the environment worse than spring 17 with the exception of filling houses. As I said, 18 before the frost is out of the ground. You know, 19 I don't think you can recommend that if we have 20 summer operation, we can proceed. 21 And then just for good measure, let's 22 throw in summer, fall operation and recreation 23 operation and see if they choke. I choked after 24 the first one. I can live with the first one, and 25 I can likely with some discussion live with 03164 1 emergency operation, but gall darn-it, I'm choking 2 on the last one. 3 Program of operation was reviewed 4 without resident participation. You know, it was 5 so bad -- can I ask, have I been half an hour, how 6 long have I been? 7 THE CHAIRMAN: A bit over half an 8 hour. 9 MR. P. CLIFTON: I had to go federal 10 access to information, and they keep immaculate 11 records, the Federal Government. And I had to 12 write, based on what the International Joint 13 Commission said, I had to write and say, you know, 14 they are not letting me review the operating 15 rules. I want to know what's going on. What are 16 they talking about? They are having ten meetings. 17 What do they talk about? 18 So I wrote to Environment Canada and 19 said, give me the records of this discussion. 20 Give me the records that you dealt with flood 21 easement, flood damage compensation, and inclusion 22 of interested parties. You know, they said 23 Mr. Clifton, for $750, I'll give you the records, 24 but you've got to give me money up front. 25 So I sent them a cheque for $400. And 03165 1 they said, yeah, it will take me some time, I've 2 got to talk to Manitoba. They were sensitive, 3 this Manitoba, but they have got records. But, 4 you know, give Paul Clifton the records. They 5 said, and by the way, it's going to cost a 100 and 6 some dollars to print them all, because there is 7 so many of them. I'll pay 100 dollars. You know 8 what, $800 later, I get the orders. I look at it 9 and there's some missing records. Manitoba is not 10 releasing records. Secrets. Secrets. We can't 11 have secrets. 12 It took me six years to get nine of 11 13 records. And I told you about 197, 198. The new 14 man, Mr. Dithers, he's not the old man. Jean 15 Chretien got into something over his head. 16 Flooded a bunch of people on the deal, Susan 17 Thompson, Gary Filmon, Lloyd Axworthy. And then 18 they saw our ugly mug on CBC News at night in 19 Ottawa, Hull, Gatineau. We can't admit to that. 20 We can't admit to that. Yeah, they should be 21 embarrassed. 22 As recommended by IJC, page 31, 23 clearly, equity. Staged development. You know, 24 we got hung up with this staged development. I'm 25 going to build a floodway, $62 million, 60/40 03166 1 split. I'm going to build it. You're going to 2 tell me how you're going to operate it before 3 you're done. So they built the darn thing. '69, 4 they operated and people complained. And they 5 wrote back and I talked about this. And they said 6 and by the way, we got a contract here. These 7 people in the valley are saying this is doing them 8 harm. You had to provide a program. So they did. 9 A year later 1970, emergency operation 10 in it. That word, emergency operation, has done 11 untold damage, untold harm and untold effect to 12 the psyche of Canadians. 13 Staged development, 33 years later, 14 Mr. Anderson gives approval. And by the way, 15 Manitoba asks to please rescind the residual 16 obligation for further changes. So they did. And 17 you know what, for a while, they blocked those 18 documents as federal cabinet confidences from me. 19 So through the Federal Access Information Act, I'm 20 looking through the key hole of the door. I'm 21 looking through the key hole of the door, trying 22 to look at the writing on that little page to do 23 with that. And you know, Mr. Dithers, he saw that 24 we're not operating like Mr. Jean Chretien did. 25 You've done terrible harm in the valley and we're 03167 1 not going to operate like that. 2 And you know somehow, through the 3 deputy minister, in June, June, those two pages 4 arrived. And I took them to my friend Bruce Webb 5 right away. I took them to Dan McNaughton of the 6 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act right away. 7 They don't operate by the rules. Those rules are 8 only guidelines. This is my reservoir. I'm 9 allowed to do this. You are not allowed to do 10 this. We need some medicine, Mr. Doer. 11 Interim. Canada knew that we needed 12 to flood to protect Winnipeg. Canada knew that 13 they were likely going to partner with the rest of 14 the flood protection for the City of Winnipeg and 15 it really is just channel. That's all we're 16 looking at now is just a channel. Top up the West 17 Dyke a little bit more, but just top it up. 18 Mr. McNeil already says that we're not 19 topping up the West Dyke to increase the flood 20 protection. I showed you that on the map. They 21 got the dyke to Brunkild already. They are just 22 topping up for free board. So you know what we 23 got, my dear wife Maxine, she is much smarter than 24 me. She always has been. She told me three years 25 ago they are doing this all now and we in the 03168 1 valley are going to be clamoring to finish the 2 gall darn thing because we are at extreme risk 3 because they got the -- you know, they got the 4 gates reconfigured. 5 Mr. Doer went, about six weeks ago, to 6 the capital region, this grandiose thing. We're 7 all going to come together, we're all going to be 8 partners, we're all going to feel good. He 9 presented and he discussed and you know what. Our 10 reeve was there. And our reeve heard him say we 11 have reconfigured the gates. 12 You know, Minister Steve Ashton, he 13 likes splashy pictures as well. He walks out of 14 one of the gates and he says we are proceeding 15 with floodway expansion. Where is your licence, 16 Mr. Ashton? Where is your licence? 17 Maxine wrote to Jim McCrae. You may 18 not remember but seven years ago, Jim McCrae was 19 the Minister for the Environment for Manitoba. 20 She said, Mr. McCrae, please do not do any 21 enhanced flood protection of the City of Winnipeg 22 without an environmental assessment. He writes 23 back and says don't worry, don't worry, I will. I 24 know I got to, I got to. But do you know, in the 25 meantime, Steve Topping engineer, Rick Bowering 03169 1 engineer, and others, are tendering in the paper 2 to move 400,000 cubic metres of mud. So did the 3 minister know? I think he did know. I think they 4 knew how close they came to losing Winnipeg. 5 We can't lose Winnipeg. We never said 6 flood the bastards. We have been flooded. We 7 know what it's like. 8 The natural floodway operation again 9 CEC is likely out of scope. That's fundamental. 10 More medicine, Mr. Doer. 11 Past operating errors to be 12 considered. You know, Carson, Mr. Rick Carson, he 13 was involved with others in a report called 14 "Problems with Red River Floodway." There is no 15 problems with this project either. Never been any 16 problems. There is a report that says there was 17 problems. They swamp the people in '74. They 18 really swamped the people in '76. And I purport 19 to you, they made an operating error. Didn't let 20 the ice clear. Tried to blast it and floated the 21 ice. It's backwards. 22 You know, it was always supposed to be 23 the other way around. They retain the valley as a 24 reservoir. The valley is massive in size. It's 25 flat, can hold a lot of water. 03170 1 Page number 31. Clearly, the 2 protection of the City of Winnipeg must be given 3 high priority. We know that. We have talked 4 about that. Clearly it must be. But it's equally 5 clear, and I add, it didn't read twice, underlined 6 bold, but I added this. Equally clear that 7 proposals for additional flood protection for the 8 city or alterations to the operating rules for the 9 Winnipeg Floodway. Winnipeg Floodway? This is 10 the Red River floodway. They think it's theirs? 11 You know what, let's give it to the City of 12 Winnipeg. Chuck Howard said put on the sonars 13 incremental dollar values. Give it to Winnipeg. 14 Incremental dollar values. 15 You know, I'm going to touch on that a 16 little bit because this is part of the 17 recommendation. I have written down but I am not 18 a dam expert and I saw a picture of those anchors. 19 And I knew they were dam anchors. And I went to a 20 dam expert in Manitoba Hydro. And the guy came 21 and talked to me and said those are DYWIDAGs. And 22 I talked about DYWIDAGs. I'm not going to go into 23 that. But you know, he said this $660 million, 24 that's going to increase your flood protection, 25 isn't it? No. No? What about the ring dykes out 03171 1 there? Are they going to top the ring dykes up? 2 No. You mean to say that they are going to build 3 the floodway without topping up those ring dykes? 4 That's right. They can't do that. I said they 5 are doing it. 6 And I said, George, you know what, 7 what do you think, George, if you paid $25 a year 8 on your property taxes, called it our flood 9 protection levy? What would you think, George, if 10 you had paid $25 a year on a flood protection levy 11 and from that, there's a reasonable assurance you 12 will never be flooded? Geez, that's cheap. I'd 13 do that. 14 You know what, flood easement has got 15 to be there and flood damage compensation has got 16 to be there. And you know what, they could do it. 17 Twenty-five dollars a year for every homeowner, 18 every apartment dweller go into a pot, an 19 independent pot. 20 You know what, take $12.50 and fund 21 flood protection infrastructure of the City of 22 Winnipeg. Get that done, get that out of the way 23 so they can take a little bit more water. And 24 then forever and a day, $12.50 from every 25 residents of the city goes into a pot. There's no 03172 1 dickering around, there's no screwing around to 2 see who's got the deepest pockets in the courts. 3 They've got deeper pockets than me but I have an 4 opportunity at an environmental assessment hearing 5 to give my opinion. It costs me a little bit of 6 money, a whole bunch of time. I am poor because 7 of them. 8 Transparency, transparency, 9 transparency. To his good grace, the retiring 10 Ombudsman, Barry Tuckett, talked about integrity 11 of government and where the access to information 12 is to ensure integrity, ensure democracy. They 13 are doing our public bidding, Mr. Doer, 14 Mr. Dithers. I think Mr. Dithers is trying to 15 help. I think Mr. Doer has got to get on board. 16 I recommend. I'm not saying stop. I'd never say 17 stop because you wouldn't listen. But I'm saying 18 delay the licensing recommendation. We've got to 19 do some behind closed doors stuff. 20 Minister of the Environment, David 21 Anderson, now it's Stephane Dion. I told you what 22 Stephane Dion thinks about the need for a national 23 environmental assessment scheme. I purport to you 24 that's because what goes on in Manitoba. They 25 know what goes on in Manitoba. Approval letter 03173 1 strongly recommends two things. He talked about 2 additional measures. Additional measures 3 recommended by the Red River Floodway Operating 4 Rules Review Committee and the International Joint 5 Commission. 6 Primary dyke enhancements immediately 7 north have control structure, has sudden backwater 8 effect can result in the overtopping. Raising and 9 protecting the stability of seven bridges, 10 spanning the floodway as a potential backwater 11 effect can easily increase water levels upstream, 12 reducing the volume under water handled by the 13 floodway. 14 Address the needs for a comprehensive 15 understanding and improvements to ice management 16 that could block and impair the floodway channel. 17 They are politely saying they screwed up with ice 18 in '97. They are saying don't do it again. 19 And you know, Mr. Bowering is 20 listening. They have been very careful since '97 21 about ice. The infrastructure in the city has got 22 to be able to withstand the high water until the 23 ice clears. 24 He also talked about obstructions at 25 the inlet. I talked about that. 03174 1 They talked about in this letter, and 2 it's dated April 26, 2001, and I'm nervous. No 3 floodway operation with ice present. They talked 4 about inlet obstructions. The operating rules had 5 systematically shifted over time step by step by 6 step, moving flood waters into the upstream Red 7 River Valley. Manitoba's operations has been 8 plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus over the 9 natural, if we could agree on the natural. 10 IJC alterations to the operating rules 11 for the Winnipeg Floodway must take into account 12 the full economic, social and human costs to 13 people who live in the valley, people with hearts, 14 people with feelings. And, you know, they are 15 going to say, well, we've got 600,000 in the city, 16 we can work it out. Some strong medicine, strong, 17 strong medicine. 18 Significant uncertainty. The 19 authority of Manitoba to conduct valley wide 20 evacuations with force or otherwise. You know, 21 the dam operators have got one hell of a 22 difficulty because now there is a federal law that 23 can have an operator of a dam as well as a manager 24 of a dam. So for lack of another name, 25 Mr. Bowering, maybe even Mr. Doer, if they are 03175 1 still around, they operate the floodway and they 2 kill somebody. 3 In Ontario, OPG, Ontario Power 4 Generation, opened some spillway gates. Washed 30 5 sunbathers into the river. A mother and her son 6 died. The operator of that dam, and the executive 7 of that company are in the federal court defending 8 their actions. 9 I ask the question how are you going 10 to get people out of the valley, because they need 11 the people out of the valley. But people that 12 left the valley in 1997 fault themselves for 13 leaving. If I'd have stayed, I might have saved 14 it. Blame themselves, blame themselves. 15 Ernst & Young report. You've got to 16 recommend that we look at the Ernst & Young 17 report. And the Ernst & Young report was 18 commissioned to study the amalgamation of Disaster 19 Financial Assistance Board and EMO. And they 20 detail how efficient or I say how poorly, how gall 21 darn awful they treated compensation. Now these 22 guys are good operators. They operate real well. 23 I told you about that, 8 inches, a foot. These 24 guys are good good operators. They had no hand, 25 except in Clifton's case, except in Clifton's 03176 1 case, they transferred records back and forth, EMO 2 records from EMO to Water Branch to discount Paul 3 Clifton's credibility. They say Clifton is 4 fleecing the government. Don't believe him. 5 Mr. Stefaniuk, Valerie Rutherford, he's trying to 6 fleece us, don't you believe him. He's not 7 credible. I am credible, sir. 8 Executive council records. They are 9 in the archives. They talk about the deal. You 10 know what, we've got to get beyond that. We are 11 looking at a future project. We've got to get 12 beyond that but there's some work we have to do to 13 get beyond that. 14 Unnatural flooding. We had a terrible 15 time to get them to admit there was unnatural 16 flooding. Mr. Farlinger commissioned a company 17 out of B.C. I think it was, Klohn Crippen, and he 18 detailed a map to show where the unnatural 19 flooding was. And he showed, and from that, we 20 can determine that, yeah, I saw about 2 feet plus 21 or minus a foot, if you believe their numbers. We 22 think it's 3 and a half feet. They talk about one 23 in 700 year flood. No where does it show a detail 24 of the unnatural flooding. 