00430 1 MANITOBA CLEAN ENVIRONMENT COMMISSION 2 3 4 5 6 7 RED RIVER FLOODWAY EXPANSION PROJECT 8 9 10 11 12 ======================================= 13 Wednesday, February 16, 2005 14 Sheraton Hotel, 161 Donald Street 15 Winnipeg, Manitoba 16 ======================================== 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 00431 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 17 Participants: 18 Mr. Bob Starr - Ritchot Concerned Citizens Mr. Bob Bodnaruk - RM of Springfield 19 Mr. Steve Strang - RM of St. Clements Mr. Orvel Currie - Counsel to Municipalities 20 Mr. Doug Chorney - Coalition for Flood Protection North 21 Mr. Kerry McLuhan - Coalition for Flood Protection North 22 Mr. Rob Loudfoot - 768 Association Mr. Y. Shumuk - 768 Association 23 Paul Clifton - Paul Clifton Mr. Jeff Frank - Rivers West 24 Gaile Whelan Enns - Manitoba Wildlands Earl Stevenson - Peguis Indian Band 25 00432 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 Presenters: February 16, 2005 6 Brian Wilson - Alpine Ski Division 7 Paul Jordan - Forks/North Portage Muriel Bugera - Crow Wing Trail 8 Rosemay Dzus - Manitoba Recreational Trail Association 9 Janice Lukes -St. Norbert Heritage Trail 10 Norman Gousseau - Enterprise Riel Bruce McKee - Personal 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 00433 1 INDEX OF EXHBITS 2 3 4 41 Cumulative Effects Practitioners 487 Guide 5 42 Bio report for Rick Bowering 518 6 43 Presentation by Rosemary Dzus, 606 7 Manitoba Recreational Trails Association 8 44 Recreational Use of Red River 621 9 Floodway Land, presentation by Janice Lukes and Norman Gousseau 10 45 Crow Wing Trail Association Chemin 629 11 Saint-Paul Inc. presentation 12 46 Presentation by Alpine Ski Division 641 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 00434 1 INDEX OF UNDERTAKINGS 2 UNDERTAKING NO. PAGE 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 00435 1 1 Wednesday, February 16, 2005 2 2 Upon commencing at 1:00 p.m. 3 3 4 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon. 5 5 Welcome back. Welcome to day three. I understand 6 6 that the Floodway Authority wishes to make a few 7 7 comments in respect of cumulative effects 8 8 assessment. That's good because I was actually 9 9 going to open on the same point. We'll turn it 10 10 over to you, Mr. Rempel, or whoever else. 11 11 MR. REMPEL: Thanks very much, 12 12 Mr. Chair. What we thought we would do is in 13 13 response to some of the questions that were asked 14 14 yesterday, and apparently some confusion about 15 15 incrementality and so on, we thought we'd make a 16 16 short presentation with some explanations and some 17 17 examples of how we have applied cumulative 18 18 effects. So Mr. Cam Osler will take us through 19 19 some slides and then I believe Dr. Morgan will 20 20 show how that was applied, that those principles 21 21 were applied to a groundwater example. Mr. Osler. 22 22 MR. C. OSLER: Mr. Chairman, we have 23 23 prepared an exhibit. There are copies available 24 24 to the board and to the participants and I'll 25 25 speak to the exhibit. 00436 1 We were talking yesterday about the 2 incremental issue with respect to cumulative 3 effects and that's what I'm focusing my attention 4 on. If we look at the Cumulative Effects 5 Assessment Practitioner's Guide, they provide a 6 definition of cumulative effects assessment in 7 their Appendix "A" glossary which is as follows: 8 "An assessment of the incremental 9 effects of an action on the 10 environment when the effects are 11 combined with those from other past, 12 existing and future actions." 13 Our understanding in a hearing like 14 this is that we are assessing the effects of an 15 action due to a project that's under regulatory 16 review. We're assessing the effects of the action 17 of the floodway expansion on the environment and 18 that will be each component of the environment 19 separately, when the effects of that project are 20 combined with those of other past, existing and 21 future actions. And the word "actions" in this 22 context includes both projects and activities. 23 Okay. 24 Second slide. In our EIS chapter 2, 25 pages 2-5 through 2-8, we reviewed cumulative 00437 1 effects assessment and with a few references to 2 this guide that I just quoted and we attached the 3 sections that we referenced in Appendix 2. 4 The attachment in appendix 2(b) 5 includes the quote I'm going to deal with right 6 here. This quote occurs at page 2(b) in appendix 7 2(b). And it comes after the heading in the guide 8 "What a project specific cumulative effects 9 assessment fundamentally needs to do." And it 10 lists three things and I've quoted them in their 11 entirety. 12 So cumulative effects assessment for a 13 project like this one under regulatory review 14 needs to do three things. First, we need to 15 determine if the project under review will have an 16 effect on a VEC. 17 Now, in the context of the guide, the 18 term VEC is a valued ecosystem component. We have 19 in other contexts for another application used the 20 term valued environmental component. In this 21 particular application, we haven't used that 22 language. But everything we examine, every part 23 of the environment, the physical components, the 24 biological components, the socio-economic 25 components, we have identified the items that we 00438 1 think are important that need to be assessed. And 2 they are, for the context of this discussion, 3 valued components of the environment. 4 So the first step you've got to do is 5 determine whether the project will have an effect 6 on the valued part of the environment. In my 7 submission, only proceed further if there is such 8 an effect. 9 Part two of the guide. 10 "If such an effect can be 11 demonstrated, determine if the 12 incremental effect," 13 that's the effect of that project on that part of 14 of the environment, 15 "acts cumulatively with the effects of 16 other actions either past, existing or 17 future." 18 Third, the ultimate job, 19 "Determine if the effect of the 20 project," 21 which is the same incremental effect we've been 22 talking about, 23 "in combination with the other 24 effects," 25 that's the effects past, existing or future, 00439 1 "of other actions," 2 not the one we're looking at, 3 "may cause a significant change now or 4 in the future in the characteristics 5 of the valued environmental component 6 or ecosystem component after the 7 application of mitigation for that 8 project." 9 Of course that's effectively a 10 residual effect, the effect that exists from this 11 project after mitigation. And the entire exercise 12 of assessment with respect to adverse effects of a 13 project is to determine whether or not that 14 project residual effect, after mitigation, the 15 incremental effect of that project is significant 16 if it's adverse, and likely I would add. The word 17 "likely" isn't put in there but it's in the guide 18 all over the place. Is it likely, is it adverse, 19 and is the significance of the effect likely to 20 occur in the future on a sustained basis. 21 Now, that's the guide as to sort of 22 what we're doing here, fundamental things we have 23 to do. What I'd like to do is now take an example 24 in order to get the language that we're using very 25 clear. And this is not meant to be an example 00440 1 that pertains to the facts of the floodway 2 expansion. It's an example just to get language 3 clear as to how we're using it. 4 Okay. I'm going to do this slide 5 you've got in front of you, we'll do it 6 progressively. The cumulative effects assessment 7 of a project on a specific environment component, 8 that's what we're assuming we're talking about. 9 Any project you want to dream up, any particular 10 component of the environment we need to assess. 11 We're looking at the effects over 12 time, through time, and we're looking at the 13 magnitude of the effect on that component on the 14 environment. We have a thing called a baseline 15 which is our assessment of the magnitude of that 16 effect on the environment -- the magnitude of 17 effects on the environment that will exist without 18 this project coming into existence through time. 19 In many people's mind, there is a 20 concept implicit there was an environment 21 undisturbed, or at least way back in time called 22 the natural environment. And of course the 23 difference between that and the baseline reflects 24 the impact of previous actions. It could have 25 been several of them. In this case, we 00441 1 hypothesized that there is two actions, action "A" 2 and action "B". And those, in our opinion, are 3 the effect of past actions on that component of 4 the environment. They explain how the baseline 5 got to be different than something called the 6 natural or something that existed a long time ago. 7 We then bring into the picture the 8 project that we're trying to assess. In our 9 language, the incremental effect of that project 10 after mitigation, its residual effects is defined 11 to be the difference between the world that would 12 have existed without that project and the effect 13 of that project on that component of the 14 environment. 15 The residual effect is the shorter 16 arrow in the diagram. It is the distance between 17 the baseline and the effect that exists overall 18 after the project has come into play. These are 19 all assessed as being likely issues. I'm not 20 getting into those. 21 The point, as we see it, of cumulative 22 effects assessment is to try and establish the 23 context of that incremental residual effect after 24 mitigation. 25 For the sake of this discussion, we 00442 1 will assume that we can all agree on thresholds. 2 It doesn't always -- it isn't nearly always that 3 easy. But the concepts imply that one can 4 determine a level called a threshold in principle 5 or in theory beyond which the actions of this 6 project on the environment would be unacceptable. 7 It would be concluded to be not only adverse but 8 significantly adverse. 9 If you're below that line by any 10 significant degree, you would conclude the project 11 as acceptable and doesn't create a significant 12 adverse effect. If you move above that magical 13 line or an area around that line, you would 14 conclude that the project is adverse, significant 15 and therefore creates the problem that we're all 16 trying to find out if there is such a problem due 17 to the project. 18 Now, there could be other levels of 19 threshold in principle. Obviously, the one I just 20 gave you, this project would not have a 21 significant adverse effect would be the 22 conclusion. 23 Threshold 2, we just looked at 24 threshold 1, threshold 2 is a hypothetical one for 25 the purpose of discussion which was lying just 00443 1 above the baseline before we introduced this 2 project. And the clear implication of introducing 3 this project into that environment is to create an 4 adverse effect that would be deemed to be 5 unacceptable. It's pushing the level of effect on 6 that environmental component above the threshold 7 into the unacceptable zone. 8 In that case, the project makes all 9 the difference in the world between an acceptable 10 set of situations and an unacceptable one. 11 A third hypothetical threshold that we 12 all have to understand can exist is one threshold 13 3 in the diagram where previous actions before we 14 consider this project have already created a 15 disturbed environment that people would conclude 16 to be beyond the threshold of acceptability. 17 Now that may have been authorized duly 18 in law. There is nothing in the environment acts 19 that say you cannot do things that have 20 significant adverse effects but you have to go 21 through the right process for them. Or it might 22 have happened long before the current acts and 23 therefore be Godfathered or grandfathered. But 24 nonetheless, that's the reality that we would face 25 in certain circumstances. 00444 1 The guide gives us guidance on 2 different types of situations. And it does 3 address the threshold 3 case and says, you know, 4 and we have addressed it when talking about 5 thresholds as such in our evidence at page 2-13. 6 The point is if the environment has been so 7 disturbed before, that this project itself does 8 not really add to the disturbance and doesn't 9 create a significant change, one might not 10 conclude that the project is unacceptable. 11 There are situations where that 12 conclusion could flow. Not that they would flow 13 in all circumstances but it's a possibility that 14 the guide envisages. 15 I want to go into a couple of other 16 things in a minute. Well, maybe we'll go into the 17 next slide just to bring the future into the 18 picture. Everything we have just looked at, we 19 add one more thing to the cumulative effects 20 assessment, a future action. Just to get the 21 language correct, the way we're using it anyway, 22 the baseline without that project is the actions 23 "A" and "B" in the diagram. And the future 24 project, from the point of view of our assessment, 25 modifies that baseline. It shows the baseline 00445 1 evolving without the project. And the effect of 2 past and future actions therefore is the combined 3 effect of all of those things, actions "A", "B" 4 and future action in the diagram on that 5 environment component. 6 Now we introduce the project that 7 we're trying to assess. The project's residual 8 effect after mitigation is indeed the extra 9 distance above the baseline now modified by past 10 and future actions that this project imposes on 11 that component of the environment. 12 The picture that we see there can also 13 introduce thresholds again. Threshold 1 would be 14 a situation where, despite all of these combined 15 effects, the incremental effect of this project 16 does not push the environment component we're 17 looking at beyond its threshold. And the 18 threshold 2 in the diagram is the situation where 19 indeed this project, when combined with future and 20 past actions does indeed push this threshold, push 21 the environment in this particular area, this 22 particular component beyond its threshold. 23 And so that's how we're using the 24 words first of all. 25 Secondly, our submission is that the 00446 1 whole point of this planning guide and 2 requirements under law is to ensure that the 3 incremental effect of the project, after its 4 mitigation, is viewed properly in a proper 5 context. That you have really put your mind to 6 the effects that had been flowing from other 7 actions that people should be thinking about that 8 are affecting this component of the environment. 9 You are not considering it in absentia from all 10 these other things. 11 In the end, if you consider all the 12 relevant things you're doing in environmental 13 assessment properly, and thus the phrase 14 cumulative environmental effects assessment is 15 simply doing environmental assessment properly. 16 I would also point out that in some 17 situations, many situations perhaps, thresholds 18 are not as clear as they are in this diagram. And 19 in many situations, the effects of all the various 20 actions that are affecting an environmental 21 component, and groundwater may be a good example 22 in this hearing, are affected by a number of other 23 factors that have got nothing much to do with what 24 we're talking about here. And trying to decipher 25 those can sometimes be very complicated. 00447 1 Ultimately, we want to know what the 2 baseline is. We may not be able to trace all of 3 the things that cause it very clearly and we're 4 not obligated to trying and assess the 5 responsibility of action "A" versus action "B" in 6 creating that baseline. Our job is to make sure 7 we've got a proper baseline. 8 I would say, secondly, that if you're 9 thinking of very simple examples, apart from the 10 diagrams. We can all think of someone standing in 11 some water. And if the existing situation is the 12 water is coming up to your waist, okay, that's 13 interesting. But if I add a few more feet of 14 water, maybe it doesn't get over my chin. Maybe I 15 hadn't created a threshold yet. But if I get to 16 the point where the project that I'm considering 17 adds enough more water, I will drown. That's a 18 very simple concept of threshold. And it means 19 that an inch may be very important under the right 20 circumstance. A foot may not matter under other 21 circumstances. Several feet may not matter under 22 other circumstances. 23 I think the whole point of this 24 exercise is to understand the context in which the 25 effect, the residual incremental effect of the 00448 1 project you are looking at works. If you get 2 enough water to go above my chin but you give me a 3 breathing apparatus so it doesn't matter, maybe 4 you've mitigated it, maybe you haven't. We can 5 debate that elsewhere. But the point is you have 6 to think of these things, I submit, and get down 7 to the core concepts that are underlying it. 8 That's the language. I think those 9 are the fundamentals that I wanted to emphasize. 10 I'd like to now just apply the words in two 11 contexts to complete what I want to talk about 12 that are relevant to this hearing. 13 When we're talking about assessment, 14 cumulative effects assessment of the Floodway 15 Expansion Project, we talked yesterday about 16 upstream water levels. And let's talk about them 17 under the context of what we call in our 18 assessment "operation active." Meaning there is 19 flooding and we're operating the floodway. And 20 what's the situation that we have to describe in 21 this environmental assessment. 22 The baseline is the world without the 23 project, the water levels upstream of the floodway 24 inlet. And the natural, in this case ironically, 25 is a defined term given the way in which the 00449 1 floodway operations are structured. There is a 2 thing created called a natural water level for 3 everybody to assess. 4 And the difference between those two 5 which exists without this new project is called 6 artificial flooding resulting from the existing 7 floodway, and probably a few other things as well. 8 But that's the evidence. And through time, at any 9 one level of operation of the floodway, you'll get 10 a certain level of artificial flooding upstream of 11 the inlet. And that is the effect of past 12 actions. 13 Introducing the Floodway Expansion 14 Project into this particular component of the 15 environment, in most situations that we were 16 considering, but not necessarily all situations, 17 has an effect. In some extreme situations, when 18 you get the flood of 1 in 700 years or more, it 19 probably has no effect. But in most of the 20 situations we were thinking about and talking 21 about yesterday, the floodway expansion has some 22 effect. And to the extent it has any effect, it 23 is to reduce the level of flooding upstream to 24 reduce the artificial flooding upstream. That is 25 the evidence. 00450 1 From the point of view of an 2 environmental assessment, the residual effect of 3 this project in this particular part of the 4 environment on this particular component of the 5 environment is the reduction in flooding that 6 would have otherwise occurred. It is therefore a 7 positive effect, not an adverse effect, and would 8 not lead us to pursue further even the discussion 9 of cumulative adverse effects and their 10 significance. 11 The fundamental perspective underlying 12 all of our thinking is that concept is diagrammed 13 there. I think the issue from many people's 14 points of view is concern over the effects of the 15 past project and the extent to which they would 16 like to see it mitigated more by other actions or 17 whatever or they have other concerns to do with 18 the past actions. This project, though, has that 19 effect, that residual effect on that component of 20 the environment and it is not adverse. And its 21 impact, its effect by any standard that we can use 22 is an improvement relative to what was there 23 before. 24 The situation that was there before 25 may well have exceeded a threshold from many 00451 1 people's perspective. It may still exceed a 2 threshold as a result of the floodway expansion. 3 Floodway expansion may not have brought it back to 4 an acceptable level from some people's points of 5 view. But our issue is what's the residual effect 6 of this project, it's incremental effect on that 7 environmental component, and it is positive by any 8 use of the language. 9 I won't deal with Winnipeg because 10 it's I think understood but let's deal with 11 downstream under the same concept. The evidence 12 we were talking about yesterday here shows the 13 situation downstream of the floodway. 14 The baseline that we start from 15 without any new project, the evidence is that that 16 baseline is lower than what would have existed in 17 nature. That reflects the effects of other 18 actions in the past. 19 The effect of past actions. The 20 floodway I'm told doesn't really have much effect 21 in this situation but the Portage Diversion, the 22 Shellmouth Controls have had a significant effect 23 in the past. So the baseline there is lower than 24 it would have been under these operation active 25 conditions, flood conditions, than the natural. 00452 1 What is the impact or the effect of 2 introducing the Floodway Expansion Project into 3 this particular environment? Again, the evidence 4 is that under a broad set of circumstances into 5 varying degrees, the floodway expansion will 6 generally, under major floods, increase, to some 7 extent, the water levels downstream of the inlet 8 for certain distances. This residual effect, 9 after mitigation, is assessed all the way through 10 the environmental assessment because it is 11 adverse. It does flow from the project and 12 therefore it needs to be assessed on each 13 component of the environment and including any 14 cumulative issues of the past. But in this 15 diagram, looking at this particular element of the 16 situation, the past actions were generally 17 positive by most people's standards. This action, 18 this new project is reversing or acting against 19 those past actions. 20 The point of the final conclusions 21 that we reach is having assessed it, we don't find 22 the effects of that change to be significant. It 23 is adverse but we don't find it to be significant. 24 And the key elements of that I leave to the 25 evidence to discuss as to why we find that. But 00453 1 in a particular case of the effects on the people 2 and their property, the commitment of the 3 proponent is to mitigate the effect through 4 sandbagging. And if that mitigation is 5 inadequate, to compensate even though this is not 6 artificial flooding and would not be eligible for 7 compensation under the existing legislation. 8 So this is a situation where even 9 though we haven't gone above natural and we will 10 not, I advise, go above natural under any floodway 11 conditions that are being assessed, this effect is 12 still deemed to be adverse and needs to be 13 assessed throughout the assessment. 14 Mr. Chairman, I'm finished what I was 15 going to present. Before we go to the next step 16 which is an example of the groundwater area, just 17 to help do two things, give an example but also 18 get clarity on the groundwater, we can have some 19 questions if you want. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: Are you going to take 21 this down in the next explanation? 22 MR. C. OSLER: I was going to take 23 this down in the next explanation, yes. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask a couple of 25 questions. First of all, let me say that I found 00454 1 your explanation to be very helpful. I think it 2 met what I believe to be cumulative effects 3 assessment. I think maybe you guys need to hire a 4 writer. Maybe you're just too expert and you're 5 putting material forward at an expert level when 6 we're dealing with public hearings and, you know, 7 we're somewhat lay people. 8 And that was also confused somewhat by 9 some statements, particularly by Mr. Gilroy 10 publicly and in his letter of December 20th. If 11 you read the letters carefully, you can see what 12 he is saying but if you don't read it carefully, 13 and many of us don't read things thoroughly, the 14 implication was, was that past effects are not 15 under consideration at all. I mean you have just 16 said that, you know, if you did your cumulative 17 assessment in this manner, then I for one, and I 18 can't speak for my colleagues or the consultants 19 behind me, but I am more satisfied than I was 20 yesterday. 21 I mean yesterday, in answer to some of 22 our questions, we got the impression, or I got the 23 impression anyway, that again we were just dealing 24 with incremental and that you weren't even 25 considering the past effects. 00455 1 Last night, as I was thinking over 2 this a bit and talking with some of my colleagues, 3 this thought came to me that, you know, you could 4 have an insignificant past effect coupled with an 5 insignificant current effect that together would 6 be a significant effect. But the way it was 7 presented to us yesterday or at least the way I 8 received it yesterday, by defining the incremental 9 effect as insignificant, you were dismissing the 10 fact that it could combine with another 11 insignificant effect to be a significant one -- if 12 that's not too confusing. 13 So let me go to a question that's 14 related to a bigger picture, not specifically to 15 cumulative effects assessment. But this blue 16 part, the floodway expansion or the project effect 17 residual, this will be caused by operation of the 18 floodway? Am I correct? 19 MR. C. OSLER: This particular effect 20 that we're looking at in this diagram is an 21 operation effect that comes from working the 22 floodway expansion in a flood event. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: And that's artificial 24 flooding. 25 MR. C. OSLER: No. In this particular 00456 1 diagram, sir, we're looking at the downstream 2 water levels. We can go back. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: But it would be 4 artificial flooding downstream. 5 MR. C. OSLER: Well, let me just say 6 two things. One is -- 7 THE CHAIRMAN: It's still below 8 natural. 9 MR. C. OSLER: Yes, that's the point. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: But it's additional 11 water as a result of the operation of the 12 floodway. 