25 So we're into the same argument. They 03177 1 say it's natural, I say it's not. They say prove 2 it, I say I don't have any money. You flooded me. 3 You know, where do we go, method of independent 4 adjudication of losses. 5 We weren't supposed to talk about '97 6 but I'm going to talk about 2002 summer operation. 7 They operated the floodway on June 18, 2002 8 without federal approval. We called A-Channel. 9 You know, the media like Cliftons. They came out. 10 I said I've got minority rights here. They are 11 operating the floodway and the rules say you 12 can't. They operate the floodway counter to the 13 rules and then they said, oh, we'd better ask the 14 federal minister. 15 So they asked Mr. Anderson for 16 approval. They talked to their lawyers. See your 17 lawyer for the Government of Canada. I can do 18 that, I think you can do that. But they promised. 19 I promise, I promise, I promise I'll pay 20 compensation. I promise. Yeah, Canada, I'll pay 21 compensation. Cliftons lose three-quarters of an 22 acre, slides down the river. It doesn't fall, it 23 slumps and goes. 24 I contact the flood damage reduction 25 engineer. He's the guy administering the 03178 1 compensation. You know, that's like a convicted 2 arsonist coming in, adjudicating on my fire loss. 3 They sent the flood damage reduction engineer out. 4 Look at my damages. He shakes his head with his 5 two other cronies and said we didn't do this. 6 So I go to the Director of Water 7 Branch, Mr. Steve Topping, professional engineer. 8 And I said, Mr. Topping, you have slumped my 9 riverbank and I have lost three-quarters of an 10 acre. You've got to pay for that. He writes back 11 and said, Mr. Clifton, you have material damages, 12 you don't have property damages. We're not 13 covering that essentially. 14 So a day short of two years, that last 15 week, Maxine and Paul Clifton are named in the 16 Provincial Court of Canada against Manitoba and 17 Canada. Interestingly, nobody has ever sued 18 Canada before. They say Canada say, or Manitoba 19 say I didn't do it. And if I did, prove it. 20 Canada is saying I built the damn 21 thing. I don't operate it, it's not mine, it's 22 theirs. And they are saying but by the way, I'm 23 cross-claiming against Manitoba. So if you, 24 Mr. Justice, determine that their loss is 25 legitimate, then Canada is suing the pants off 03179 1 Manitoba, not Clifton. Canada is listening. 2 You've got to hear the signs. 3 Included in that, who is counselling 4 the lawyer? Mr. Richard Bowering, Mr. Steve 5 Topping, the two top men in Water Branch are 6 counselling the lawyer for the province on how to 7 fight Clifton. 8 Lack of preparatory funding in advance 9 of the flood threat. You know, we've got all 10 these pimples or we've got these ring dykes around 11 our community. If there's going to be a flood 12 risk, we've got to do something. 2001, they were 13 starting to flood. The water is coming in my back 14 area. I said I need some help, I need some money. 15 They said no, the disaster hasn't been declared 16 yet, Mr. P. Clifton. If we declare a disaster, 17 we'll pay. 18 As a flood builds and builds and 19 builds and builds and gets big, the demand for 20 help is exponential. That's where flood easement 21 comes in. Where they have a little bit of money 22 in hand to say here. Also offsets for the 23 nuisance of maintaining flood protection 24 properties. 25 Lastly -- you know, I'm going to get 03180 1 it in. I'm going to get it in. The continued 2 need to dialogue remains. We've got some medicine 3 for Mr. Doer and I think we can work at it. To 4 implement a flood protection option that we can 5 all live with. 6 January 2002, Mr. Terry Duguid had 7 public consultation meetings, not hearings, 8 meetings. Public said compensation, number one. 9 Terms of reference of the KGS report. What does 10 that mean? It means 778 versus 768. There is 11 some uncertainty here in that they are saying it 12 was 770.25. The uncertainty is give me an 13 explanation, please, of the smoke and mirrors to 14 get from 768 to 770.25. 15 Program of operations. I don't care 16 what you build but I do care how you operate it. 17 Other options, I think that because 18 Mr. Doer is bound by what Mr. Filmon, Mr. Axworthy 19 did to advance floodway expansion, and I think 20 this is the project. Other people have said build 21 a 2-mile or a channel across the valley south. 22 Environmentally. It will be like trying to build 23 the floodway all over again. 24 Mr. Chair, commissioners, Winnipeggers 25 and Canadians, I have detailed to you that they 03181 1 have already advanced floodway expansion. 2 Winnipeg is at a far better position than they 3 were in 1997. We have time, somehow we have time 4 to talk about it, do it correctly. And, sir, I'm 5 done, I'm done, I'm done. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, 7 Mr. Clifton. I can't believe this may be the last 8 we see of you in these proceedings, Mr. Clifton. 9 It's been an interesting run so far. Thank you 10 very much for your participation throughout the 11 process. 12 MR. P. CLIFTON: Thank you very much, 13 Mr. Chair, and this is a difficult task you have 14 and I wish you well. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We will 16 take a break until quarter after 3:00. The panel 17 will take a few minutes of that time to consider 18 the arguments that were presented to us earlier 19 this afternoon. 20 21 (Proceedings recessed at 2:47 p.m. and 22 reconvened at 3;05 p.m.) 23 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Order please. I have 25 some brief comments to make in respect of the -- I 03182 1 call it a motion although it wasn't particularly 2 framed in the form of a motion, but we will 3 consider it to have been one. And the panel 4 discussed this and came to a unanimous agreement 5 on this position, and just by way of opening 6 comments or by way of prelude, what we saw here 7 today was somewhat symptomatic of the difficulty 8 that many members of the public, participants and 9 members of this panel have had with the materials 10 that have been filed. We would also comment that 11 the presentation that was made this morning should 12 more properly have been included as part of the 13 opening presentation made by the proponent three 14 weeks ago, I guess it is now. 15 Even at the time we felt that the 16 opening presentation should have been more 17 comprehensive. And we think it is a bit dangerous 18 to presume that the public, the participants and 19 the panelists have read all of the appendices, 20 especially when there isn't any kind of an index 21 or cross-referencing between the appendices and 22 the Environmental Impact Statement. 23 Having said all of that, however, we 24 are of the view that all of the information that 25 was presented this morning was included in the 03183 1 documents, granted albeit somewhat difficult to 2 find, but it was there. Perhaps with the lone 3 exception that Mr. McNeil did admit that this 4 public liaison committee may become a body that 5 covers the entire authority. 6 Nonetheless, we feel that the 7 information was present or was in existence, that 8 none of it was new to the process this morning, 9 and as a result the participants, the three 10 municipalities, would not be prejudiced by not 11 having an opportunity to cross-examine the 12 proponent on this morning's presentation. 13 So that's it. Back to questions from 14 the Clean Environment Commission. 15 MR. SCHWARTZ: Mr. Chair? 16 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schwartz. Speak 17 into the microphone. 18 MR. SCHWARTZ: By way of ensuring we 19 were maximally transparent and that everybody had 20 sufficient notice of what we were going to say in 21 our closing statement, we are planning to submit 22 some legal argument that addressed in particular 23 some questions raised by Commissioner Webster. 24 Our plan was to distribute it on Thursday, but we 25 thought, as was done with the motions brief that 03184 1 was submitted by the three municipalities, it 2 might be useful and fair to distribute our draft 3 brief at this stage, submit it to the Commission 4 and make it available to the participants. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: This would be the brief 6 that you are going to be presenting on Thursday? 7 MR. SCHWARTZ: Yes. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: To what end would you 9 present it today? There is no chance, after you 10 have made your closing statements on Thursday, 11 there is no opportunity for any further 12 cross-examination by any of the participants. 13 There is always the opportunity for the panelists 14 to ask questions because we are supreme in that 15 sense. We can do whatever we want. But -- 16 MR. SCHWARTZ: To be clear, Mr. 17 Chairman, if I wasn't before, we were planning on 18 presenting it on Thursday, not now. The idea of 19 bringing it to your attention now and circulating 20 it is so that when other people are making their 21 closing arguments they can see in advance what it 22 is we are going to be saying. If I may, in your 23 discretion, it would take less than five minutes, 24 I want to identify where in the brief we have 25 addressed the points specifically raised by 03185 1 Commissioner Webster. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: That sounds very fair, 3 and I agree with your process, and it will give me 4 a moment or two to collect the next questions that 5 I wish to ask. 6 MR. SCHWARTZ: Okay. Again this is 7 not the argument, this is just the brief preview, 8 the trailer. Point one; I just want to make it 9 clear that the whole legal argument is premised on 10 the position that what must be assessed is 11 operations as well as construction. The fact that 12 a particular actor in the government here is 13 acting on behalf of other agencies with respect to 14 obtaining licences is in no way an attempt to 15 avoid the necessity and desirability of making 16 sure that these hearings and the licencing 17 minister thoroughly examine the extent to which 18 operations will have a different affect under the 19 expanded floodway as well as construction. 20 Part 5.3.3 of the terms of reference 21 of the EIS specifically mandated that the EIS look 22 at that issue. And it is the position of the MFA 23 that it has been obedient to that requirement. 24 Commissioner Webster asked about 25 statutory signals which support the incremental 03186 1 approach, where is it that the CEAA, or where does 2 the Manitoba statute use words like incremental or 3 how do we know that that is the case. I will try 4 to argue that more fully on Thursday, but what the 5 brief argues is that the preamble of the Federal 6 statute talks about assessment with a view to 7 assisting the Government before it makes 8 decisions, and it is a planning tool. And we are 9 going to argue the case law supports that. 10 Secondly, there is a definition of 11 environmental effect in the statute, and that 12 definition is how have you changed the 13 environment. So that concept of change, we are 14 going to argue, clearly feeds into the incremental 15 approach. 16 Third, definition of project includes 17 modification of existing projects and the case law 18 supports that position, suggesting that 19 environmental assessment can be of a modification, 20 something that's building on something that has 21 already been done. 22 We are also going to argue that with 23 any statute, Provincial statute or the Federal 24 statute, there is a presumption that it is not 25 retroactive and not retrospective, and we have 03187 1 provided the case law that supports that. It is a 2 go forward mechanism. 3 And we have already brought to your 4 attention, but it is in the brief too, the 5 passages from the Federal Practitioners Guide that 6 put the emphasis on incremental. 7 Commission Webster also asked about is 8 there anywhere in this process to argue how we can 9 make the world better, as well as not making the 10 world worse. As Mr. Osler tried to explain, not 11 making the world worse is very important from the 12 point of view of this process for legal as well as 13 policy purposes, because there is that trigger in 14 the Federal statute about not causing any 15 significant adverse effects. And it is our 16 position that if you had to make the entire world 17 better, every time you tried to make the world 18 somewhat better that would be a great deterrent to 19 try and improve on the past, whether natural or 20 the product of past projects. However, we have 21 also said in the brief, that if you look at the 22 sustainable guidelines, and MFA was required to do 23 so, under the terms of reference and under your 24 terms of reference, principle six talks about 25 reclamation and rehabilitation. Therefore, a 03188 1 reasonable question to ask in the course of doing 2 these other improvements is was there even more 3 that you could have done. The panelists have 4 attempted to address that in the past, and I'm 5 certain we will be happy to respond to your 6 questions about that. They have attempted to 7 identify various ways in which this does improve 8 on the past, fish passage, better roads, better 9 bridges, better erosion protection, more upstream 10 flood protection. Certainly they have studied 11 ways in which even more ambitious efforts could 12 have been made, lining the floodway, sealing 13 aquifers. But it is my understanding those were 14 found not to be feasible in this stage. 15 And a final question that might be 16 asked in this context and we can address it again 17 in closing, is anything being done here that 18 prevents further study and further improvements 19 being done later? And our submission is, no, that 20 maybe technology changes or information changes 21 and some things that are not feasible now can be 22 done later. It is MFA's position, though, that 23 nothing done at this stage is going to preclude 24 making the world even better at some later stage. 