13 MR. C. OSLER: It is incremental 14 flooding as a result of the Floodway Expansion 15 Project. But everybody in Manitoba who uses the 16 word "artificial flooding" would get upset with me 17 if I called it artificial flooding because that's 18 a defined term in their mind meaning flooding 19 effects that are above natural due to the 20 operation of the floodway. Do you understand? 21 THE CHAIRMAN: I fully understand. 22 MR. C. OSLER: Okay. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Rempel? 24 MR. REMPEL: Mr. McNeil would like to 25 explain the common use of the word "artificial 00457 1 flooding." 2 MR. MCNEIL: Well, what I was going to 3 do is just indicate in my words the definition of 4 artificial flooding which is in the Red River 5 Floodway Act and that's flooding above the state 6 of nature. And what we're showing in this diagram 7 is that the flooding caused by this project for 8 the 700 year flood downstream of Lockport is still 9 below the state of nature. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Just one moment. 11 Can you bring back that other slide? So you're 12 admitting -- well, maybe I shouldn't put words in 13 your mouth. The blue part on this slide, it 14 represents artificial flooding? 15 MR. C. OSLER: The distance between 16 the natural and the baseline, the arrow that 17 covers the effects of past actions is artificial 18 flooding as defined by the Floodway Acts. 19 Correct, Doug? 20 MR. MCNEIL: Yes. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: The, whatever colour 22 that is, grey or light green or something, is the 23 artificial flooding? 24 MR. C. OSLER: Yes. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: And the blue part is 00458 1 the residual effect. So in effect, you could draw 2 the blue thing differently and show a lower 3 artificial flooding? 4 MR. C. OSLER: What the effect of the 5 floodway expansion is to reduce the artificial 6 flooding upstream of the project under the flood 7 conditions that we're talking about. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: So the operation of the 9 project in certain flood scenarios would still 10 cause artificial flooding? 11 MR. C. OSLER: Definitely. 12 MR. MCNEIL: I'd like to add that 13 after floodway expansion, there will be artificial 14 flooding from the 120 year up to the 700 year. 15 With the existing floodway, artificial flooding 16 occurs for floods larger than the 90 year. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes. I fully 18 understand that. With the expanded floodway, 19 there will still be artificial flooding in certain 20 scenarios but at a lower rate? 21 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: So when you're seeking 23 a licence for operations, you are seeking a 24 licence that, in those scenarios, will allow for 25 artificial flooding? 00459 1 MR. C. OSLER: Yes is the point. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you. 3 MR. C. OSLER: Just if I could. The 4 reason why we wanted to do this is we could 5 appreciate yesterday that the language is 6 confusing and we hadn't done a good enough job. 7 I'm speaking for myself anyway. The problem that 8 seems to arise is the use of the word "effects" in 9 the language. And we have to always remember that 10 effect has to be of something on something. These 11 effects are all on the same thing but they come 12 from different things. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: I realize that, you 14 know, and I've gone back to a number of these 15 documents a number of times over the last few days 16 and weeks. After my experience last spring when I 17 was still a relative newcomer, I went and checked 18 out the CEAA Practitioner's Guideline. And I put 19 a lot of effort into trying to understand this. 20 But a lot of the people in the public, and these 21 are public hearings and for their benefit, they 22 are having more difficulty than I am I assume. I 23 shouldn't put it that way. They haven't had the 24 opportunity to study up on it as much as I have, 25 to try to understand. 00460 1 MR. C. OSLER: And frankly, as a 2 practitioner, I accepted our job as to try and 3 explain it properly. And if we hadn't done it 4 yet, we'll keep trying. That's why we're here. 5 It's not just for the Commission but for anybody 6 else. We get into a language that we get used to 7 using. But I would admit that this language is 8 difficult even for the professionals as I said in 9 the other hearings. So we'll keep trying and we 10 actually appreciate the opportunity given to us to 11 do it better. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 13 Mr. Webster? 14 MR. WEBSTER: Yes, thank you. I 15 wanted to ask a further question on this 16 particular diagram. First of all, I wanted to say 17 also that I very much appreciated your clear 18 explanation today. This will be something we can 19 refer to in the course of our discussions over the 20 next days and hopefully not too many weeks. But 21 it will make life a lot easier, your having gone 22 to the trouble to put this together. So thank 23 you. 24 I wanted to come back to this 25 particular one because it seems to me in this 00461 1 particular diagram, in this one only, your 2 baseline is in fact determined by the way the 3 floodway is operated. It's not a property of the 4 new floodway. It's in fact the property of how 5 it's operated at a particular load, in other 6 words, under a particular set of conditions. You 7 would choose to operate it that way under I think 8 it's rule 2 conditions. Am I correct? 9 MR. C. OSLER: Yes. 10 MR. WEBSTER: And so in fact, I'm 11 going to now say to you that I'm not sure that I 12 understand why you put the baseline there. Is 13 that baseline in this case not a fixed baseline 14 but a moving baseline? 15 MR. C. OSLER: Okay. I have fun with 16 all my colleagues on the same level but I was 17 instructed to keep it simple and not to get into 18 the complexities. 19 You have to give me the latitude of 20 saying I'm trying to get the concept straight and 21 this is a real situation under rule 2. It doesn't 22 apply to the same degree in all circumstances 23 under rule 2. But when we have a flood of a 24 certain magnitude that gets us into rule 2 under 25 the -- and let's just ignore the engineering 00462 1 differences that rule 2 will kick in at a slightly 2 later point, okay. We've got a 1 in 150 year 3 flood or 1 in 200 year flood. So rule 2 will kick 4 in whether we use it in the existing floodway or 5 the expanded floodway. 6 In that situation, this diagram is 7 intended to explain the world and it says whatever 8 the world would have been without this new 9 project, the artificial flooding would be reduced 10 with this project. That is the evidence. 11 Now everybody can now debate what they 12 want to debate about that. As an environmental 13 assessment team, that's the information we are 14 given to work with and we are then asked to assess 15 it. And the only way we can assess it is that 16 that effect, relative to the world that existed 17 without the project is positive given the language 18 that we're asked to use. And it doesn't even 19 start into chain linked connections the assessment 20 of an adverse effect. It doesn't get past the 21 first step. 22 MR. WEBSTER: I think the reason for 23 pursuing this particular question was that my 24 understanding, and I suspect we'll be asking you 25 questions about this further, was that the 00463 1 objective was to operate the floodway now and with 2 the expanded floodway in such a way that 3 artificial flooding is minimized. And so rule 2 4 does take us into that kind of territory. But 5 artificial flooding, since it's such an 6 antagonistic situation for some people, it seems 7 only partially acceptable to put it under the 8 baseline rather than above it. And I think that 9 that, as I say, may be a subject for some further 10 discussion. But under the circumstances that you 11 have described it, I accept that that diagram 12 expresses what you're saying quite well. Thank 13 you. 14 MR. C. OSLER: Thank you. And I think 15 that that is the issue for many people in the 16 hearing, is the acceptability of that baseline. 17 But I do want to facilitate useful conversation 18 because our assessment treats it as the baseline 19 for the reasons I have given. Somebody would have 20 to modify the operation of the floodway in order 21 for us to look at a different set of possibilities 22 in the future. But that's the framework we were 23 given, that's the project we've been asked to 24 assess. 25 MR. WEBSTER: So please keep these 00464 1 slides handy. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Osler and 3 Mr. Rempel, and this won't be the final word on 4 it, but you have explained that this is what 5 cumulative effects means. Can you assure us that 6 this is what you have done throughout the 7 Environmental Impact Statement that's before us? 8 MR. C. OSLER: Yes, sir. Despite the 9 confusions of our way of expressing it, this is 10 what we've done to the best of our ability. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: And we'll be coming 12 back to that. 13 MR. REMPEL: Perhaps this is a good 14 time then to show you an example of how it was 15 applied in a particular instance that also touches 16 on some of the questions that Dr. Webster raised 17 about the Springhill groundwater aquifer. So 18 Dr. Morgan will take you through a few slides 19 here. 20 MR. MORGAN: Before I get too much 21 into this, I'm not sure if each of you have a copy 22 of the EIS because often when we're discussing the 23 groundwater section -- 24 THE CHAIRMAN: The EIS? 25 MR. MORGAN: Of the EIS, the main 00465 1 volume. Because often when we're discussing the 2 groundwater section, we might refer to something 3 which isn't in our slide but there's lots of 4 figures in that section on groundwater starting at 5 page 514. If you don't have a copy, we've made a 6 few extra copies just of that section. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Is this what -- 8 MR. MORGAN: That's it, okay. Yeah, 9 that's it. That's just from the EIS. It's not 10 new evidence in any way, just to be clear. 11 First off, I just wanted to give you a little 12 background on my role, and I'm on the 13 environmental assessment team, and Mr. Smith's 14 role, and he is on the engineering design team. 15 The engineering design team worked at, actually 16 started looking at the groundwater, as I said, 17 even before we got started it was known to be an 18 issue. And so they had started collecting data 19 and doing analysis, and they continued on doing 20 analysis and determining what the effects of an 21 expansion project will be, and they went through 22 some rounds where they looked at deepening, what 23 the effect would be, and we commented on that, you 24 know, with information from at what the public had 25 told us. And they kept working through 00466 1 iterations, and as we have found the iteration now 2 is there is no deepening. 3 So we've each had different roles. My 4 role is to take those -- he's got about six 5 reports in there -- was to review those reports. 6 And I have summarized it in the EIS, in those 15 7 pages, what the -- and I'll go through that a 8 little bit more after this, but I have summarized 9 it and I've made an assessment, as Mr. Cam Osler 10 said, on what is the effect and whether it's 11 likely and significant. That's our role. 12 But you may have questions, and they 13 are very good in terms of how are you going to do 14 this in more detail? Mr. Smith will be able to 15 answer those on the practicalities of the 16 engineering design or mitigation activity. So he 17 will be available here and he will answer some of 18 your questions that you might have. I know 19 Dr. Webster was interested in seeing some of the 20 details of what actually are you doing. 21 So in that sense, I just wanted to, 22 looking at the groundwater section in the EIS at 23 section 5.4, what we start out doing in the first 24 part is just describing how we are going to do the 25 assessment, what the baseline is. 00467 1 We talk about the existing environment 2 in section 5.4.3, and I'll show you a little bit 3 of that, next slide there. This map, 5.4.1 in the 4 EIS, is a plan view of -- you've got it in front 5 of you, it's a bit hard to read, but there's the 6 Red River here, the Assiniboine River there, 7 flowing up to Lockport here. This is the floodway 8 noted here. What these are is piezometric levels. 9 This is the elevation of the groundwater above sea 10 level, these circles here, and these blue arrows 11 is sort of the general direction of the flow of 12 the groundwater. This hill here is Birds Hill 13 Provincial Park, and it also is a hill in terms of 14 underground and the groundwater, it is a hill, 15 it's a recharge area. 16 What we've also put on here is some 17 cross section -- we wanted to see what this looks 18 like when you slice through here. This is the RM 19 of East St. Paul, St. Clements and Springfield is 20 in this region, so this is the area of interest. 