25 So that is what is going to be argued 03189 1 in the legal brief and I just thought it might be 2 helpful to respond at this stage because of 3 specific questions asked. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. It sounds 5 like our process will end more as a legal argument 6 than an environmental one. However, as a former 7 student of yours, I'm sure we will be in for a 8 very interesting argument. Conclude your 9 comments. 10 MR. SCHWARTZ: I promised not to go 11 more than five minutes, so that's all I have to 12 say. 13 MR. HANDLON: Just a practical matter, 14 the draft that we have references a number of 15 authorities, and we will be putting those together 16 so that the authorities referred to will be part 17 of the final brief. But we just wanted to make 18 sure that these legal positions, people were aware 19 of them, and had an opportunity to review it 20 before their submission. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Handlon. 22 I'm going to ask a couple of questions 23 about artificial flooding, and I'm sure they won't 24 be the last, but I have a couple right now. 25 We talked this morning, I think it was 03190 1 Mr. Cam Osler, was describing some of the effects 2 of the expansion of the floodway. Even with an 3 expanded floodway there will still be artificial 4 flooding, is that not so? 5 MR. C. OSLER: Yes, that is the case. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: And correct me if I'm 7 wrong, but if it is a 1997 level flood, the 8 artificial flooding will be a bit lower than it 9 is, than it was in '97, is that correct? 10 MR. MORGAN: No, there will be no 11 artificial flooding in the 1997 flood. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: No, artificial flooding 13 in 1997? 14 MR. MORGAN: Yes. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't have that 16 diagram in front of me, is that 1 in 120? 17 MR. MORGAN: That's correct. 18 THE CHAIRMAN: It starts to kick in at 19 1 in 120. And then up to a certain point the 20 expanded floodway artificial flooding will be less 21 than the current floodway artificial flooding? 22 MR. C. OSLER: Yes, in the sense that 23 the current floodway will operate and protect up 24 to a certain point. So as you go, as you start 25 it, the '97 flood, you see that the expanded 03191 1 floodway acts to get rid of artificial flooding. 2 Artificial flooding then starts to have an impact 3 at a certain point. And beyond a certain level of 4 flooding, the existing floodway would have reached 5 its capacity. I will let Dr. Morgan give you the 6 numbers. 7 MR. MORGAN: The existing floodway 8 would reach elevation 778 at the inlet at the 225 9 year flood level. And for the expanded floodway 10 it would be one metre lower at that same level, so 11 it will be lower for the expanded floodway up 12 until the 1 in 700 year flood level or the design 13 capacity of the expanded floodway. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. So then in 15 the EIS have you described and evaluated the 16 environmental effects of artificial flooding? 17 Even given that it is a reduced level of 18 artificial flooding, there is still artificial 19 flooding or potentially. 20 MR. C. OSLER: What we have done in 21 the EIS with respect to artificial flood is the 22 same as we have done with respect to all of the 23 other effects. We have looked, and I'm 24 paraphrasing, section 5.3.3 of the guidelines 25 which dealt with operation, what we were supposed 03192 1 to look at, we were supposed to discuss river 2 flows and levels, which is flooding, with and 3 without the expanded project. So we have looked 4 at upstream of the inlet structure, which is where 5 the artificial flooding occurs. We have looked at 6 it, what would be the level of artificial flooding 7 for different flood events without the project, 8 continuing with the current floodway and then with 9 the project, and have made the observations that 10 Dr. Morgan just went through. From that we have 11 said the pathway -- I did a diagram in exhibit 41 12 on this -- that essentially the operation of the 13 existing floodway results in this thing called 14 artificial flooding, which means that the flood 15 levels in certain areas upstream of the inlet are 16 higher than what is called natural. The effect of 17 the expanded floodway is to reduce that artificial 18 flooding under certain circumstances which we just 19 described. That pathway means that there would be 20 some benefit, some amelioration, some improvement 21 relative to the existing situation under those 22 flood events. We tried to assess, even though it 23 is a positive effect, we tried to see what we 24 could do to describe its nature throughout the 25 EIS. I don't think that we came to any major 03193 1 conclusions about things that we could quantify as 2 to, you know, paths of effects that came from it, 3 but we didn't ignore it. 4 In doing the existing environment, we 5 did provide information on the effects, the status 6 of the existing environment, the baseline, the 7 effects of the current floodway operation. And 8 particularly in the socio-economic section, as we 9 discussed a bit earlier on health, effects that 10 had been learned through the '97 flood in that 11 area. So we brought information out to make sure 12 we had the context properly in front of everyone 13 of the existing environment, this artificial 14 flooding, the nature of these operations, but we 15 didn't technically in a sense of an environmental 16 practitioner, we did not assess the effects of the 17 floodway today, and what it was causing, we didn't 18 do an environmental assessment of that project 19 historically. We did the assessment of the 20 project in front of us. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. In that respect 22 then, are you aware, are there any ongoing 23 conflicts or disputes between Federal agencies and 24 the flood authority in respect of the assessment 25 of artificial flooding effects? I mean, I had a 03194 1 chance to skim Mr. Gilroy's letter of March 3rd, 2 but I didn't read it in detail. 3 MR. C. OSLER: Sorry? 4 THE CHAIRMAN: I didn't read 5 Mr. Gilroy's March 3rd letter, I looked at it 6 quickly. I know there was some question on the 7 part of Federal agencies about -- 8 MR. C. OSLER: I think specifically it 9 is a matter of public record that Mr. Gilroy 10 received the letter in February. And it is now I 11 guess in the evidence of this hearing, given the 12 exhibit filed this morning, there is a letter to 13 Mr. Gilroy, February 16, from Infrastructure 14 Canada. And that letter discussed the issues of 15 the Federal assessment and in general made a 16 number of points that were very, very consistent 17 with what we are talking about in the sense of 18 screening, scope and approach. It ultimately 19 referenced the EIS guidelines, which have been 20 before all of us as the scoping source here. It 21 noted that the existing floodway has been in place 22 for more than 40 years and is not the project 23 under review. It noted that the EIS guidelines 24 requested information on the existing 25 environmental setting for the project. That is 03195 1 the environmental conditions with the existing 2 floodway in place. 3 So, effectively -- and it talked about 4 the existing environmental setting providing an 5 appropriate baseline for comparing the potential 6 effects of the proposed expansion. In reference 7 to environmental conditions that may have existed 8 prior to construction of the floodway during the 9 1960's, this letter said, is not considered 10 appropriate as the baseline for comparative 11 purposes in this screening. So in a very core 12 sense, the letter seemed to confirm our 13 understanding of the guidelines and the approach. 14 Now it did raise certain questions 15 under the matter of operations that we have been 16 seeking to get clarification on, and until the 17 discussions are finished, I can't tell you for 18 sure that the clarifications -- we are on the same 19 wave length. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: I think I probably made 21 reference to the wrong letter. There has been 22 some reference during these proceedings about a 23 letter from Health Canada that had some concerns 24 about artificial flooding and the assessment of 25 effects in that. Have those or are those being 03196 1 resolved, or are there even significant 2 differences of opinion in that regard? 3 MR. C. OSLER: I'm not aware of 4 significant differences of opinion in that regard. 5 We discussed that briefly at the beginning of this 6 hearing. That letter came out, the TAC people 7 sent us, PAT sent us certain things to comment on, 8 we did. There was a follow-up letter, and that's 9 the last I heard of that. I take this 10 Infrastructure Canada letter of February to be the 11 Federal government's considered views on all of 12 these matters. I'm sure that Infrastructure 13 Canada, as the lead RA, was taking into 14 consideration its legal positions, its obligations 15 as an RA, and the points of view of all of its 16 people. That's my understanding. So, I'm paying 17 attention to this more recent correspondence 18 rather than the initial comments which I think 19 were given quite quickly, and raised issues that I 20 think we could address and did address. 21 The operation question that you were 22 asking me questions about earlier I think is 23 lurking in the February letter, and it does 24 reference 5.3.3 of the guidelines. And when you 25 go back and look at that, I think our position and 03197 1 approach is supported. But I can understand that 2 this matter is -- it is not done until it is done 3 in terms of everybody finished thinking about it 4 and not trying to understand it. But to repeat, 5 our view, and we think it is consistent, but we 6 can't confirm it is consistent with the Federal 7 position until they say it is consistent, is that 8 we are assessing the operations of the project, 9 called the expansion. We are looking at the 10 effects of the expansion. And we are doing it as 11 thoroughly as we can. And we don't think there is 12 great uncertainties about it in the sense of our 13 inability to come to conclusions about it. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Just while 15 we are on the matter of artificial flooding, was 16 artificial flooding even recognized before 1997? 17 MR. BOWERING: The concept of 18 artificial flooding, which means basically going 19 from rule 1 into rule 2, if we are talking about 20 spring flooding, artificial flooding and summer 21 flooding is another subject. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: I'm talking about 23 spring. 24 MR. BOWERING: We are talking spring. 25 That concept has always been there. Now as an 03198 1 engineer we always think in terms of designs, 2 design capacity, so until '97 we really didn't 3 think very much about artificial flooding, our 4 general rule of operation is never go above 5 natural. And it wasn't until we got this big 6 flood in '97, and we thought we were going to be 7 able to get by totally within rule 1, and as we 8 were coming up to the peak we realized we weren't 9 going to be able to. That's really the first time 10 that we gave much serious consideration to it, but 11 it had been in the operating rules and had been 12 envisioned in the original study, but just hadn't 13 been talked about very much. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Had you gone to rule 2 15 before? 16 MR. BOWERING: No. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Wayne. 18 MR. MOTHERAL: In the EIS there has 19 been many subject areas covered in the past three 20 weeks but there has been some, I don't like to use 21 minor, but there have been some subjects that have 22 lacked interest by the public obviously, and we 23 are wondering just what the authority would have 24 to say on the aquatic environment, the terrestrial 25 environment, et cetera, to give us a brief 03199 1 description of the existing environment and the 2 potential environment, social and economic effects 3 and mitigation of these issues, and also heritage 4 resources. There has been shown some small 5 interest in some of the public presentations about 6 heritage and about terrestrial environment, and we 7 are wondering what you have to say about that? 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Could I interject for a 9 second? That's a broad question that could take 10 us easily the rest of today and half of tomorrow, 11 so if you can do it succinctly but fairly 12 comprehensively. 13 MR. MOTHERAL: Covering areas that 14 haven't been covered extensively so far. 15 MR. J. OSLER: If it is of help to the 16 Commission, we have also recognized that there 17 were a couple of topic areas that weren't 18 discussed much in the preamble to this hearing and 19 in through this hearing. So, if it is acceptable 20 to you, it is my suggestion that Dr. Morgan can 21 provide us with a brief overview of the 22 terrestrial and aquatic components of the EIS, 23 that understandably they weren't canvassed until 24 the last couple of weeks. I have a couple of 25 slides that might be helpful in terms of the 03200 1 heritage resource components, and I think Mr. Cam 2 Osler can talk to the issue of sustainability. 3 MR. MOTHERAL: Okay. 4 MR. MORGAN: Dave Morgan here. I will 5 talk about a bit about it, and what we will use is 6 a presentation that we gave to the TAC committee, 7 that's the technical advisory committee, which is 8 reviewing the documents in terms of things like 9 biology and science and everything. So this is 10 very old evidence. It was presented back in I 11 think September to the TAC. So it is just a 12 review of what is in the document. Now, the 13 document actually has a whole section on 14 terrestrial and a whole section on aquatic. I'm 15 not going to get into the details. There is also 16 a whole appendices describing the existing 17 environment. This is a very important part of any 18 EIS, and we had a considerable number of 19 biologists out in the field pointing out 20 information to describe the aquatic and 21 terrestrial environment. I'm going to highlight 22 where this is and what some of the issues were, 23 and some of the key mitigation or improvements 24 that we are looking at trying to do. 25 In terms of the aquatic environment, 03201 1 the key issues that I talked about earlier were 2 the surface water quality, aquatic habitat, when 3 you develop a new project like this, you are going 4 to intersect with the aquatic habitat and you have 5 to consider what the effects are. The lower 6 trophic level in the aquatic invertebrates and the 7 fish and clam populations, and this was all gone 8 through and it was reviewed by the TAC, which 9 included Federal and Provincial biologists. DFO 10 was one of the people on that committee. And they 11 provided us with a lot of questions and 12 clarification, looking for clarification in a 13 whole series of questions in October which were 14 answered in November. So there is a lot of 15 information we won't get into. 16 Next slide. The surface water issue; 17 one of the key things we had to look at was, as I 18 said earlier, that if you are going to 19 re-establish vegetation, you may use herbicides, 20 fertilizers. We had to get clarification of what 21 the potential fertilizers and herbicides were to 22 be used and do an assessment of what the effects 23 would be, and develop protocols and plans to make 24 sure that impacts on surface water quality from 25 those are not significant. 03202 1 Another issue which was covered in the 2 physical environment a bit, I talked about 3 erosion, but it also carries on as a pathway, as 4 we talked about in terms of environmental 5 assessment, the sediment could impact aquatic 6 life. So we looked at what is the erosion control 7 measures that you have to do in such a large 8 excavation in order to control sediment so that it 9 doesn't impact aquatic life. And on the right 10 side of that slide is places throughout the 11 executive summary, the main volume supporting 12 documents, even in the engineering reports they 13 have a lot of information on erosion control, and 14 those are where you would look to find that 15 information. 16 Next slide, please. 17 In terms of the aquatic habitat, 18 invertebrates, fish and clam populations, an 19 important aspect would be the effects of 20 construction on the expanded floodway in the 21 outlet control structure which is being widened in 22 that range right by the river, and that's been 23 looked at. The effects of regrading the low flow 24 channel and the effects of additional erosion 25 control in the river and floodway channel, we 03203 1 touched on that a bit more. Again, there is 2 extensive documentation on this aquatic 3 information. There is a whole section in the EIS 4 and there is very large supporting volumes in 5 aquatic describing the environment in detail, all 6 of the fish that are there and the different other 7 aquatic animals, vegetation. And again it is 8 touched on in -- there is a supplemental filing 9 which talked about fish movement through the inlet 10 structure, and describing the existing environment 11 there. 12 Next slide, please. The key issue and 13 this was an existing issue which we talked about 14 earlier, could we do something to improve the 15 situation in the low flow channel, and it ties 16 together nicely, and the same thing with the 17 erosion control which does help the groundwater 18 situation by reducing this existing erosion. When 19 the fish overwinter in the floodway, there is 20 these deep holes, and they tend to stay in these 21 ones because as it gets colder they figure this is 22 a good refuge to stay in. What we discovered when 23 we were looking through, and DFO had this concern, 24 and we looked at it and confirmed it, is that the 25 existing situation is these fish stay in the 03204 1 floodway, and the oxygen becomes very low as the 2 ice cover comes in these small ponds and there is 3 a lot of overkill wintering of fish -- over the 4 winter a lot of fish die, probably because of lack 5 of oxygen. So, the new channel, by the way they 6 are designing the grade to get rid of all of these 7 low areas so it has a nice grade all of the way 8 out, if fish get in from either the Seine River 9 site or through the inlet, they will more easily 10 travel right out and not be caught in the 11 floodway. And this is an improvement of the 12 existing situation, a bit of remediation for 13 fisheries. Culverts at the outlet are being 14 designed to more efficiently pass the fish out. 15 That's one of the key things. 16 Next slide. One of the key things 17 which we are looking at is when you have a large 18 project like this, which you have a lot of 19 alterations to the drainage, erosion control 20 measures in the Red River on the west side of the 21 bank, DFO, what they are looking for is they will 22 require habitat compensation to satisfy their no 23 net loss habitat policy. This is something which 24 again the lost habitat is being documented 25 carefully, and plans to look at creating new 03205 1 habitat to compensate for this are being looked 2 at. And this is part of DFO's normal process 3 which we are continuing discussions with DFO on. 4 This key issue is once this is 5 satisfied, there is no significant adverse 6 effects, and the Floodway Authority is committed 7 to doing this. 8 Next slide, please. In terms of 9 terrestrial environment, we looked at terrestrial 10 vegetation, what is in the floodway, which will be 11 affected by the construction, the wildlife 12 habitat, we looked for species at risk and 13 considered the Manitoba protected area initiative. 14 And again, with the mitigation, there should be no 15 adverse effects, and I will talk about some of the 16 mitigation activities. 17 Next slide, please. A little bit more 18 detail in where you can find this again, again 19 there is a whole section 7 on terrestrial. We 20 looked at the effects of construction in the 21 floodway channel, west dyke outlet control 22 structure. The effects of revegetation and 23 maintenance of the floodway in the future, the new 24 floodway in the future was also considered. 25 Again, there is many places, and there was a 03206 1 supplemental filing that did a detailed survey of 2 what all of the vegetation was in the existing 3 floodway which will have to be revegetated after 4 the construction. 5 Next slide. Some of the key findings 6 was that the channel construction will cause a 7 short term disruption, but the vegetation will be 8 reestablished. And it will be much the same way 9 as it is today with its existing habitat there. 10 One of the key issues that we've brought to the 11 attention of the Floodway Authority in their 12 construction schedule is that -- and it will be 13 for construction and maintenance -- is that these 14 willows grow up in the floodway, and because there 15 is potential for nests to occur in these willows, 16 you have to do the clearing for the construction 17 in the future outside of the breeding bird nesting 18 season. So this clearing is to be done between 19 September and April and be finished before the 20 nesting season. That's one of the key kind of 21 things that you have to look at. 22 Next slide. We also did an extensive 23 survey of the habitat and looking for species at 24 risk and habitat which these species of risk could 25 use and we had encountered none in this area. So 03207 1 there is no significant adverse effect expected in 2 the terrestrial environment also. That's it. 3 MR. MOTHERAL: Are there any 4 outstanding obligations on any Federal agency? I 5 mean, are we talking about the DFO? And I know 6 that in my past municipal experience, if any 7 municipality wanted to drain a pothole in a road, 8 DFO got involved in it. And I'm sure you must 9 have ongoing dialogue. And I just haven't heard 10 much about that lately so -- 11 MR. MCNEIL: Yes, Mr. Motheral, there 12 is ongoing dialogue with both DFO and Transport 13 Canada who have their own separate Federal Acts 14 that we must meet the requirements of. And we had 15 a meeting as recently as on February 24th to go 16 through some of the outstanding items that they 17 still would like to see. So, it is a standard 18 part of the process, we are dealing with the 19 regulatory authorities, in this case the CEC and 20 the responsible authorities, specifically 21 Infrastructure Canada, on the larger picture of 22 licence and approvals. But at the same time and 23 concurrent to that process, we are dealing with 24 DFO and Transport Canada who is representing Nav 25 Waters. And we are mapping out a plan to deal 03208 1 with all of the outstanding issues with them, and 2 their concern is that we deal with them prior to 3 the Federal Government drafting their screening 4 report. 5 MR. MOTHERAL: Thank you. And there 6 is a time limit, you have got. What is your time 7 limit on all of these? 8 MR. MCNEIL: In the next couple of 9 months. 10 MR. MOTHERAL: Okay. What actions or 11 considerations could be taken to make the habitat 12 better? With respect to wildlife we are talking 13 about. 14 MR. MORGAN: Well, we have talked 15 about one of the key issues was the fish stranding 16 issue where the floodway, as it exists, is a 17 potential sink or trap for fish to die over 18 winter, and so that was one of the key aspects 19 that we looked at. In terms of habitat for 20 terrestrial, the floodway is not a -- it is not 21 very diverse, you know, it has to be kept in a 22 situation where it doesn't give a large diverse 23 habitat. And there is not too much you can do 24 with that, because you can't add any structure, 25 even in terms of trees or bushes, into the flood 03209 1 plain so -- I can't think of any other issues -- 2 MR. MCNEIL: Let me add something. 3 Doug McNeil, again. As we go through and this 4 project evolves through the detailed design phase, 5 which is happening concurrent to the approval, 6 environmental approval processes, we are coming up 7 with the information that these authorities are 8 requesting. And you may or may not have seen some 9 correspondence from Transport Canada, for 10 instance, that indicated that they had not yet 11 seen applications for the existing structures, the 12 existing floodway. In fact, the letters passed 13 each other in the night. We had made application 14 while they were making those comments, to licence 15 the existing structures, the inlet structure, the 16 Seine River inlet and the outlet structure. Those 17 have to be licensed first, and then they will 18 consider the alterations to those structures. So 19 that's the process that's been laid out by 20 Transport Canada. As I said, we met with them on 21 February 24 to determine the time frame for 22 getting them the additional information. 23 Actually, in fact, when we applied for the 24 existing structures at the inlet and the outlet, 25 we submitted the design drawings for the 03210 1 alterations. The only thing that they are missing 2 is the Seine River information. 3 With respect to DFO, they were part of 4 that meeting on February 24. There has been lots 5 of correspondence back and forth with them about 6 the information they would like to see and, in 7 fact, we have organized a workshop with the 8 fisheries people, both Federally and Provincially, 9 and our consultants, to take place I believe it is 10 next week to work on the specific items such as 11 habitat compensation and whatnot. 12 So we have some rough ideas as what we 13 want to promote for habitat compensation, but we 14 are going to be working closely with them to 15 determine what that will be. 16 MR. MOTHERAL: And I was just thinking 17 too with the continuing work of the organizations 18 like Save the Seine and things like that, that 19 needs to be an ongoing issue too. 20 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct, and at 21 this point in time we see that as separate. But 22 at some point in time we will bring some of those 23 stakeholders into discussions. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: There were more people 25 going to make -- 03211 1 MR. J. OSLER: Down the list I think 2 there was still heritage resources and 3 sustainability. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 5 MR. J. OSLER: A brief overview of the 6 heritage resources of the EIS, which is chapter 9, 7 reflects section 6.5 of the guidelines. Just as a 8 reminder, I provided this information, of course, 9 February 15th during the opening presentation. So 10 we can recap. Heritage resources focuses on 11 identifying archeological sites, culturally 12 important sites and burial sites that could be 13 potentially affected by physical or biophysical 14 effects of the project. Quaternary Consultants 15 Limited was the company that undertook this work. 16 They are trained professional archaeologists. 17 Next slide please. Similarly on the 18 15th of February I showed you a key topic, where 19 you could find this particular information within 20 the Environmental Impact Statement. This is other 21 than the reference to the supplementary filing 22 information, it was the same information that was 23 shared with the technical advisory committee, the 24 TAC, in September and with participants and 25 stakeholders during the round 4 of consultation 03212 1 activities. It is actually within the EIS 2 supplemental information. 3 One component of the project is, of 4 course, the west dyke. However, there is no 5 heritage resource sites that are expected in the 6 excavation areas of west dyke. That was the 7 determination made by Quaternary, therefore no 8 effects on heritage resources are expected as a 9 result. 10 When we look at the floodway channel 11 area, though, at the inlet control structure we 12 have talked about that at some length over the 13 last couple of weeks. There is no planned channel 14 expansion or widening activity taking place in the 15 immediate vicinity of the inlet control structure 16 and, of course, there are very limited inlet 17 modifications occurring. So it is not expected to 18 produce exposure to or the potential for any 19 heritage resources. When we look at channel 20 widening, there are affected areas, but they are 21 below grade and some distance from water sources. 22 And the reason why there is an interest in the 23 distance from the Red River, is the potential for 24 pre-European campsite potential, and as you get 25 closer to major water bodies there is an increased 03213 1 interest or probability that either temporary or 2 permanent campsites would have existed or 3 habitation. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Osler, what happens 5 if you do find a pre-European campsite when you 6 are digging? 