21 Cross section BB is when we take a slice through 22 the aquifer and take a look at it. AA is a slice 23 through the aquifer more in the Winnipeg region, 24 BB is more in the region of the northern 25 municipalities. 00468 1 Next slide. This is section AA as it 2 slices sort of through Winnipeg. These are the 3 key attributes, is that there is a carbonate or 4 limestone aquifer overlaid by till and clay and 5 some silt. And the floodway is here and the Red 6 River is here. This is the general flow from the 7 east to the west towards the river. This is the 8 scale here, in terms of kilometres, and this is a 9 vertical scale in terms of feet above sea level. 10 Usually the vertical scale is larger, so we can 11 see the difference in elevations. 12 I just pause for a second because I 13 know those were two, three very busy diagrams, so 14 if you have any questions on that. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: At the top right, it 16 shows to be almost 900 feet above sea level. So 17 are we talking above ground here? 18 MR. MORGAN: No, this is way out east, 19 this is a scale 30 kilometres out. It's out, not 20 900 -- that is 900 feet above sea level and 21 that's -- 22 THE CHAIRMAN: Like the City of 23 Winnipeg is what, about 750? 24 MR. MORGAN: The City of Winnipeg is 25 down here. 00469 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Is this ground level or 2 below ground? Oh, this is surface level, okay. 3 MR. MORGAN: Surface level, yeah. 4 Next slide, this is the cross 5 section -- maybe go back to the first one just to 6 remind everybody here where this BB is, one more 7 back. BB is through Birds Hill Park here, the 8 floodway, and it's roughly generally through that, 9 this is not an exact slice, but generally what 10 happens in the northern regions. Go two slides 11 forward. 12 This is the Birds Hill. This dashed 13 line is the piezometric head. What that means is 14 it's the water level, but it's under pressure, so 15 it's the pressure head of the aquifer. So in some 16 places naturally it's flowing up. 17 These flow arrows here are sort of the 18 direction of the flow. The recharge comes onto 19 this unconfined aquifer, which means it's got no 20 till or clay on top of it. It flows down from the 21 sand and gravel into the bedrock or carbonate 22 aquifer. It flows under pressure up and into the 23 river. This water is flowing up through the 24 river. Some of it, since there is, since the 25 floodway, some of it does, as has been said 00470 1 earlier, goes into the floodway. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Is that a natural flow 3 into the floodway or is it caused by excavation in 4 the '60s? I mean, this is natural underground 5 flow. 6 MR. MORGAN: The flow is that natural 7 underground, and Mr. Smith can add to the details 8 if you'd like here. When the floodway was built, 9 it did intercept some of the flow that's going 10 towards the river. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So it's just an 12 interception of natural flow. 13 MR. MORGAN: It's an interception. 14 One of the things I want to get clear here is this 15 is a continuously moving situation. Groundwater 16 is not like a bucket that you're tapping into and 17 removing something, it's flowing all the time, and 18 it's flowing towards a discharge point, which is 19 the Red River. Much of it still goes that way, 20 and at this point it's very, when you get into 21 places like Lister Rapids it does actually cut 22 across the bedrock, that's why there is the rapids 23 there, but some of it is intercepted. 24 Any more questions? 25 MR. WEBSTER: Yes, I'd like to at this 00471 1 point ask you, in the planned construction of the 2 expanded floodway, just exactly what are you 3 planning to do at this point? Because this work 4 that you've shown us here has to do with what 5 happened in the past. 6 MR. MORGAN: Yes, that's exactly it. 7 When I was going through, and I've said it, when I 8 go through the EIS, this is baseline conditions. 9 And on top of this other things have happened too. 10 And currently -- if I get this wrong, I don't know 11 exactly where it is, East St. Paul, correct me -- 12 but on the east side of the floodway, East St. 13 Paul has municipal wells which they pump out of 14 the sand and gravel aquifer, and then through a 15 pipe run over to their municipality. So their 16 wells are in this region here east of the 17 floodway. So they are on -- this side of the flow 18 is where they do the interception for the 19 municipal wells, not on the downstream side but on 20 the upstream side of the natural flow. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Could you explain those 22 two dotted lines? One is a piezometer surface and 23 one is a water table. 24 MR. SMITH: There is two different 25 systems here, as Dave has indicated. The upper 00472 1 sand and gravel is a local recharge area where you 2 have rain and snow melt coming directly in. And 3 underneath it is a bedrock aquifer with the 4 recharges coming out at around St. Anne's and 5 further to the west. So what you see on those two 6 lines on top -- so the recharge is coming in here, 7 and this upper line represents the water level, if 8 you went and dug a hole in the ground or drilled a 9 well, that's where you would hit water in the sand 10 and gravel aquifer. If you drilled a deep hole 11 down into the bedrock, the water pressure in the 12 bedrock down here would only rise up to this 13 level. So you have a net downward gradient 14 between these two pressures, that's why that flow 15 is going down into the bedrock and in part flowing 16 outward towards the floodway and the Red River. 17 So this line here represents the 18 pressure down here, and the upper line represents 19 the pressure in the sand and gravel. 20 MR. WEBSTER: I'd like to just 21 continue with this. You have the floodway 22 incised, the vertical scale I realize is 23 exaggerated here, but you've incised the floodway 24 into the surficial clay of the area, and in some 25 cases you have cut through that into the till, and 00473 1 the till is still pretty fine material. 2 MR. SMITH: That's correct. 3 MR. WEBSTER: Does the old floodway 4 cut anywhere into the sand and gravel aquifer? 5 MR. SMITH: Yes. The till, as you 6 indicated, is mainly a silt, clay content, but 7 there's a local zone where this deposit is a 8 glacial deposit and it's called a Kame Esker 9 complex, but basically there is a tail on it that 10 locally extends right across where the floodway 11 was constructed. And that occurs just near 12 Highway 59 bridge. Maybe if we can go into the 13 next slide. 14 MR. MORGAN: Actually, this leads to 15 your next question about what is being done at 16 those points. 17 MR. SMITH: Maybe go back to the first 18 slide. Yes. So the section is taken here -- 19 MR. MORGAN: Excuse me, just for the 20 record, this is the regional groundwater map 21 slide. 22 MR. SMITH: So the section that you 23 looked at was right here. There is a local tail. 24 I'm just trying to see where that Highway 59 25 crosses. It's near the Springhill ski. So right 00474 1 there you see that bulge in the contours to the 2 west. And that area, the sand and gravel, locally 3 there's a lens or a deposit that extends a little 4 further west. And at that point the floodway when 5 it was constructed intercepted that granular zone. 6 And in fact, in the '60s when they did that, they 7 removed or mined out that material for the most 8 part, but that's where you had the 9 interconnection. 10 MR. WEBSTER: My understanding, if I 11 understand this correctly, is that that is the 12 place where there was basically a leak created in 13 the aquifer which caused the drawdown of the area 14 to the east. Am I correct? Is that a simple and 15 more or less accurate way of describing the 16 problem? 17 MR. SMITH: Well, actually that's 18 where they constructed a clay plug along either 19 side of the floodway across that zone that 20 intersected the granular. So there was actually 21 no leak, other than what had naturally been 22 occurring prior to the floodway construction. So 23 there is some seepage that still passes beneath 24 the floodway through the bedrock and in the base 25 granular, but the estimate is that the flow 00475 1 through there was comparable to what had been 2 occurring naturally. 3 MR. WEBSTER: So the flow occurs all 4 of the time through these various layers to 5 varying degrees and at various rates, but when you 6 cut across, when the original floodway cut across 7 that particular finger from the deposit, from the 8 sand and gravel deposit, is that what caused 9 essentially a catastrophic lowering of the water 10 table to the east of the area, which caused the 11 wells have to be re-established? 12 MR. SMITH: Are you referring to the 13 20-foot drop all along the floodway? No, that's 14 something that occurred over the period of a 15 couple of years, and that's really the bedrock 16 discharging up through the till. It's a separate 17 aquifer system. 18 MR. WEBSTER: Because that starts to 19 answer the question that I was heading for 20 yesterday, and that was, if it's possible to put a 21 barrier in at the site of the finger of the sand 22 and gravel coming across the floodway, is it 23 possible, in fact, in reconstructing the floodway, 24 to remediate the problem that occurred with the 25 lowering of the general water table east of the 00476 1 floodway in the course of constructing the new 2 floodway? 3 MR. SMITH: The simple answer would be 4 no, not practical. 5 MR. WEBSTER: That is where I was 6 heading with my questions, because it seems to me 7 that needs to be carefully explained and 8 understood. You're talking about then the passage 9 of water through till into the floodway that was 10 made easier by the floodway being built in the 11 first place, it facilitated that seepage, it 12 accelerated something that was natural in the 13 first place; is that what you're telling us? 14 MR. SMITH: That's correct, the flow 15 was occurring naturally to the west. 16 MR. WEBSTER: And the only way of 17 preventing that would be to line the entire 18 floodway from -- I'm not quite sure where from and 19 to -- but it would be to line the entire floodway, 20 for instance, with concrete so there was no 21 opportunity for leakage. Perhaps I'm not 22 proposing a practical -- 23 MR. SMITH: That's correct. But it's 24 not practical to line the channel, because if you 25 had that 20-foot of head pressure on the underside 00477 1 of it, it would just blow it off. 2 MR. WEBSTER: Those are important 3 things I think for us to understand. 4 MR. SMITH: And the other part of that 5 is that the flow in the bedrock aquifer coming 6 from the east, the total flow that we see on those 7 arrows is still there, until it gets to the 8 floodway and you lose some discharge. Even though 9 the piezometric head is dropped, the flow recharge 10 volumes are the same. 11 MR. WEBSTER: In the context of the 12 discussion we had first of all with the diagrams 13 that helped explain cumulative effects and so 14 forth, then where we're going with this is that 15 the construction of the expanded floodway cannot 16 in fact give you an effect that is better than 17 what was there when the original floodway was 18 constructed. In fact, you're stuck with the 19 effect of losing that groundwater through that 20 system. Am I correct? 21 MR. MORGAN: That's the baseline that 22 we have. But a baseline includes not only the 23 effect of the groundwater, but we also now have 24 the East St. Paul wells that were put in, in the 25 1990s as part of the baseline. That's all part of 00478 1 the baseline where we are. 2 MR. WEBSTER: The point I guess I was 3 raising was whether in fact the construction of 4 the expanded floodway could have any kind of a 5 counter effect on that particular loss of 6 groundwater, and from what you've explained, it 7 cannot. Am I correct? 8 MR. MORGAN: The project that we 9 assessed, it does not change the baseline, no. 10 MR. WEBSTER: Nor could it? Do you 11 see what I am getting at? 12 MR. MORGAN: I'm not sure what you 13 mean. 14 MR. WEBSTER: I'm talking about 15 whether in fact it's possible -- 16 MR. MORGAN: Practically, you are 17 asking Mr. Smith, is it a practical design 18 consideration to line it. 19 MR. WEBSTER: This is a key point to 20 anybody who lives in that area and is worried 21 about the groundwater resource, as to whether in 22 fact in expanding the floodway, whether in fact 23 you can fix the problem or whether you are going 24 to make it worse. And it seems to me it's really 25 quite important to understand the practicalities 00479 1 of what you're going to do, and what you have 2 decided to do, what in fact is practical for you 3 to do and what you can't do. 4 MR. SMITH: There are some things that 5 we're looking at doing to improve, but as you 6 said, you can't recover the 20-foot of head there. 7 It's not practical. 