7 MR. C. OSLER: That's part of the 8 archeological assessment. If they do come across 9 particular points of interest, and as we talk 10 about exactly the very next point, the outlet 11 control structure, and I will have a map for you 12 that follows right after this, the space in 13 between the outlet control structure and the Red 14 River itself is a well identified and well 15 researched archeological site. Two particular 16 finds, one being an old burial mound located 17 within that vicinity and also a floodway heritage 18 village site. And I will show you the location of 19 those in a moment. When you do come across this 20 it is particularly sensitive. And faced with the 21 potential of exposing archeological resources, you 22 can either seek to protect them -- I have an 23 example I will show you in a couple of moments -- 24 or in the case of the outlet control structure 25 excavation you are excavating to the north of that 03214 1 site itself. Where this particular region, 2 stretch of the Red River, has been assessed and 3 looked at well before the end of the 1890s, 1880s, 4 there is a long history of archeological 5 exploration in the area and they have not yet 6 found heritage or archeological points of 7 interests to the north. So the design of the 8 structure was accommodated, was reconfigured or 9 designed to accommodate to these potential 10 heritage resources. 11 And I will explain it as well on the 12 west side of the Red River downstream of the 13 outlet control structure you find a similar 14 instance, where you want to try to protect those 15 resources. 16 The last area that I will look at is 17 the bridge modification and replacement. Each one 18 of the proposed bridge reconfigurations or 19 modifications has abutments that go into virgin 20 soil, that some of it has been disturbed, some of 21 it hasn't been disturbed, and you have to be 22 sensitive to that as well. Understanding of 23 course, that you are some distance back from the 24 river itself. 25 This is a map, and it is contained 03215 1 within chapter 9 on the archeological assessment. 2 It shows the archeological site and trails at the 3 outlet control structure. So for reference here 4 is the Red River, there is the north arrow 5 pointing up. And here is the limits of 6 construction at the outlet control structure. And 7 in between the existing channel you can see the 8 elevation marks here, and the construction 9 activity in between here and the Red River is a -- 10 this is the floodway village heritage site, and it 11 has what we call a Borden definition, EALF-9. 12 Also within this region is the Fidler mounds 13 burial site. Two well known Manitoba 14 archeological sites. And these were known at the 15 time of obviously the initial construction. They 16 were worked around. And during the expansion or 17 the design of any modifications to the outlet 18 control structure, there is a certain sensitivity 19 to those as well. 20 The area is characterized and is 21 documented within chapter 9 as being traversed by 22 numerous trails, recreation trails for off-road 23 vehicles and such. 24 If you go to the next page. Here is 25 an example, this was done on vehicle impact at the 03216 1 floodway village site. And you will note this is 2 an informal trail. It is in wet conditions. And 3 with the application of a four by four, it has 4 chewed up a lot of this trail, and this is 5 indicative of the particular region. It is one of 6 the areas, if you recall from the February 15th 7 presentation, that were identified, one of the 8 areas for opportunity for mitigation, particularly 9 during the construction phase of the project when 10 you may well have more people coming to this 11 particular spot. It is quite handy. If you look 12 behind the person in the photograph, you will see 13 the floodway channel back there and the outlet 14 channel is down here somewhere I think, and the 15 Red River is off to this side. So it is a nice 16 little spit to do your fishing or see what is 17 going on with the construction activities. 18 Actually from this particular set of 19 ruts, if you go to the next slide, they were able 20 to pull out various ceramic and lithic artifacts. 21 It takes a trained eye. The most interesting one 22 is an earthenware sherd dating from the late 23 woodland period, that is 400 to 750 AD. And in 24 addition a various selection of Selkirk chert, 25 which is either chip stone, and this is a triangle 03217 1 projected point, and these ones at the bottom were 2 tools that were quite literally picked up from the 3 ruts themselves. 4 If you go back to the slide again. 5 The suggested mitigation which is, of course, a 6 point of interest that was raised by Sid Kroeker 7 who is from Quaternary Consultants, and when he 8 did this tour, he went with historic resources 9 branch personnel, and they did the tour of it 10 together. The suggestion at the time, and it was 11 agreed to by resources branch staff, was literally 12 put gravel on top of those ruts themselves, not to 13 extract the resources, but to protect the 14 resources and preserve them. It is a different 15 approach. You often think if you have uncovered 16 something you have to make every attempt to 17 extract it, and in some instances actually it 18 makes better sense to preserve it for future 19 generations. 20 On the west bank area, and this is 21 right across River Road, almost directly across 22 from the outlet control structure, they also did 23 an examination, and came across a previously 24 undocumented archeological site, EALF-59 which is 25 a somewhat dated log structure. And this is found 03218 1 close to the bank of the river. 2 One of the areas that Mr. Kroeker 3 raised was concerns about continuing erosion on 4 the west bank of the Red River. Albeit now with 5 the proposed project outlet control structure, the 6 flows will be reduced in terms of velocities, and 7 the particular interest in looking at protection, 8 erosion protection of the west bank will seek to 9 preserve this and other types of archeological 10 resources on that side of the bank. 11 Final area that Quaternary looked at 12 was they examined the various abutments, that is 13 the areas where the existing floodway channel 14 would be crossed, and they assessed for potential 15 archeological value, and found that most of the 16 crossings had, of course, previously been 17 disturbed. There have been -- the areas of 18 interest that they identified were, there is 19 activity in undisturbed areas, they are going to 20 be assessed. That's the recommendations contained 21 both within chapter 9 and the subsequent 22 supplemental filing, or be monitored during the 23 excavation period. 24 So, Mr. Sergeant, when part of the 25 process in areas such as the St. Mary's Road 03219 1 bridge crossing, which is closer to the Red River, 2 it has a potential for some possible archeological 3 resources, and they will be monitored at the time 4 of excavation with the archaeologists available, 5 at least that's what the recommendation is. And 6 in some instances, there will be a brief 7 archeological assessment done of other abutments. 8 So you will notice that the St. Mary's Road bridge 9 was identified because of its relative proximity 10 to the Red River. TransCanada highway 1 east, 11 because of its previous undisturbed soil where the 12 new alignment would go. PTH44 I understand is 13 also close to a known archeological site. And CPR 14 Emerson, but only to the extent that there is a 15 Seine River culvert contemplated for CPR Emerson, 16 and that was his particular area of interest. 17 So to summarize the heritage resources 18 key findings on project effects, there is some 19 possibility, as I described, for heritage resource 20 effects due to erosion in the vicinity of the 21 outlet structure or due to construction and 22 recreation traffic also in that area. It is 23 expected that these effects can be fully mitigated 24 by erosion control, and I'm looking at the west 25 side of the Red River in particular, and the 03220 1 existing exposed resources, as I showed you, can 2 be fully mitigated. And those were the 3 conclusions arrived at by Mr. Kroeker. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 5 MR. J. OSLER: And I guess, Mr. 6 Motheral, to followup, you had asked some specific 7 questions of Dr. Morgan, the discussion with 8 Mr. Kroeker and historic resources branch, I think 9 there was one question of clarification they had 10 asked during the TAC review process. And that's 11 been resolved and I'm not aware of any outstanding 12 concerns between Mr. Kroeker's work and Manitoba 13 Historic Resources. 14 MR. MOTHERAL: Thank you. 15 MR. C. OSLER: Just to add one last 16 thing to the heritage resource matter, under the 17 law in Manitoba, you cannot destroy heritage 18 resource, which is defined in the legislation, 19 without permission. So that in this particular 20 instance whenever you are doing work of the type 21 that was just described, you have to have someone 22 on site who is monitoring it, and if you come 23 across a resource, and you can't mitigate it and 24 you can't deal with it, then the work has to stop 25 unless you can get permission under the Act for 03221 1 disturbing that resource. So it is protected. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Does that conclude your 3 presentations in that regard? 4 MR. J. OSLER: It does. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I would 6 like to turn now and ask a few questions about 7 artificial flooding caused by summer operation. 8 And I guess what I'm looking for is, I'm just 9 wondering if there are measures that might be 10 taken that would reduce or even eliminate 11 artificial flooding due to summer operations. And 12 I will ask some specific questions in that regard. 13 I understand that you are not -- I mean, we have 14 heard before these hearings and those of us who 15 read the documents are aware that between the 16 inlet structure and highway 59 you are not doing 17 any expansion, there is no changes to that 18 section, other than some in the low flow channel? 19 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct, except it 20 is from the inlet to CPR Emerson, so just a little 21 bit further west from highway 59. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So then my 23 question is if you were to do any channel widening 24 in that area, would that help reduce artificial 25 flooding, summer artificial flooding? Have you 03222 1 looked at that or considered that. 2 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chairman, we didn't 3 consider that. The project is entirely for spring 4 operation and for preventing against the one in 5 700 year spring flood. However, to answer your 6 question, back in the report titled Flood 7 Protection Studies for Winnipeg, which was 8 produced by KGS group in November of 2001, when 9 they were in a conceptual manner looking at the 10 floodway expansion versus the Ste. Agathe 11 detention structure, in appendix E of that report, 12 they did consider several -- four or five options 13 to incorporate expansion of the floodway for 14 summer operation and to eliminate the floodway 15 lip. And those options ranged from, and I just 16 have a summary here, $29 million to $450 million. 17 And I will explain that. 18 The most expensive option is if you 19 were to take the existing floodway and accommodate 20 summer operation with no increase above natural, 21 it would be $450 million. And that's because you 22 need to almost expand it to the point where you 23 are building it also for spring increased 24 protection. 25 The $29 million option still includes 03223 1 some excavation, but it mostly relies on using the 2 existing gates and eliminating the lip, I believe, 3 but it doesn't eliminate artificial flooding 4 entirely. So there was a range of options looked 5 at, both with the existing and expanded floodway. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Did it look at gated 7 culverts through the lip? 8 MR. MCNEIL: Yes, it looked at, I 9 believe -- just let me confer with Mr. McMillan. 10 So one of those options did include removing the 11 lip and replacing it with a control structure for 12 ice control in the spring. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Was that the 14 $29 million option? 15 MR. MCNEIL: I think it was, and 16 limited excavation and still some artificial 17 flooding. 18 One of the reasons, even if you 19 eliminate the lip, and because we are not 20 deepening with the expanded floodway, the lip is 21 at 750 feet above sea level, and it is 22 approximately 7 feet high. So the bottom of the 23 channel at the start is 743 feet above sea level. 24 Normal summer water level is 734 feet 25 approximately in that region. 03224 1 THE CHAIRMAN: So normal summer -- 2 MR. MCNEIL: Water level is 734 feet. 3 So the start of the channel on the east side of 4 the floodway, the bottom of it is about nine feet 5 above the normal summer water level. So even if 6 you just eliminate that lip, there would still be 7 some artificial flooding because you are above the 8 summer water level, normal summer water level. 9 THE CHAIRMAN: So you still have to go 10 up nine feet. What does that bring it inside of 11 the city then? 12 MR. MCNEIL: Oh, it varies, depending 13 on the size of the flood and the total flow 14 occurring at the time. You are asking if you are 15 743? 16 THE CHAIRMAN: If you are at 743, what 17 is it at James? 18 MR. MCNEIL: If you don't operate the 19 gates, so that's nine feet higher, so that would 20 be James 15 and a half, 16. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: So the walkways are 22 under water? 23 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: And at 743, how much 25 flooding is there back up the river? Some? Do 03225 1 you know, what did it reach in 2002, 2004? 2 MR. MCNEIL: I'm going to let Rick 3 Bowering answer that. He knows the details of 4 those two operations. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Actually I think he 6 gave us some indication earlier on 2002. 7 MR. MCNEIL: Also I will direct you to 8 section 8.3 of the EIS supplementary filing, which 9 included maps of the flooded area for the 2002 and 10 2004 operations, as well as the maximum flooded 11 area that it corresponds with going to 760 feet, 12 which is the maximum elevation under the rule that 13 you would go to upstream. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: It is under rule 4? 15 MR. MCNEIL: Correct. 16 MR. BOWERING: The answer for 2002 is 17 about 755; 2004, 756 and a half feet. 18 THE CHAIRMAN: And the lip you said 19 was at 750? 20 MR. BOWERING: 750. So with that four 21 feet, we had about 8,000 CFS going down the 22 floodway. With the five and a half feet in 2004, 23 we had about 9,000 CFS going down the floodway. 24 You have to have a certain amount of height to 25 have water run down the floodway. So when you 03226 1 mention 743, if the lip was removed, at that point 2 you still would have nothing going down the 3 floodway, you have to lift it above 743 to have 4 the water going down the floodway. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: How much would that 6 reduce artificial flooding if it were 743, 744, 7 745? 8 MR. BOWERING: We probably could have 9 done it by going to -- we would have to run the 10 models to be sure, because it is not a direct 11 relationship, because there is back water from the 12 channel, but instead of going to 755, you might 13 have been able to go to about 753 or 752. 14 So significant artificial flooding 15 starts right around 750 -- not significant, but 16 that's where it starts getting up into those lower 17 banks. And then by the time you get to 760, you 18 are now starting to get up on to the prairie. So 19 it is really 750 to 760 where the flooding of the 20 low lying oxbows and valley side walls is 21 happening. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any practical 23 way to accomplish a lowering of summer artificial 24 flooding? I mean, we have heard some fairly 25 extensive -- we heard some fairly compelling 03227 1 testimony from individuals who were impacted by 2 summer flooding. I'm just wondering if there is 3 some way -- a practical way to do this? 4 MR. BOWERING: The fact of the matter 5 is, you have to put the weight somewhere. So 6 naturally the water runs through Winnipeg and 7 causes the water it causes in Winnipeg. Really, 8 the only other alternatives are to hold the water 9 somewhere or send the water somewhere. The 10 floodway, because it is a fairly high base in the 11 channel, even removing the lip, it is still fairly 12 high. The only way you can get water up into 13 there is by raising the water level, and that's 14 what causes the artificial flooding. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: I see. Did you have 16 something to follow up? 17 MR. WEBSTER: Yes, I wanted to follow 18 up on the questions that have just been asked. 19 And that is, what are the prospects of lowering 20 the low flow channel back to the river, as well as 21 moving the, or modifying the lip so that water 22 would pass through? Clearly summer flooding, 23 summer operation of the floodway involves low flow 24 through the floodway, not high flow. 25 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 03228 1 MR. WEBSTER: Is it possible that 2 since that part of the floodway from the river to 3 highway 59, or CPR Emerson, is all underlain by 4 clay, is it possible in fact to deepen the channel 5 in that area to in fact accommodate the summer 6 flooding option? 7 MR. BOWERING: I guess I could talk 8 about it hydraulically, although it might be 9 better for one of the engineers who studied the 10 design of the structure to answer that. What do 11 you think, John? I could take a stab if you like, 12 or maybe Rick Carson. 13 MR. J. OSLER: I'm wondering if Rick 14 Carson could make a comment on it. 15 MR. CARSON: I could try and answer 16 that. I think that deepening the channel in that 17 upstream reach would go towards reducing the 18 artificial flooding, but wouldn't eliminate it 19 entirely. We have not studied that in much depth 20 recently, but from recollection of what we did 21 three years ago, that would be the case in my 22 mind. 23 MR. WEBSTER: Which would be more 24 beneficial, in your mind, and I understand what 25 you have said, that it hasn't been studied in 03229 1 detail, which would be more beneficial in your 2 mind, lowering that low flow channel or widening 3 the entrance somehow with the removal of the lip? 4 MR. CARSON: Widening the entrance 5 with removal of the lip? 6 MR. WEBSTER: Yes. 7 MR. CARSON: I would say deepening of 8 the channel, and it couldn't be restricted only to 9 the low flow channel, it would have to be the 10 entire base of the channel, but I think that would 11 be more effective, but quite costly. 12 MR. BOWERING: But it would still 13 require the removal of the lip. 14 MR. CARSON: Yes, it would. 15 MR. BOWERING: Because you still have 16 that physical barrier there. 17 MR. WEBSTER: But as we said earlier, 18 installation of some alternative mechanism for 19 passage of water through that area, but 20 maintaining some kind of a retention structure for 21 ice, it is conceptually possible, I don't know 22 whether it is in fact possible from an engineering 23 point of view. But if you had a combination of a 24 lip structure that was able to pass water in the 25 same way that the other end of the floodway passes 03230 1 water at low flow, the analogy is not perfect 2 because we are talking about a different 3 situation, but a low flow passage through into a 4 lowered channel, is that possible? 5 MR. CARSON: Certainly it is possible. 6 MR. WEBSTER: What is the source of 7 the extremely high cost of doing that? 8 MR. CARSON: It is a combination of 9 the structure that would have to be built, that 10 would have to be 700 feet wide, or long I guess 11 across the inlet, and the excavation over five or 12 six miles of channel. It is a combination of the 13 two that are quite expensive. 14 MR. WEBSTER: Have you any estimate of 15 that that you could give us, either today or 16 within a day or so -- based on cubic metres of 17 soil to be removed and that sort of thing? 18 MR. CARSON: Yes. Mr. McNeil referred 19 to a study that was done about four years ago that 20 looked at a number of options, and we had costs in 21 there. Now, I haven't looked at that in a few 22 years, so if I were to give you an answer, I would 23 like to think about it overnight and give it to 24 you. 25 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. 03231 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think, I 2 realize, I think we all realize up here that this 3 is strictly beyond the mandate, but given that 4 perhaps there might be some synergies connected 5 with the current construction program and some of 6 the compelling stories that we heard, we are just 7 trying to pursue whether or not there is a 8 reasonably feasible approach to achieve this. I 9 think, if there were, there would be the added 10 benefit that we might be able to keep the city 11 walkways dry without flooding people upstream as 12 well. 13 MR. MCNEIL: If I could respond to 14 that, Mr. Chair, that anything that we are doing 15 as part of this project wouldn't preclude some of 16 these other options that could be considered in 17 the future. There may or may not be cost savings 18 to incorporate them at this point in time, but 19 certainly the project that's before you would not 20 preclude those kinds of options. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: No, I'm aware of that, 22 it just might be hard to get money out of the Feds 23 a second time around. 24 I would like to I guess go back to the 25 operating rules and ask a few questions about the 03232 1 operating rules. Now, under what authority, if 2 any, are the operating rules made or enacted? 3 MR. BOWERING: The authority is the 4 Water Resources Administration Act, which gives 5 authority to the Minister to operate provincial 6 water control structures for the best interests of 7 Manitobans. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, in the past, I 9 think there was an expectation that Manitoba would 10 consult with Canada and get agreement from Canada 11 on the rules; is that correct? 12 MR. BOWERING: The history was that 13 the original agreement for construction of the 14 floodway had the requirement that Manitoba submit 15 to the Federal Government for approval the 16 operating rules of the structure. The Provincial 17 Government did submit that to the Federal 18 Government. We have on file a letter back from 19 the Federal Government saying thank you very much, 20 we will get back to you once we have reviewed 21 them. 22 Since then, we never heard any more 23 from the Federal Government about that. We, as a 24 Provincial Government, took that as tacit approval 25 and we operated the structure. And then after we 03233 1 did the review of the operating rules after the 2 1997 flood, we again sent it to the Federal 3 Government, again in response to this requirement 4 that was still on the books, is still in the 5 original agreement, and was still in effect, that 6 they had to approve the operating rules. And then 7 they approved the operating rules. They saw, 8 though, by that time that they didn't see that as 9 their responsibility, so then after that we 10 modified the agreement so that we no longer 11 require their approval. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: So it is strictly up to 13 the province now? 14 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any kind of 16 public involvement in changes to the operating 17 rules? 18 MR. BOWERING: There is no 19 requirements on the books for it, but it is just 20 good government to consult with the public. And 21 that's why after the '97 flood we had this fairly 22 extensive review that involved the three RMs south 23 of Winnipeg, as well as the City of Winnipeg, as 24 well as the Federal and Provincial Governments. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Was there any public 03234 1 involvement in the development of rule 4? 2 MR. BOWERING: There was very little 3 public development in the rule 4. And the reason 4 is really because rule 4 is just documenting what 5 the government had been doing. So there was no 6 public meetings on it, it was just documenting, it 7 was just writing down and documenting the 8 procedures that the Provincial Government was 9 following. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: And who -- like under 11 the Act, you mentioned the Water Resources 12 Administration Act, who has the authority to 13 implement these rules? Is it the minister on his 14 own or is it a cabinet decision? 15 MR. BOWERING: I believe it says the 16 minister, I'm quite sure the Act says the 17 minister. In reality, like I'm not privy to what 18 goes on in cabinet, but I understand these things 19 are discussed in cabinet, at least the bigger 20 decisions are. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: A couple of months ago 22 when I was preparing for these proceedings, I went 23 looking for the rules on the website, on the 24 government website, and I went all over the place. 25 And I did find the report of the review that was 03235 1 conducted in '99, was it? But I never did find 2 sort the basic rules in one simple place, and I 3 never found rule 4 anywhere. And I finally 4 emailed Mr. McNeil, who forwarded me the four 5 basic rules. 6 Shouldn't they be easily accessible on 7 the website? 8 MR. BOWERING: I think that's good 9 advice, and I think I can activate that fairly 10 quickly. It is just an oversight. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: I mean, the rest of the 12 website is pretty comprehensive, but this one 13 fairly -- I think one thing that would be of most 14 interest is not there. 15 MR. BOWERING: Yes, it is good 16 comment. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, we've heard in 18 these proceedings over the last couple, three 19 weeks, that the rules are hard and fast. But how 20 easily can the minister change them? 21 MR. BOWERING: Well, I guess the 22 minister could change them whenever he wants to, 23 but there would be ramifications to that. What 24 really I think ties us down to these rules is the 25 fact that it is tied to the compensation 03236 1 legislation. Now, I suppose the minister could 2 change the rules and change the compensation 3 legislation, but once these things get put into 4 legislation, they are a lot harder to change. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Now, if -- and 6 this, you may not be able to answer this but I 7 will ask it anyway -- if somewhere down the road 8 the government decides that they want to implement 9 a rule 5 for summer non-emergency operations, what 10 kind of a public process might we see then? For 11 example, would it be something that might be 12 referred to the Clean Environment Commission, or 13 would it just go to a public consultation process? 14 MR. BOWERING: I would hope it would 15 go to a public consultation process. And in 16 reality, even while we were reviewing the 17 operating rules we were -- some of us were 18 interested in having more public input. And the 19 reason there was reluctance to public input was 20 based -- came from our lawyers who were handling 21 the legal cases that have been taken against the 22 government, and they didn't want us going out and 23 having a lot of public meetings, in case it had to 24 do with the legal case. So that had some effect 25 on us. I know some of us felt quite strongly that 03237 1 we should have more public involvement, but that 2 was the advice that we had, and that did affect 3 our ability to communicate. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: There is no licence 5 required for the rules, is there? It is just they 6 are adopted by the government and that's it? 7 MR. BOWERING: Under the Water 8 Resources Administration Act, that's the way that 9 we operate on all of the structures that we 10 operate. However it appears, and I'm surely not a 11 lawyer so I can't say, but my understanding is 12 that if these rules get adopted as a part of this 13 procedure, then the rules are more constrained and 14 are more tightly defined. But somebody else may 15 be able to provide more light on that than I do, 16 I'm just the operator. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: If they are adopted as 18 part as what procedure? 19 MR. BOWERING: Well, if they are 20 operated as far as these Clean Environment 21 Commission hearings, and also they are referred to 22 in the regulations to the compensation 23 legislation, the Red River Floodway Act. So these 24 things would make the rules, I would say, more 25 rigid than for any other structure that we operate 03238 1 in the province, of which there are about 100. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Are you implying that 3 through our process, if we recommend licencing of 4 the construction and operation of the expanded 5 floodway, we will be sort of in turn recommending 6 adoption of the existing rules? 7 MR. BOWERING: If it goes that way, we 8 will respond accordingly. I think I'm the wrong 9 person to answer that, but as the operator we will 10 respond in whichever way is proper. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: I think that's all I 12 have for now. Thank you, Mr. Bowering. 13 MR. WEBSTER: I would like to address 14 a number of items under the heading of 15 groundwater. Thanks to the municipalities 16 affected by the floodway, we have had some 17 expertise that was brought in to help us with 18 these particular questions. And there is several 19 things here that I would like to ask about. 20 For instance, Peter Hayes in his 21 presentation recommended looking at the use of a 22 liner held in place by a clay barrier and riprap 23 to prevent the intrusion of groundwater into the 24 floodway, both through the low flow channel and 25 through the sides of the floodway channel. 