8 MR. MORGAN: I'm not sure -- you 9 talked about remediation, which has been discussed 10 but outside the project, Mr. McNeil might be able 11 to talk about what the government -- 12 MR. WEBSTER: The whole point was, you 13 put a barrier across the thing at one place, and 14 that's the sand and gravel aquifer that you put 15 across, and I visualized incorrectly that in fact 16 it was a similar situation further along. You 17 have explained it now that in fact it's a till 18 system that you put it through, and you can't put 19 a barrier there with any practicality. In fact, 20 in putting the barrier, in fact you put a till 21 barrier in there, is that correct? It's till and 22 clay? 23 MR. MORGAN: Well, we'll go through 24 that, we have more slides. That was getting to 25 your question yesterday. 00480 1 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. 2 MR. MORGAN: We felt it was useful to 3 do two things here. One was to show that a lot of 4 this background information and the baseline, as 5 described by Mr. Osler, that stuff is described in 6 each section of the EIS, and in groundwater it is 7 described, this is the baseline condition. Then 8 we went to looking at what are the potential 9 effects of the project? How are they mitigated? 10 When they are mitigated, is the residual adverse 11 effect significant? That's what our role was. So 12 we can go through this and you can look at it in 13 terms of the EIS, you can ask more detailed 14 questions in terms of practicalities of 15 engineering design. 16 MR. WEBSTER: What I am interested in 17 your doing is telling us in fact how you are going 18 to construct the floodway through that area. 19 MR. MORGAN: Yes. Next slide. So 20 just go back one more here, just to say, so what 21 we show here is not quite exactly the same area, 22 but we focus in on this area here right by the 23 floodway, how are we going to construct that, what 24 are the potential effects, how are these effects 25 mitigated so there's no residual adverse effect? 00481 1 So that's the next one. 2 Okay, this a cross section in detail 3 of the existing floodway. This is the groundwater 4 surface or piezometric head, I think, but it is 5 the unconfined aquifer at this stage. This area 6 in here is a silty till, and because it's got a 7 low permeability, it keeps the elevation of the 8 groundwater at a higher level to the east side of 9 the floodway than on the west side. 10 Now, the construction in this Oasis 11 Road region here is to widen the floodway only in 12 this area. And go to the next slide. This cross 13 section is located at Oasis Road and the East St. 14 Paul -- just go back one more. This is a 15 sensitive area and it was looked at in the EIS, 16 it's looked at in the engineering report -- what 17 was the engineering report letter? They will look 18 it up. It's in section 5.4, and these diagrams 19 are 5.4-7. So the horizontal distance is on the 20 bottom here and the vertical in metric is on this 21 side here. 22 So looking at the detail when they are 23 widening here, there's potential -- the next 24 slide -- to cut into this silty till which is a 25 permeable barrier. If this was done without 00482 1 remediation, there would be a drop of water, and 2 the modelers, KGS, determined from a calibrated 3 model that this would be about a 2.6 metre effect 4 right at the floodway. However, with groundwater 5 it is like a flowing surface, it flows slowly but 6 it is flowing like a river. As you go back the 7 effect tapers off. And at the floodway 8 right-of-way, that's right here, the effect is 0.5 9 metres. 10 Now, as stated earlier in terms of 11 examples of cumulative effects, we know that there 12 was significant effects from the existing 13 floodway. We know from -- we listened to the 14 people, that the groundwater is a very important 15 issue, the wells are right here, this was not an 16 acceptable effect. Therefore, mitigation would be 17 required. That is the next slide. 18 A mitigation measure could be a clay 19 cutoff wall. Now, clay would be even a higher, 20 more highly impermeable material than silt. This 21 is actually -- remember, the horizontal scale and 22 the vertical, the vertical is very distorted, so 23 this is much wider than, much wider than shown 24 here. And this would raise the water level back 25 up to the existing situation. So with the cutoff 00483 1 wall there's no effect. So in our assessment the 2 mitigation to reduce residual effects is 3 insignificant. 4 So you can ask actually -- there is a 5 lot of engineering detail, and maybe Mr. Smith can 6 expand upon that. In appendix P and Q, two 7 reports talk about the details of this mitigation 8 and the analysis. 9 THE CHAIRMAN: And this cutoff wall 10 won't get blown out? 11 MR. MORGAN: It's not expected to, no, 12 it's going to be engineered and designed. 13 MR. SMITH: The cutoff wall would be 14 at least the machine width, 10, possibly 20 feet 15 in width, but we'll ensure that it's stable so 16 there won't be any problem with seepage blowouts. 17 MR. WEBSTER: Have you some further 18 diagrams of the construction that you are planning 19 to do that you could show us? 20 MR. MORGAN: No, this is the detail we 21 have up there, no further diagrams. 22 MR. SMITH: I could add that we have 23 done some follow-up investigations at that site 24 and it was submitted as a supplementary report to 25 the preliminary engineering report. And that 00484 1 shows the drill holes along that line. The cutoff 2 wall we are anticipating will be in the order of 3 300 metres in length, which is about half of the 4 total length of the excavation on that side of the 5 floodway in that area. And from the drilling that 6 we have completed, we anticipate that beyond that 7 point we would not intercept the granular zone. 8 And that of course is subject to, during 9 construction we'll refine the detail if necessary. 10 MR. WEBSTER: I know you do have 11 diagrams of the actual channel construction, and I 12 think it would be prudent at this point for you to 13 show us what the horizontal -- this is basically a 14 profile of the area. How about showing us a plan 15 of what it looks like so we can visualize what 16 this means in terms of the channel? Because the 17 channel at this point -- 18 MR. MORGAN: We'd have to look at the 19 engineering reports to extract that drawing. I 20 don't have that in a PowerPoint right now. We'll 21 call it up. 22 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. What I'm 23 looking for is clarity in the understanding as to 24 what you're planning to do. You've thrown great 25 illumination on what your plans are here by going 00485 1 through this trouble today. 2 MR. MORGAN: It's no trouble. 3 MR. WEBSTER: I appreciate it. 4 MR. MORGAN: It was an opportunity you 5 gave us to clarify the issues. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: While you're doing that 7 I might ask a question, it would be a cumulative 8 effects question I guess. In respect of this 9 groundwater in this area, did you consider the 10 effects of future development in the area, 11 particularly east of the floodway? We know that 12 East St. Paul is one of the most rapidly growing 13 municipalities in the province. Just not too far 14 away over the border, Springfield is growing 15 fairly quickly as well. Did you look at the 16 effects of that development and taking more 17 groundwater, what effect that might have on 18 long-term groundwater? 19 MR. MORGAN: The effects of future 20 projects were considered, which is why we wanted 21 no project effect. We have no effect from the 22 project by mitigating, so we're not adding to 23 anything that could happen in the future. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Osler. 25 MR. OSLER: From the point of view of 00486 1 what I was talking about, let me put it this way. 2 We want to use this as an example really in the 3 context of cumulative effects, more than a 4 detailed discussion of the engineering of the 5 groundwater issue, although we thought it might 6 help set the stage for questions you may have on 7 that as well. But we took seriously the problem 8 and therefore mitigated it so that there would be 9 no effect. That's the essence of the diagram. 10 Given that there's no effect, we don't 11 get past step one in my second slide. So although 12 they put their mind to the issue that there is 13 increasing pressure on the ground water in this 14 area, they did not study it in great detail. If 15 they are asked, I'm sure they would give 16 gratuitous comment as to the nature of the issues 17 from the point of view of what they have learned, 18 and I gather our technical team fully supports the 19 idea of the regional study as the way to grapple 20 with this. 21 In my opinion, from my end of it, 22 which is to make sure we're doing the cumulative 23 effects assessment consistently, we did it 24 consistently. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 00487 1 MR. REMPEL: That concludes our 2 preliminary presentation, so we now go back to you 3 for cross-examination. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. 5 MR. REMPEL: Oh, we will have the 6 drawing. Mr. McNeil advises me the drawing is 7 about to appear. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We'll wait 9 another few moments then. 10 MS. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, while 11 we're just waiting, can I enter the Cumulative 12 Effects Practitioners Guide as Exhibit number 41. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 14 (EXHIBIT 41: Cumulative Effects 15 Practitioners Guide) 16 MR. REMPEL: We have the figure now, 17 Mr. Chair. 18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 19 MR. SMITH: This is a drawing of the 20 investigations we did this past fall when we 21 realized that there was a concern. And just to 22 orientate you, this is the Highway 59 north bridge 23 across here. This area is the ski hill, or it's 24 called Springhill ski hill. And just for you to 25 appreciate this scale bar here, that's 250 metres. 00488 1 And so the area that we're talking about -- first 2 maybe just so you understand the geology a little 3 built, right here is actually a big pit, an active 4 pit where the sand and gravel has been removed, 5 but the extension of that went across the floodway 6 right up into this other area where there is 7 another pit here. So this area in here was 8 originally what we referred to as that extension 9 of the Birds Hill aquifer which goes way beyond 10 us, naturally occurring across here. And when the 11 floodway was excavated there was construction on 12 either side to put in a clay till plug, if you 13 will, and prevent the groundwater from just 14 draining straight into the floodway. 15 Now when we're widening, this is a 16 very complicated area, and the drawing you may 17 find is pretty busy too, but essentially what the 18 issue is here is we have transmission line 19 crossings, the existing ski hill, and various 20 other complications. So the solution was 21 ultimately to excavate the channel only on the one 22 side in this area. So this is the zone that we're 23 talking about, from here up to here. It's about 24 600 metres in length, give or take, and about 60 25 metres of excavation back from the existing slope 00489 1 of the channel. So this, sort of the whiter flat 2 area here is the centre of the channel, these are 3 the existing slide slopes at a slope of three to 4 one. So we're going to move that back by 60 5 metres essentially. 6 When we move it back the concern is 7 that right along the Oasis Road here is where the 8 domestic wells are located, and the concern -- 9 sorry, the municipal wells for the RM of East St. 10 Paul, there's four that are in the sand and 11 gravel -- and the concern was that if we lowered 12 the water table in those wells, they are already 13 probably over pumping the aquifer in that area. 14 They don't have any room for further drawdown. So 15 we wanted to ensure we did not impact those wells. 16 And that's why in this section along here, when we 17 did our drilling we have established that that 18 granular extension could come across roughly half 19 of this area. This zone is for the most part 20 till. So, the cutoff that we are proposing would 21 be along here and it would be inside the limit of 22 the extended floodway, and so with a clay plug 23 built up the slope and then a granular outer face 24 placed over top of it to meet this final slope 25 here. 00490 1 MR. WEBSTER: So if I read that 2 diagram correctly, then that more or less vertical 3 line there marks the position of the barrier? 4 MR. SMITH: That's correct. 5 MR. WEBSTER: And the edge of the 6 floodway, as it is planned to be, is further west. 7 It is the solid dark line that extends around the 8 ski hill and then up under the bridge; is that 9 correct? 10 MR. SMITH: The toe of the expanded 11 floodway would be here, and it would come back 12 into the existing toe along this area, and that's 13 where the ski hill is. 14 MR. WEBSTER: And at the ski hill 15 you'd excavate only on the west side? 16 MR. SMITH: That's correct, and we'd 17 switch over and then here -- 18 MR. WEBSTER: And then swing back 19 again? 20 MR. SMITH: Yes. 21 MR. WEBSTER: But the barrier is set 22 back by a couple of hundred metres from the lip of 23 the ditch? 24 MR. SMITH: You mean the cutoff? 