03239 1 What is the Floodway Authority's 2 position on the need for some form of mechanism to 3 reduce aquifer flow into the channel? This is not 4 a specific question to do with lining, it is a 5 question to do with the need for some kind of 6 restriction for flow into the channel. 7 MR. SMITH: Dr. Webster, maybe I will 8 just start by saying, as we discussed previously, 9 that I guess the area that Mr. Hayes had 10 identified as a possibility to line is in the 11 section of the channel where the clay was a metre 12 or less, basically where you had exposed till. 13 And I tried to demonstrate that the till in that 14 area for the most part, the representative 15 materials are -- is it 40 to 60 per cent silt and 16 clay content, and permeability of 2 times 10 to 17 the minus 7 metres a second. So it doesn't 18 readily pass water, but there are certainly areas 19 along the channel, such as identified by Mr. 20 Clifton, where there is, particularly where 21 springs are discharging, those are areas that 22 require more attention. But some of the things 23 that we are intending to do in regards to, you 24 know, I guess minimizing any potential for seepage 25 of surface water from the channel into the 03240 1 groundwater, certainly to address those spring 2 areas. And I guess what I would have in mind is, 3 and we have discussed this previously, it is not 4 that easy to seal them off. But I think what -- 5 during construction and as we go forward, one of 6 the things that we would want to be doing is to 7 minimize any direct interconnections. So if there 8 are areas where there are open interconnections, 9 probably looking at possibly a combination of 10 grout and a semi-pervious backfill where you could 11 allow some pressure relief, but minimize any flow 12 or interconnections. That's one example. This is 13 something that we are intending to do during 14 construction. 15 But certainly when we widen the 16 channel along the till areas, if there is any 17 exposed sand pockets or anything where there is a 18 potential for interconnection, to actually remove 19 those pockets and backfill those with a low 20 permeability clay type of material. 21 Grouting has been mentioned. Where I 22 see the application of grouting is if there is 23 exposed bedrock, particularly near the outlet 24 structure. What we would normally do on like a 25 water resource project, a hydroelectric site, 03241 1 which I have been involved in quite high head type 2 structures, would be what is referred to as a 3 slush grouting or concrete grouting, where you 4 infill any open cracks or any potential pathways 5 at the surface of the bedrock. And you can look 6 at a shallow grouting program as well in the upper 7 part of the rock. 8 Those are some of the measures. 9 Certainly we have talked about the cutoff wall in 10 the Oasis Road area, to prevent any direct 11 interconnection to the Birds Hill aquifer. 12 In terms of grouting of the bedrock 13 along the channel, I know that was discussed, or 14 you know, suggested as a consideration. I 15 think -- well, I guess in general what I should 16 say is, as part of the final design we will have 17 to evaluate all of the items that I have just 18 mentioned, as well as others. But the grouting of 19 the bedrock, for example, along the main part of 20 the channel underneath portions of the low flow 21 channel, I guess the danger there is if you -- 22 well, first it is very difficult to grout off in 23 limestone and achieve an effective cutoff. But 24 secondly, if you did, then we would have to be 25 very careful not to cause problems to the people 03242 1 on the down gradient side to the west on the 2 channel that would interfere with their water 3 supply. So that's something that we would have to 4 consider carefully. 5 MR. WEBSTER: Let's look at that 6 carefully then. First of all, you told us to some 7 extent, at some length, that the hydraulic 8 conductivity of the soil itself, whether it is 9 till or clay, leads you to have some confidence 10 that the soil itself in the area of the floodway 11 bottom where that hydraulic conductivity is, as 12 you have described, is not the concern. The 13 concern is where there are in fact breaks through 14 that layer; is that correct? 15 MR. SMITH: That's correct. 16 MR. WEBSTER: So when you are faced 17 with those kinds of areas which are identified by 18 the presence of what has been called springs, 19 those are the areas that you would focus on, would 20 they be, in terms of looking at some kind of 21 grouting or some other approach? 22 MR. SMITH: Yes, that's correct. 23 MR. WEBSTER: And is grouting used in 24 limestone and other places, for instance, has it 25 been used in the context of hydro dam 03243 1 construction? 2 MR. SMITH: Well, Grand Rapids, when 3 Manitoba Hydro constructed Grand Rapids they had 4 limestone foundations and some solution 5 channelling, and they had the world record for 6 total volume of grout pumped into those 7 formations. Up until very recently I think there 8 is a place in Eastern Europe that has managed to 9 surpass them. But in other words you can -- it is 10 not that easy to grout but there has been -- more 11 recently Manitoba Hydro have done testing work up 12 in Conawapa which is in a limestone base 13 formation. And in that case you have clay 14 infilling and silt infilling on the fractures in 15 the rock. And they did quite an extensive test 16 program there to grout, and then excavated the 17 area that they had pumped the grout into and tried 18 to examine the successfulness. And the conclusion 19 was that it was not very effective in sealing off 20 those fractures, because where you have clay 21 infill and silt infilling, you just don't get the 22 grout penetration. So it was not that effective. 23 MR. WEBSTER: Yet you are concerned 24 about injecting grout into the bedrock aquifer 25 because it might in fact restrict the lateral 03244 1 flow, is that what you are telling us? 2 MR. SMITH: You can reduce the volume, 3 say let's say grouting blocks off 90 per cent of 4 your voids and cracks, you can reduce the volume 5 of flow. So, for example, a well user down 6 gradient would then find possibly they are not 7 getting the amount of water that they are 8 accustomed to. But you don't actually, at that 9 point you haven't eliminated the pressure, you 10 still have the pressure issue so you still have 11 the flow up say to the bottom of the channel. 12 MR. WEBSTER: So that when you grout 13 into a layer like that from the top, there is no 14 restriction as to where the grout goes, it just 15 goes down to the rock wherever the holes are. Is 16 that right? 17 MR. SMITH: That's correct. 18 Typically, in fact, you will drill at 10-foot 19 centres, and grout, and monitor at the adjacent 20 holes around that. Then you split space, 21 depending on what your grout volume takes are, 22 drill it down to five foot centres, and in some 23 cases down to two and a half foot, you know, on a 24 rigorous program say for a hydro dam. 25 MR. WEBSTER: So it is possible, it is 03245 1 not very effective at sealing but it is effective 2 at reducing flow through those spring connections? 3 It could be used for that purpose? 4 MR. SMITH: It can be, again, 5 depending on the amount of clay filling, which I 6 believe we have here, it could be limited 7 effectiveness. 8 MR. WEBSTER: So let's discuss another 9 possible approach to this kind of need for 10 mitigation, and that is the hydro dynamic solution 11 whereby water would be forced into the aquifer in 12 the vicinity of those springs through purpose 13 drilled wells, for the purpose of maintaining a 14 positive pressure against flood water in the 15 channel. Is that something that you have looked 16 at? 17 MR. SMITH: Well, in fact, we do use, 18 it is referred to as a hydraulic barriers that you 19 create. And there is two ways that you can go, 20 either by pumping water in, or actually wells to 21 pump out. And in fact I have -- used the 22 application where you pump out on landfill sites, 23 where leachate is escaping in the bedrock below 24 the site. And with fairly low pumping rates you 25 can create a barrier where essentially a draw down 03246 1 cone interconnects from one well to the next and 2 intercepts that flow. And it has the advantage of 3 also pulling back any flow that may have been 4 affected and has passed by that point. 5 But the alternate to try a hydraulic 6 barrier with pumping up and building up a mound or 7 a pressure head around the channel was suggested 8 by Mr. Clifton for consideration. I guess I would 9 be less supportive of that approach. It certainly 10 needs to have further study, but the problems 11 there are, first, you have to have both your 12 injection well system, as well as a supply well 13 system. And you are going to be pumping out 14 affecting, I guess, again a domestic well area. 15 And in that case you will have to probably pump 16 quite a bit higher volumes of water in order to 17 create that pressure head, that mound to contain 18 the water in the floodway. And I guess the risks 19 that go with that are, by creating that mound, you 20 could also be inducing additional springs that 21 form in the bottom of the floodway as the water 22 levels drop down. So it would require very 23 careful control. 24 And the other concern would be 25 potential instability of the side walls of the 03247 1 floodway due to that increased pressure on either 2 side of the floodway. 3 MR. WEBSTER: So refresh our memory, 4 is the pressure resulting from full use of the 5 floodway sufficient to reverse the flow of the 6 springs? 7 MR. SMITH: Sorry, I didn't understand 8 that question? 9 MR. WEBSTER: What I'm saying is, when 10 the floodway is empty, you have water flowing in 11 the bedrock aquifer into the low flow channel, 12 through the blowouts that are there already, what 13 we have been calling springs? 14 MR. SMITH: Yes. 15 MR. WEBSTER: During a flood event 16 when the channel is full, then you have a pressure 17 there that's different, and what level of water is 18 required to counteract, to reverse the flow of the 19 springs coming out? 20 MR. SMITH: Well, the floodway, I 21 guess in the more extreme events is close to 22 prairie level in terms of the surface water flow 23 during the flood. I guess if you wanted to 24 eliminate any discharge from the floodway, or 25 recharge into the aquifers, you would have to at 03248 1 least balance that head; or ideally have a higher 2 head. So if you are pressurizing on the sides of 3 the channel, in order to achieve that full 4 pressure underneath the low flow channel, for 5 example, you have to have heads even higher at the 6 sides. 7 And I guess one of the concerns there 8 is if you are in a higher permeability area in the 9 limestone bedrock, when you try to pump water and 10 pressurize, you will get a very flat mound. It 11 will spread out further, so you have to have 12 substantial volumes of water to achieve the head 13 build-up that's required to contain that water 14 from the surface. 15 MR. WEBSTER: Considering this is an 16 intermittent need, is it possible, or which method 17 would you prefer to use to keep groundwater from 18 flowing through those breaches into the bedrock 19 aquifer? We have grouting, we have mounding that 20 is pressurizing the area, we have the other one 21 that you mentioned was creating a hydraulic 22 barrier by essentially drawing the water down in 23 that area. 24 MR. SMITH: I guess our thinking, you 25 know, and this has been going on for some time 03249 1 through the preliminary design stage, was that the 2 pumping out, the hydraulic barrier, in combination 3 with a monitoring system where we use the same 4 wells both to pump and monitor gives you that 5 positive control of the system. If you went to a 6 mounding system for intermittent use, you have got 7 to have all of the infrastructure, the pumping, 8 the piping, everything, and maintain it, have it 9 ready and ensure that this will work when you need 10 it. And, again, after the fact you have to ensure 11 that the water did not get into the ground, you 12 know, the surface water did not infiltrate, or if 13 it did, that it would discharge back into the 14 floodway. So I think the pump-out system -- the 15 hydraulic barrier would be preferable. 16 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Going back to the 17 pressure head again. The question that I asked 18 before was relating to spring operation when the 19 channel is full, or near full. Is there a 20 concern, or is the outflow of the water through 21 the springs sufficient during summer use to in 22 fact prevent inflow into the aquifer? 23 MR. SMITH: It depends on the amount 24 of summer flow if -- and where you are along the 25 channel. There certainly is potential for the 03250 1 surface water head in a summer event to exceed the 2 piezometric surface in the bedrock. But just for 3 an example, south of highway 59, there was only 4 four events historically, four major floods where 5 that spring event, the surface water exceeded the 6 piezometric pressure. 7 And I think there was discussions 8 earlier about, it depends on the well use and the 9 future well development. But one point of 10 interest, when the wells I had mentioned earlier 11 in the St. Boniface packing plant areas were cut 12 back substantially, actually there has been a 13 pressure increase in around the floodway. The 14 pressure has increased by about a metre as a 15 result of that reduced pumping. 16 MR. WEBSTER: The reduced pumping at 17 the industrial site? 18 MR. SMITH: From the industrial sites, 19 yes. 20 MR. WEBSTER: We had in evidence 21 presented by Peter Hayes the intrusion of 22 groundwater into the low flow channel near the 23 area near the inlet structure. This was likely 24 due to intrusion, either through the area around 25 the gates, or could it in fact have been 03251 1 associated with the Seine River syphon? 2 MR. SMITH: You are referring to 3 figure 19? 4 MR. WEBSTER: The figure that had that 5 two point -- 6 MR. SMITH: The cigar shape? 7 MR. WEBSTER: The two point cigar, 8 that is right. I think the well was actually near 9 the flood gate entrance. 10 MR. SMITH: I'm just going to put up a 11 slide that shows that pressure build-up. This is 12 a drawing from our appendix N, which was the 13 regional model study. That might help to have 14 that discussion. 15 I guess some of the background to that 16 slide, the figure 19 in the report by 17 Conestoga-Rovers, what it was based on was the 18 1997 flood pressure mounding or head build-up that 19 occurred, as monitored by the provincial wells. 