25 MR. WEBSTER: Yeah. 00491 1 MR. SMITH: Yes. With slope here -- 2 well, this would only be about, it's a three to 3 one slope, so if it was say a 20-foot deep cut, 4 you'd be 60 feet back, and then another to the top 5 of the slope, and then have a granular cover and 6 then another 10 or 20 feet of the clay plug. 7 MR. WEBSTER: So effectively what that 8 will look like, as you make that barrier, is you 9 will, am I correct, dig a 20-foot wide trench and 10 then put clay backfill into that area? 11 MR. SMITH: Well -- 12 MR. WEBSTER: Is that how it's done? 13 MR. SMITH: That's one possible way. 14 In fact, we could even go with just a trench of 15 that nature. It may be more practical to just 16 over excavate and replace clay with that. And in 17 that event, what we would anticipate is putting in 18 some temporary wells to the east of that zone to 19 intercept the water and pump it into the municipal 20 system, so that they are not impacted during 21 construction. 22 MR. WEBSTER: All I'm trying to do is 23 visualize what you're planning to do there so that 24 it's clear what that barrier constitutes, what 25 it's going to look like. 00492 1 MR. SMITH: I think the plan at this 2 time is to over excavate in that area and place 3 clay with conventional packer equipment. 4 MR. WEBSTER: Yes, so that effectively 5 will be a limited plug and it effectively blocks 6 the toe of that sand and gravel aquifer so that 7 where the floodway cuts across it, it doesn't in 8 fact represent an opening. 9 MR. SMITH: Yes, that's correct. 10 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Smith, just for the 12 record, the reason you're not cutting on the west 13 side of the floodway is because of transmission 14 towers or hydro towers? 15 MR. SMITH: Yes, that's correct. 16 There's a crossing here which is a major 17 transmission line that exports to the United 18 States, and if we -- just to move those towers, 19 the price that we had been given is a dollar 20 figure in the order of $10 million to interrupt 21 that line. So that is why we had taken all 22 efforts to try and avoid this particular, these 23 towers here. There is another tower closer in on 24 a smaller line that we will look at relocating. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 00493 1 MR. SMITH: Just one last thing. I'll 2 give the figure number here that's up on the 3 board. It's out of the Springhill Oasis Road 4 supplemental report, and it's drawing 251G010C. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Are we done on 6 all of this business? 7 Thank you for all of this explanation 8 this afternoon, it's helped a lot. 9 Getting back to the cross-examination 10 that we were conducting yesterday, I'm going to 11 address a number of issues today on hydraulic 12 matters, and I've got them separated into about 13 four or five or six different areas. I'm going to 14 go through each one separately, and I'll ask the 15 lead questions, and then if either of my 16 colleagues or our legal counsel has further 17 questions, they will do that before I move on to 18 the next one. 19 The first thing I'd like to address is 20 impact of operations on upstream water levels, and 21 just by way of background, I'd like to ask a few 22 questions about what happened during the 1997 23 flood. 24 I would like to know how you'd 25 determine what natural water levels would have 00494 1 occurred if there had been no floodway in 1997. 2 Is it correct that you'd compute the natural flow 3 in the Assiniboine River assuming no Shellmouth 4 Dam and no Portage Diversion? 5 MR. REMPEL: Mr. McNeil will answer 6 these questions. 7 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, it sounds like 8 you might be getting into a series of operational 9 questions. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. 11 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Bowering from 12 Manitoba Water Stewardship represents the 13 operator, and because he's present here today, he 14 has agreed to answer these, and he would be the 15 best person to answer these. He hasn't been 16 introduced to the panel yet. And also, because he 17 broke his ankle, unfortunately this past weekend, 18 he's not so mobile. We were wondering if he would 19 be able to answer these questions from the front 20 row? 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Oh, certainly. 22 Mr. Bowering, we'll have our commission secretary 23 swear you in. 24 (RICK BOWERING: SWORN) 25 THE CHAIRMAN: So, Mr. Bowering, I 00495 1 have a number of questions in respect of what 2 happened during 1997. And the first one was, I am 3 trying to determine how we, or how you determined 4 natural water levels without the floodway. So my 5 first question was in respect of the natural flow 6 on the Assiniboine River, you compute that 7 assuming no Shellmouth Dam and no Portage 8 Diversion? 9 MR. BOWERING: That is correct. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: So then we add in the 11 flow in the Red River. You compute the natural 12 levels in the Red and in Winnipeg assuming no 13 floodway? 14 MR. BOWERING: That's correct. 15 THE CHAIRMAN: So this gets a bit 16 complicated as you need to sort of accurately know 17 the flows in both systems and resulting water 18 levels? 19 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: So in 1997, what was 21 the magnitude of the artificial flooding upstream? 22 MR. BOWERING: Based on the study that 23 we commissioned from Acres, which was completed in 24 2004, they compute the magnitude of the artificial 25 flooding was 2.2 feet at the floodway inlet. 00496 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, yesterday, and I'm 2 not sure if you were here yesterday, but the 3 Floodway Authority put some diagrams up on the 4 screen that showed that at a one in 90 year flood, 5 there would be no artificial flooding I think at 6 the rule 1 stage. 7 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: 1997 was only slightly 9 higher than a one in 90 year. 10 MR. BOWERING: That's correct, it was 11 somewhat higher but it wasn't a lot higher. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: So there should -- the 13 way I looked at that diagram, and I have a copy of 14 it in front of me, there should only have been a 15 very slight bit of artificial flooding in 1997; is 16 that correct? 17 MR. BOWERING: The situation is that 18 as flows continue to increase, while you are in 19 rule 1, as flows continue to increase, water 20 levels in the valley increase, flows going down 21 the floodway and flows going through the city all 22 increase together. But then once you -- if we 23 could have the one that shows -- well, that will 24 probably work, yeah. If I could have -- have you 25 got a light pointer? 00497 1 Once you reach the point where you 2 hold the flows -- as flows continue to increase, 3 once you reach the point where you hold the flows 4 in the river going into Winnipeg constant, then 5 where does the water go? Well, as the water 6 level -- the water level can then either go down 7 the floodway or store in the valley south of the 8 river. 9 So the thing that changes at that 10 point, and it's quite a critical change, is that 11 suddenly you don't allow any additional flow to go 12 into Winnipeg. So whereas up to that point flows 13 in Winnipeg were increasing as flows in the 14 floodway were increasing, as soon as you hold it 15 level, then that extra water has to go somewhere. 16 Well, it goes into the floodway by gravity and it 17 takes higher level for more water to get into the 18 floodway. 19 So at least in the short-term, as soon 20 as you shut off the flow, the increased flow going 21 into Winnipeg, the only place for that water to go 22 is to build up. And that's why on this curve you 23 see that you are following the line, rule 1 very 24 closely, but then you make a dramatic increase in 25 steepness of the line. And that is because once 00498 1 you are not allowing anymore to go down into the 2 city, then the water level starts increasing quite 3 rapidly just south of the city. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: That's when rule 2 5 kicks in? 6 MR. BOWERING: Yes. 7 MR. MCNEIL: Can I just interrupt? 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly. 9 MR. MCNEIL: For the record, Rick 10 Bowering is referring to figure 5.3-3 of the EIS. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. So in 1997 12 when this happened, when rule 2 kicked in, you 13 were aware that, you or provincial officials were 14 aware that there would be artificial flooding. 15 MR. BOWERING: We were aware there was 16 artificial flooding. The curves we were using at 17 that time were the curves that were developed when 18 the floodway was originally -- when the floodway 19 was originally built. Those curves were showing 20 just over one foot of artificial flooding, 21 1.1-foot of artificial flooding. And subsequently 22 those curves were questioned, and we eventually 23 came to recomputing the curves, and so now they 24 show 2.2 feet of artificial flooding for '97. But 25 at that point we thought we were between half a 00499 1 foot and one foot of artificial flooding. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: And am I correct in 3 that in 1997, because of these increased flows, 4 that there was a decision made to I guess change 5 rule 2. Wasn't it 25.5? 6 MR. BOWERING: Rule 1 as initially 7 written was for 25.5 at James Avenue would limit 8 the end of rule 1. The situation that happened 9 in -- now, as you say, the interaction with the 10 Assiniboine is a little bit complicated. The 11 situation in 1997 is that it was very high flows 12 on the Red and relatively low flows on the 13 Assiniboine. So that means the amount of flow 14 passing north of the confluence was almost all 15 coming from the Red, whereas normally, and the 16 design floods it was based on envisioned a higher 17 percentage coming from the Assiniboine. 18 The result of that meant just south of 19 the confluence, the amount coming in the Red was 20 higher than envisioned by the design. Higher flow 21 means a steeper water surface, so even though we 22 were at -- well, this is another graph that's just 23 prompted me along here -- even if we were at 24.5 24 at -- where is James Avenue, right about in here, 25 James Avenue is right about in here. The water 00500 1 surface elevation was at 24.5, and you see this is 2 the flood protection level which is basically the 3 top of the primary dykes, and so the desire is to 4 have 2 feet below that. 5 The trouble is, as you get towards the 6 south end of the city, the levels were already 7 above 25.5. So even though the rules say 24.5 at 8 James Avenue, there were some places at the south 9 end of the city where we were getting very close 10 to the top of the dykes. And the decision was 11 made that it just, it was just too risky to allow 12 water levels in Winnipeg to rise any higher. 13 THE CHAIRMAN: So we now have new 14 rules in place? 15 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 16 THE CHAIRMAN: And you have recomputed 17 the natural levels, et cetera. In future, can you 18 foresee any situation where you may again have to 19 change the rule curves arbitrarily during a flood 20 event? Again, I ask this question, it reflects 21 the concerns that we've heard from some of the 22 citizens south of the city. 23 MR. BOWERING: Correct. 24 THE CHAIRMAN: If we're going to have 25 artificial flooding, can we assure them as to how 00501 1 high it will be? 2 MR. BOWERING: Our objective is to 3 follow those operating rules rigorously, that is 4 our plan. 5 Let me just kind of lay out the basic 6 principle that we see -- that was behind the 7 operation -- the design of the floodway and our 8 current operation of the floodway. The basic 9 principle, the first overriding principle is to 10 protect Winnipeg from catastrophic flooding. That 11 is why it was built. That remains the first 12 principle. 13 The second principle is, while you do 14 that, don't aggravate flooding anywhere else. 15 Therefore, no artificial flooding is the second 16 principle. And as much as possible, 99 years out 17 of a hundred, we can meet both of those 18 principles. We can prevent catastrophic flooding 19 in the City of Winnipeg without causing 20 catastrophic flooding. 21 However, that is when rule 2 comes in. 22 If you do get a point where in order to continue 23 to allow flow to go into Winnipeg, it risks 24 catastrophic flooding in Winnipeg, then rule 2 25 says in that situation you do not let any more 00502 1 water go into Winnipeg because the primary 2 objective is to prevent flooding, extensive 3 flooding in Winnipeg. And therefore, you then 4 break that second principle, and if you have to 5 make a choice between the two, then you allow 6 flooding south of Winnipeg, artificial flooding 7 south of Winnipeg rather than cause catastrophic 8 flooding in Winnipeg. 9 Now, given that preamble, I really 10 can't think of a situation now that we have really 11 carefully and rigorously reviewed the operating 12 rules. I really can't think of a situation where 13 you would violate them, unless while a flood was 14 developing some emergency happened in the City of 15 Winnipeg. Say a dyke in Norwood somehow started 16 leaking or something, and the city says if you 17 could give us two days of constant water level 18 while we fix that dyke, then we'd be able to 19 protect a whole area of the city. Again, as 20 engineers, we would have to make a decision in 21 light of those two principles of what is the -- of 22 what is the likely thing. 23 The chances of that, though, are very 24 slim. We have a dyking commissioner whose job is 25 to make sure those dykes are maintained in good 00503 1 condition, and he reports every year on the 2 condition of the dykes. So the chances of that 3 are very remote. So I would say we operate 4 according to those rules very rigorously. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 6 MR. MOTHERAL: Just as a 7 clarification, would that be a decision of 8 engineers or the minister? 9 MR. BOWERING: For an important 10 decision like that, we surely would consult with 11 the minister, but the situation in 1997, it was 12 basically -- it was basically the decision of the 13 Director of Water Branch in consultation, but it 14 really was not a political decision. He really 15 said, well, do what is the right thing. We had to 16 convince him that we thought it was the right 17 thing. 18 MR. MOTHERAL: I guess if I could 19 rephrase it, it would be the minister's decision 20 under the advisement of the engineers? 21 MR. BOWERING: That's correct. 22 THE CHAIRMAN: I think I'm somewhat 23 repeating what you just said. So if the city 24 maintains or upgrades its primary dykes, then with 25 a flood event similar to 1997 there would be no 00504 1 artificial flooding? 2 MR. BOWERING: That is correct. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 4 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, Doug McNeil, 5 let me just clarify -- with an expanded floodway. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes. Okay, thank 7 you. Good point. 8 Can you just describe what 9 improvements there had been in flow forecasting 10 since 1997 that would help this whole situation? 11 MR. BOWERING: Since 1997 we have made 12 considerable effort at improving our data 13 networks. Forecasts really depend on accurate 14 data. And so we had quite a bit of trouble with 15 some of the water level gauges in the valley 16 because they were getting flooded out, and so they 17 have been raised and flood proofed, while we were 18 flood proofing the valley we were also flood 19 proofing the data gauges. We had also added some 20 gauges. So we have considered better data 21 networks to help us with future floods. 22 Another issue is that our forecasting 23 procedures were based on the data we had up to 24 that point, and of course we hadn't experienced 25 the 1997 flood. One of the rules of science is 00505 1 that as long as you are applying formulas within 2 the range of known data, you can have fairly good 3 confidence in them, but once you go beyond the 4 known data, your confidence becomes a little less 5 certain. So we have reworked our forecasting 6 procedures, we fine-tuned them based on the data 7 that we observed in 1997. So from an engineering 8 point of view, that was a very useful piece of 9 information. 10 Third, we have improved our 11 communication with the National Weather Service 12 who forecast in the United States. And they have, 13 because of all the problems -- they had more 14 problems in forecasting the U.S. portion that we 15 did -- they have done a major upgrading to their 16 forecasting procedures for the Red River in the 17 United States, a major increase. It's a much 18 better model now than they had back then. About 19 80 per cent of the flow coming in through Winnipeg 20 on the Red River comes from the U.S. portion of 21 the basin. So having accurate data from the U.S. 22 portion of the basin is very useful. 23 Then the other problem we ran into in 24 1997, even though relatively good forecasts 25 considering the problems that we had, we had 00506 1 pretty good forecasts. The forecasting system for 2 Manitoba were all for points along the river, 3 because up until 1997, flooding happened just 4 along the banks of the river. Of course, in 1997, 5 it got so wide, in some places it was 40 6 kilometres wide, so it became very difficult to 7 say, well, the forecast says that at Ste. Agathe 8 there is going to be so much level, what is it 9 going to be way over on the side? So we have 10 developed a much more complicated routing model, 11 the model is called MIKE-11, and it is a model 12 that allows us to tell water levels all over the 13 water, all over what we might call the Red Sea, 14 all over the flooded area. 15 Now, of course, that provides vast 16 amounts of data. It actually computes a level I 17 think every 15 seconds during the whole duration 18 of the flood, so it creates vast amounts of data. 19 And so in order to use this data, we have created 20 a website that local people can use where they can 21 find site specific forecasts. They can find site 22 specific historic levels for their area. Once we 23 are in a flood, we will be using this MIKE-11 24 model to provide forecasts on the web that people 25 can look to. So people will be able to get much 00507 1 more accurate site specific forecasts once we are 2 into the next major flood. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: Is the MIKE-11 model 4 the best model? I'm told that there is another 5 model, 2D Telemac model; how would they compare? 6 MR. BOWERING: You know until about 10 7 years ago, only university researchers used 2D 8 models and not many people used one dimensional 9 models. Up until 10 years ago, the standard 10 method was using U.S. corp of engineers HEC 2 11 model, so the MIKE-11 model was quite an advance 12 from that. 13 Now, what the MIKE-11 model does is if 14 you tell it where the water is going to go, it 15 will compute very accurately what the water 16 surface profiles will be. The advantage of a two 17 dimensional model is you don't have to tell it 18 where it is going to go, you just have to give it 19 a valley and it will figure out for itself where 20 it is going to go. 21 So a two dimension model is a better 22 model than a one dimensional model. They are 23 quite a bit more difficult to use, take a lot more 24 computation time. And we are already in a 25 situation with the complexity of the model -- by 00508 1 the way, we are in the process of extending this 2 model all the way down to the south end of the Red 3 River, down in South Dakota, so it's a very large 4 complex model. And to do a two dimensional model 5 of that size probably in ten years will be 6 operationally feasible, at this point it's 7 probably not. And so the way that we have used 8 two dimensional models is to fine tune specific 9 questions in areas like the floodway inlet, where 10 complicated things happen and the model helps us 11 to zero in on exactly what's happening there. But 12 for operational purposes, we believe that the 13 MIKE-11 model is really the best model for the 14 job. 15 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, I'd just like 16 to add, it's my understanding with the Telemac 2D 17 model it takes up to 48 hours for one run, and 18 that's just not practical when you are in the 19 midst of a flood, trying to forecast the water 20 levels; is that correct? 21 MR. BOWERING: Yes, that's the issue 22 I'm trying to get at. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Are you suggesting, 24 Mr. Bowering, that in ten years time it might be 25 better or more capable of doing it in a speedier 00509 1 manner? 2 MR. BOWERING: You know, the other 3 interesting thing we have found whenever we had 4 run the 2D model, we find that the MIKE-11 model 5 is very close to what the 2D model is giving us. 6 We really haven't run into a situation where the 7 2D model gives us any surprises. At this point we 8 are very confident with the results we are getting 9 from the MIKE-11 model. It could be -- you know, 10 technology changes so rapidly, it could be in 10 11 or 15 years another technology would be better. 12 At this point, though, I think the MIKE-11 model 13 is a very, very useful tool for our valley. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Backing up 15 a moment to the artificial flooding question. In 16 future, or the next time, and let's hope it's not 17 too soon, the next time we have a major flood that 18 does cause artificial flooding, how quickly after 19 the end of the flood will you be able to determine 20 how much artificial flooding there was? 21 MR. BOWERING: Well, we will know 22 right about at the time of artificial flooding 23 that we've gone into artificial flooding, 24 especially with these improved models, we will 25 know that probably before it happens. And so this 00510 1 website I'm talking about will be projecting into 2 the future artificial flooding. 3 Now, the reality of the situation, you 4 want to be pretty sure you're right before you 5 project that. But I suppose the straight answer 6 to your question is, under the new Red River 7 Floodway Act we are required to file a report by 8 June 30th of every year of exactly what happened 9 and whether we caused artificial flooding. And if 10 we did cause artificial flooding, we have to map 11 exactly where that is and how deep it happened. 12 So there will be a report published by 13 the 30th of June in any year in which we operate. 14 The reality of the situation, though, is as soon 15 as we go into artificial flooding, we will know 16 it. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: So officially, more or 18 less six weeks after the event? 19 MR. BOWERING: That's correct. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 21 Mr. Webster. 22 MR. WEBSTER: Thanks. We've been 23 talking about entering into artificial flooding 24 and the trigger point for that, and it's linked to 25 a water level down in the middle of Winnipeg at 00511 1 James Avenue. And you some minutes ago told us 2 that back in '97, you were in a situation where 3 the river was actually higher than the trigger 4 point in the south end of the city, which caused 5 you to have to go into artificial flooding where 6 you would normally not have had to do so. 7 My question is, should we be 8 recommending a different point for the measurement 9 of that trigger point, or should in fact we be 10 thinking in the City of Winnipeg about raising 11 dykes so that the trigger point that is there is a 12 practical one? Because if we have a situation 13 again, it may lead us into an embarrassing, or a 14 difficult situation where in fact the rules can't 15 be interpreted the way they are supposed to be. 16 MR. BOWERING: That's a good question. 17 The rules were reviewed after the 1997 flood, the 18 minister established the Red River Floodway 19 Operation Review Committee. I chaired that 20 committee. It had representation from the 21 federal/provincial government, and also had 22 representation from the 3 RMs most affected south 23 of Winnipeg, and also from the City of Winnipeg. 24 And they looked carefully at this issue. And in 25 actual fact, the rule that they recommended and 00512 1 which was adopted for -- if I could just look it 2 up here -- the rule that was adopted for rule 2 -- 3 I'm not finding the exact wording here, I'm just 4 sort of in the middle of my report. But the 5 concept is, it specifies James Avenue and also -- 6 or if it's within .6 metres or 2 feet of the flood 7 protection level anywhere along the river. 8 Because we had that problem in 1997 -- oh good, 9 they are in the EIS page 5-6, in chapter 5 of the 10 EIS. Furthermore -- oh, yes, here it is. It is 11 in operating rule 1. 12 "The floodway should be operated so as 13 to maintain natural water levels on 14 the Red River at the entrance to the 15 floodway channel..." 16 and here is the key, 17 "...until the water surface elevation 18 at James Avenue gauge reaches 19 24.5 feet." 20 This is the part we have always understood and 21 always talked about, 22 "... or the river level anywhere along 23 the Red River within the City of 24 Winnipeg reaches 2 feet below the 25 flood protection level of 27.8 feet." 00513 1 So we put both into cover both eventualities. 2 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, if I might, I 3 also sat on that committee when I was a 4 representative with the City of Winnipeg. I'd 5 like to give you some background so that you 6 understand why there was that change to the rule. 7 I'm just going to call up that diagram again. 8 This diagram is out of the Floodway Operation 9 Review Committee report dated December 1999. 10 MR. BOWERING: December 1999. 11 MR. MCNEIL: When the rules were 12 developed, in consideration that the primary dykes 13 existed since 1950, but also later -- and by the 14 way, the dykes were originally built to be 15 equivalent to 26.5 feet at James Avenue, 2 feet -- 16 sorry, 4 feet below the 1950 water level. 17 Then in 1980, Manitoba passed 18 legislation and said that the primary dykes shall 19 meet the flood protection level, and that the 20 flood protection level shall be a flood event as 21 determined by the minister, plus 2 feet of free 22 board. The flood event was the 160 year return 23 flood event, which is what the floodway was 24 originally designed to based on the hydrology of 25 the day in the 1950s. So the water level that the 00514 1 dykes need to protect to is equivalent 25.8. I 2 don't know why there is that discrepancy about 3 25.5 and 25.8. I never did understand that. 4 However, it's very close and hard to measure that 5 difference. 