20 We had that data in the report, and Mr. Hayes had 21 taken it and just contoured it up and joined the 22 heads, and had expressed some question as to -- he 23 was rather, I think confused is word he used, as 24 to why that pressure between highway 1 and the 25 inlet structure would have been that high. 03252 1 Next one. Next one. This the one 2 there. That is a drawing, I believe it is 029 3 from our report, appendix N. And this is the area 4 here I believe you are referring to where Mr. 5 Hayes had shown a connection from the inlet over 6 to the TransCanada Highway. 7 The reason I wanted to put this up is, 8 this interpretation of the pressure mounding that 9 occurred was simulated by the model, mod flow, 10 based on the distribution of hydraulic 11 conductivity in the bedrock aquifer and the water 12 levels along the floodway. So by just 13 superimposing the '97 flood, this is a pressure 14 distribution that was simulated. 15 I wanted to just point out the fact 16 that although you get pressure build-up along the 17 river and along this part of the floodway, here we 18 have a known connection from a spring, and there 19 is also connections at these points, and that was 20 modeled in our river function, and this is the 21 pressure mounding that occurred. And this fit 22 fairly closely to the actual observed pressures. 23 So I guess the short answer is, the 24 pressure mounding that occurred here, we don't see 25 it in this area, so I think the interpretation 03253 1 that Mr. Hayes had, and in fairness he just joined 2 the two ends points and he didn't have any data in 3 between, so he didn't have a basis to say whether 4 it was there or not. You know, he was puzzled 5 himself, he didn't think it should be there 6 because of the thick clay. And I just wanted to 7 point out that the model simulation didn't show it 8 either. 9 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Just to bring 10 things to a close, if we can, I would just like to 11 have you comment briefly then on the practicality 12 of installing a liner in the floodway channel, and 13 whether in fact -- we talked about the 14 practicality of the grouting or the pumping, but 15 we didn't address the practicality of installation 16 of a liner, although I think you did address that 17 briefly earlier, but maybe you would like to do it 18 again. 19 MR. SMITH: I guess I was fairly brief 20 when you first asked, is it practical, and I said 21 no. Because I had been giving you some long 22 winded answers and I got the feeling that you 23 wanted something short there. I will explain that 24 further. 25 In fact, Mr. Clifton was in agreement 03254 1 with our interpretation on that point. And from a 2 scientific point of view, you might say, well, 3 let's just put a liner in and we will make sure 4 there is no inter-connection. But from an 5 engineering perspective, we have a channel here, 6 we dug the channel down and drained that 7 piezometric surface in the bedrock, in some areas 8 lowered it by up to 20 feet. And as a result we 9 have the situation that we monitor today. 10 If you put a liner back in that 11 section, basically you would be preventing any 12 seepage. And he had basically a standard landfill 13 liner design proposed there with a high density 14 polyethylene water tight membrane, plus a clay cap 15 and riprap. Well, basically what would happen is 16 water pressure underneath would start to recover, 17 because there would be no release of the pressure, 18 it would start to recover back up to where it had 19 been historically. And basically, if you had a 20 liner system with clay rock that was -- I would 21 say it was two metres thick, maybe it was only 22 going to be one metre thick. The water pressure 23 or weight of water is about half that of the soil. 24 So if you had a four metre head build-up of water 25 you would float the two metre liner. So it was a 03255 1 given, you were going to float that liner unless 2 you put a permanent underdrain system in there. 3 You don't need an extensive 4 engineering study to conclude that. That's pretty 5 standard. 6 And as Mr. Clifton indicated, the 7 costs to put in an underdrain system, and you 8 would have to pump that permanently and you would 9 have to ensure that it worked. If it didn't, you 10 would get the pressure build-up very quickly and 11 failure of the liner system. So the cost of that 12 system and the practicality is just -- I would say 13 it was impractical and cost prohibitive. And I 14 don't think that we need it. We can address more 15 localized areas. 16 MR. WEBSTER: I don't remember there 17 being any discussion in your EIS, correct me if 18 I'm wrong, of measures that could be taken to 19 remediate or mitigate these concerns about 20 groundwater contamination, other than your stating 21 that the risk was low. Is that correct? 22 MR. SMITH: Well, no, we do indicate 23 that -- we had a low risk for what we called the 24 representative case, and then in the appendices 25 identified the fact that it was possible if you 03256 1 took the higher sensitivity, higher permeability 2 cases, which in fact would be representative of 3 the spring areas. So we indicated that there was 4 definitely a need for monitoring at those 5 locations. We did not get into details of 6 engineering of how we were going to address that, 7 though, that's correct. 8 MR. WEBSTER: So I guess my last 9 question is, did you find that the information 10 presented by Hayes and Clifton, Wayne Clifton, 11 were something that lead you to look at these and 12 consider these as possible inclusions into the 13 project? 14 MR. SMITH: Certainly they had some 15 good observations and suggestions. Although we 16 had considered, as I say, prior to even the EIS, 17 we were under consideration of ways to control 18 these. And that, as I said, the hydraulic 19 barrier, the sentinel wells was one of the items 20 that we had been discussing. 21 MR. WEBSTER: I said that would be the 22 last question, but let me ask one more. And that 23 is, you said that the hydraulic barrier based on 24 pumping, that is pumping out, was something that 25 would use existing wells. Do you have sufficient 03257 1 wells along the floodway to do that or would you 2 need to install more? You mentioned grouting on 3 10-foot centres. The wells that we talked about 4 with Mr. Hayes were two kilometre centres. I 5 don't know what your sense is as to what is 6 required. Can you tell us how frequently they 7 need to be spaced? 8 MR. SMITH: The wells that we have 9 currently are for monitoring, they are a two inch 10 diameter, they are just strictly for water 11 sampling or water level monitoring. And the wells 12 that we are referring to as sentinel wells, for 13 example, would be probably a six inch diameter, 14 could be an eight inch, we will decide on the area 15 depending on what rate of pumping might be 16 required. But we do have budget allowances in the 17 project for those wells and we have identified the 18 fact that there would be a need to install more. 19 MR. WEBSTER: And those would be how 20 frequently spaced along that part of the floodway? 21 MR. SMITH: In an area of potential 22 seepage, say at a spring area, there could be -- 23 depending on again what the permeability of the 24 rock is, but probably in the order of 100-metre 25 centres, and depending on the extent of the spring 03258 1 zone, could have three, four, five wells. 2 Sometimes we will put them in and pump alternate 3 wells, and then if you need them use the split 4 spaces, use them as well. 5 MR. WEBSTER: Where would the water go 6 from there? 7 MR. SMITH: That would be pumped back 8 into the floodway. 9 THE CHAIRMAN: Just to follow on one 10 small short snapper, and I asked this question 11 last week, Thursday I guess when Dr. Clifton was 12 back before us, but he couldn't answer it, so I 13 said I would ask it of you. Do you know how many 14 springs there are in the floodway channel? 15 MR. SMITH: Well, we have identified 16 the major spring zones, and those are ones with 17 100 gallons or more. I think there is about six 18 on that drawing on the profile, six, possibly 19 seven sites of the main zones. And we have in 20 fact gone out recently and done another, 21 essentially a skidoo survey. During the winter is 22 the best time to see. One of these problems is 23 these are springs that are upwelling in the bottom 24 of the low flow channel, so because the water is a 25 bit warmer, it keeps the ice open where those are 03259 1 occurring. So we have actually gone out recently 2 and done a follow-up survey on that point. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: So there is about six 4 zones, and the total amount in the zone is 100 5 gallons? 6 MR. SMITH: No, these would be zones 7 of 100 gallons or possibly more. We did at 8 Dunning Road measure 1,000 gallons a minute total, 9 and recent monitoring in the past few weeks it has 10 been similar to that. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: I think this was 12 covered before, but just to help me, can some of 13 that or -- can some of that water be captured and 14 used before it spills? I think you mentioned at 15 some point that the municipalities have either 16 done so, or have considered putting wells in just 17 before these springs spill the water? 18 MR. SMITH: Well, certainly you can 19 develop wells on the east or up gradient side and 20 intercept that water before it gets to the 21 channel. We have actually, again, another one of 22 the concepts that we have discussed, and it is not 23 really part of the mandate for the floodway work, 24 but we have considered the possibility of local 25 sections of essentially a French drain or a 03260 1 horizontal drilling drain in a zone of high 2 springs right below the low flow channel. So that 3 with a sump operation you could pump out from that 4 zone in periods where the floodway is otherwise 5 essentially dry. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Pump out usable water? 7 MR. SMITH: Yes, but I would caution, 8 given the other sources coming into the floodway 9 from the various lateral drains and Seine River 10 and other areas, I would -- you know, you would 11 probably need to treat that water. So it would be 12 preferable to be able to tap it up gradient before 13 it discharges into the floodway. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think we 15 will call it a day there. We still have perhaps, 16 as long as your answers continue to be succinct, 17 perhaps about an hour more of questions tomorrow 18 morning. I think there is three or four areas on 19 the list that our consultants have prepared for 20 us, and then I think two or three of us have our 21 own short snappers. I don't think it will take us 22 all that long to conclude tomorrow morning. 23 I would say to participant groups that 24 immediately following the conclusion of the 25 questions by the Commission, we will start with 03261 1 closing statements. And for tomorrow morning, I 2 think Cooks Creek Conservation District will be up 3 first, North Ritchot Action Committee, Peguis 4 Indian Band, we could probably possibly get to the 5 three of you tomorrow morning, so please be 6 prepared for that. 7 MR. J. OSLER: Before we leave, 8 Mr. Smith was remiss, he has one undertaking from 9 an earlier day when he was to describe the process 10 that they followed in capping wells. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly. 12 MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, just a brief 13 undertaking. There was a question raised in our 14 cross-examination previously by the reeves, and 15 their concern was, what are you doing with all of 16 those drill holes? This is great drilling lots of 17 holes, but are you sealing them? At the time I 18 indicated that it was my understanding that we had 19 bentonited them. I just verified that. 20 The protocol that we used for every 21 hole was to put in what is referred to as a bag of 22 bentonite, but it is about .6 of a metre or two 23 feet of bentonite at the bottom of the hole, and 24 then at three metre intervals all the way up the 25 hole to repeat that, and at the top of the hole 03262 1 another two feet of bentonite. That bentonite is 2 a much lower permeability than the lacustrine 3 clays, so it gives you a water tight seal in the 4 holes, so it prevents any interconnection. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 6 MR. SMITH: I guess I could add to 7 that, any of the instrumentation that we have 8 installed where we put in the wells, those are 9 continuous bentonite in those holes. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Just before 11 we all flee, the Commission secretary has some 12 administration trivia to take care of, the 13 reporting of exhibits. 14 MS. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 15 We have to add this pile of paper that we 16 inherited again today. Exhibit 107 will be the 17 Manitoba Floodway Authority Infrastructure Canada 18 correspondence; 108 will be the presentation on 19 Floodway Expansion site investigations; 109 will 20 be the presentation on Floodway Expansion 21 groundwater modeling; 110 is the presentation on 22 Floodway Expansion groundwater monitoring status; 23 111 is a presentation on the floodway conceptual 24 groundwater protection strategy during flood 25 events; 112 is a presentation on health risk 03263 1 model; 113 is the memorandum regarding the 2 submissions before the CEC by the municipalities; 3 and 114 is Mr. Clifton's closing comments. Thank 4 you. 5 6 (EXHIBIT 107: Manitoba Floodway 7 Authority Infrastructure Canada 8 correspondence) 9 10 (EXHIBIT 108: Presentation on 11 Floodway Expansion site 12 investigations) 13 14 (EXHIBIT 109: Presentation on 15 Floodway Expansion groundwater 16 modeling) 17 18 (EXHIBIT 110: Presentation on 19 Floodway Expansion groundwater 20 monitoring status) 21 22 (EXHIBIT 111: Presentation on the 23 floodway conceptual groundwater 24 protection strategy during flood 25 events) 03264 1 2 (EXHIBIT 112: Presentation on health 3 risk model) 4 5 (EXHIBIT 113: Memorandum regarding 6 the submissions before the CEC by the 7 municipalities) 8 9 (EXHIBIT 114: Mr. Clifton's closing 10 comments) 11 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, we are 13 adjourned for today, 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. 14 15 (Adjourned at 5:05 p.m.) 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 03265 1 OFFICIAL EXAMINER'S CERTIFICATE 2 3 4 5 I, CECELIA REID, a duly appointed Official 6 Examiner in the Province of Manitoba, do hereby 7 certify the foregoing pages are a true and correct 8 transcript of my Stenotype notes as taken by me at 9 the time and place hereinbefore stated. 10 11 12 13 ---------------------------- 14 Cecelia Reid 15 Official Examiner, Q.B. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25