6 It assumes a design flood of 160 7 years. And in that design flood there is a 8 certain profile or slope to the water surface. So 9 what you see on this graph, and the graph is 10 titled "1997 peak Red River level," and as I 11 indicated, it's in the Floodway Operations Review 12 Committee report. The red line is the flood 13 protection level based on the 160 year flood and a 14 water surface profile of 80,000 cubic feet per 15 second, plus that 2 feet of free board. But in 16 1997, we got a flood very close to that design 17 event. By the way, the design event is 18 169,000 cubic feet per second, and the total flood 19 event in 1997 was 163,000 cubic feet per second. 20 In 1997 the proportion of flow was 21 more from the Red than what the design event 22 assumed. And so the profile of that water surface 23 resulted in a water level higher in the south end 24 of the city than the design event. And therefore, 25 we saw water levels of, equivalent to James Avenue 00515 1 of 25.1 right at the inlet control structure, just 2 downstream of it, 25.4, 25.7, 25.2 in between the 3 inlet structure and the south perimeter highway. 4 Actually, it was kind of a funny 5 story, when we first got reports of those water 6 levels, we were amazed, what's going on here, it's 7 not following the design event? For every flood, 8 you will get different water surface elevations 9 and different water surface profiles. That's the 10 reality. 11 And it made us realize that there was 12 that difference in flow distribution or 13 proportion, and we were at risk, we were already 14 within that 2 feet of free board zone in the south 15 end of the city. And that's when the city called 16 upon the province and said, you cannot go to 25.5 17 at James Avenue, that extra foot at James will 18 translate to an extra foot in the south end of the 19 city, we'll have less than a foot of free board on 20 the primary dykes. 21 In fact, at one point the gates were 22 adjusted that sent a wave through the city that 23 almost overtopped some of the primary dykes in St. 24 Norbert. 25 So that was the issue and what 00516 1 occurred in 1997, and the Floodway Operation 2 Advisory or Review Committee took a hard look at 3 that situation and made the recommendation to 4 change the rule to accommodate this for a future 5 flood event, because hydraulic engineers believe 6 that this event will be more likely in the future, 7 i.e. more proportion of flow from the Red than the 8 Assiniboine in a future event of the same 9 magnitude of 1997. 10 In fact, the Manitoba Water Commission 11 that reviewed the operations during 1997 basically 12 indicated that it was prudent for the Manitoba 13 Conservation Water Branch, Rick Bowering and his 14 staff, to operate the floodway in that fashion in 15 1997. 16 MR. WEBSTER: So I guess I come back 17 to my question again, and that is, should we be 18 using James Avenue level as the trigger point, or 19 should we be using a trigger point somewhere else, 20 or should we be adjusting the dykes in the south 21 end of the city to accommodate that, or in fact 22 are we okay the way we are? 23 MR. BOWERING: I believe we are okay 24 the way we are. As Doug says, every flood is 25 different, and that is one of the most important 00517 1 lessons we learn as we work with floods. We think 2 we've got how floods work in Winnipeg figured out, 3 and then the next one is a little bit different. 4 James Avenue is kind of like at the fulcrum, you 5 know, the next one might be worse in the north end 6 of the city. We think James Avenue is a pretty 7 good one to use. It really represents where the 8 damage would happen until the downtown area, and 9 we're pretty comfortable with that. 10 MR. MCNEIL: Mr. Chair, one more thing 11 that I would like to add is that for many years 12 the only measuring point in the city was at James 13 Avenue. During 1997 it was also at the Kildonan 14 Bridge or the Bishop Grandin Bridge, as well as 15 the Chief Peguis Trail Bridge, and then because of 16 the significance of the event there were daily 17 surveys of the water surface profile throughout 18 the city. And either the city has or has plans to 19 install more gauges throughout the city. 20 THE CHAIRMAN: I have one I think 21 final question on this subject, and I'm not sure 22 whether it would be Mr. Bowering or Mr. McNeil. 23 But in a one in 700 year flood, with the expanded 24 floodway, how far upstream will there be 25 artificial flooding? 00518 1 MR. MCNEIL: It will be Morris. That 2 will be the extent of the effect, yes. 3 THE CHAIRMAN: So it will taper from 4 whatever? 5 MR. MCNEIL: It tapers from 6 approximately six feet at the inlet control 7 structure, artificial flooding, to zero at Morris. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you. I 9 think that concludes our questions on this area 10 for now. And I think it's also an appropriate 11 time to take a break, so let's come back at 12 quarter after 3:00 sharp. 13 MS. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, just 14 before we break, could I enter a brief bio for 15 Rick Bowering as exhibit number 42, and to 16 Mr. Handlon's question, the Oasis Road report is 17 Exhibit 37. 18 19 (EXHIBIT 42: Bio report for Rick 20 Bowering) 21 22 (Proceedings recessed at 3:00 and 23 reconvened at 3:15 p.m.) 24 25 00519 1 THE CHAIRMAN: Can we please come back 2 to order. We will get back to the 3 cross-examination. Mr. Bowering, I think you can 4 relax for now, thank you very much for your 5 forthright responses. I'm going to turn now to a 6 few questions around the gaps in the east dyke. 7 And I think I understand why you are doing it. 8 But I guess because of these gaps it will have the 9 effect of significantly increasing the overbank 10 flow in the Grande Pointe area; is that correct? 11 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct. I'm just 12 trying to find a diagram, Mr. Chair, that would 13 explain this. 14 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure. Perhaps, Mr. 15 McNeil, you could start with a brief explanation 16 of the purpose of them and then -- 17 MR. MCNEIL: I will go through an 18 explanation of this right away. I believe this 19 diagram is figure 4.3-2, and it is in the EIS, 20 page 4-21. Just to orientate you, down in the 21 lower left corner is the inlet control structure 22 and the entrance to the floodway, you see the Red 23 River through the city squiggling up on the left 24 hand side of the illustration. And you see the 25 floodway channel itself from the entrance taking 00520 1 off in that northeasterly direction and then in 2 the top right hand corner is the highway number 1 3 crossing. So, prior to 1997 the only way for 4 water that accumulates behind the floodway 5 embankment and behind the west dyke, the only way 6 for it to get into the floodway was the original 7 floodway entrance. And what happened in 1997 and, 8 of course, prior to 1997, we hadn't experienced a 9 flood of that magnitude with as much overland 10 flooding as had occurred. The overland flooding 11 reached over as far and beyond the east side of 12 highway 59 and that water -- and I will use some 13 fairly straightforward terms here -- piled up 14 behind, or to the south of the floodway 15 embankments. 16 And now I'm going to show you that the 17 water that ended up around the Grande Pointe area, 18 west of highway 59, and even in the east side of 19 highway 59, had to get across highway 59 and then 20 travel southwesterly along the south side of the 21 embankment to the floodway all the way back to the 22 Red River and the entrance to the floodway to get 23 into the floodway, and then take off, of course, 24 down the floodway. 25 So in a sense this water piles up 00521 1 because it doesn't efficiently get into the 2 floodway and there was a difference of water 3 elevation. If I remember correctly, it was about 4 a foot and a half from on this side, right near 5 the entrance on the south side of the floodway, 6 just around the corner and into the floodway. 7 This was obviously a concern. And government -- 8 together with the Federal Government, Manitoba 9 Government, Federal Government, hired I believe it 10 was Acres Engineering together with the Canadian 11 Hydraulics Centre, which is the arm of the 12 National Research Council, and they performed a 2D 13 hydraulic analysis of this situation. They used 14 the Telemac model that was identified earlier. 15 And they came up with a scheme to help relieve 16 this water by creating holes in the embankment. 17 Initially they indicated for the '97 event to help 18 relieve the water levels upstream, that I believe 19 this gap, which is just east of St. Mary's Road, 20 the first gap, as we call it, is about 700 meters 21 wide -- rather 500 meters wide, and the second gap 22 close to Grande Pointe, west of Grande Pointe, is 23 about 700 meters wide. And these gaps were 24 designed both in width and in lip elevation, or 25 bottom elevation, to kick in at a certain sized 00522 1 flood. I think it is the 1996 flood level that 2 the first gap kicks in and starts to relieve the 3 water accumulating in this area, and then the 4 other gap kicks in for something below the 1997 5 flood to relieve that. 6 Now with the expanded floodway the 700 7 year flood of course is higher than the 1997 by 8 about six feet. And so a greater extent of the 9 area west of highway 59, and I apologize, earlier 10 I was pointing to highway 59 up here and actually 11 highway 59 is in this area, and that squiggly line 12 is the Seine River. In any event, in the 700 year 13 flood a greater part of the west area of highway 14 59 will flood, and to help relieve that area as 15 part of floodway expansion we will create a bigger 16 gap in this area. Right now this Seine River 17 diversion discharges into the floodway. There is 18 a small opening in the embankment, but it is not 19 large enough to relieve that. 20 What is important here is that after 21 expansion with three gaps in operation for a 700 22 year flood, 95 percent of the flow will go through 23 those gaps and 5 percent of the flow will go 24 through the original entrance. 25 THE CHAIRMAN: Just for clarification, 00523 1 those embankments aren't dykes or dams, they don't 2 hold any of the water in, they are just above the 3 regular prairie, are they not? 4 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct. In this 5 region the water level in the floodway will always 6 be below the water on the landscape in this 7 region, so those embankments are not dykes. 8 THE CHAIRMAN: There is no danger of 9 water spilling out of the floodway because of 10 those gaps? 11 MR. MCNEIL: No, the drainage 12 channel -- 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Unless we get a one in 14 10,000 year flood. 15 MR. MCNEIL: Even then the water on 16 the prairie will be higher. 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. 18 MR. MCNEIL: One clarification, and 19 this is a concern for people living around the 20 Seine River diversion discharge structure, is that 21 the water level in the floodway is high enough to 22 back up into that drainage channel and after 23 expansion, though, it will not spill above 24 prairie. So sometimes the water level does get 25 high enough to back up into the drainage channels 00524 1 but not spill above prairie. 2 THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any negative 3 sides to having these gaps? 4 MR. MCNEIL: Not at all. 5 THE CHAIRMAN: For residents or 6 farmers or people living or working in this area? 7 MR. MCNEIL: Not at all. In fact, 8 they provide a slight benefit by decreasing the 9 water level immediately around them for several 10 hundred meters south. 11 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, in response to one 12 of our IRs, or information requests, I think it is 13 9D, you indicate that velocity hot spots will 14 occur in the Grande Pointe area as a result of 15 these gaps. What do you mean by hot spots? 16 MR. MCNEIL: Can I just confer with 17 somebody for one second, please? 18 THE CHAIRMAN: Of course. 19 MR. MCNEIL: I guess the simple 20 answer, Mr. Chair, is that as water goes around a 21 corner -- typically what happens in hydraulic 22 structures is that when water is constricted to a 23 narrower opening, whether it is the inlet control 24 structure or these gaps, the water speeds up, and 25 it may speed up to a point where it might be 00525 1 erosive. And so in those locations where you have 2 velocity hot spots, then you have to look at what 3 is necessary to avoid erosion. 4 THE CHAIRMAN: So this would be 5 erosion on the edge of the gaps or in the channel? 6 MR. MCNEIL: Typically around the edge 7 of the gaps where the water has to squeeze from 8 the lake into the opening, and as it goes through 9 that opening. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: And I assume that it is 11 because of these gaps that you are not widening 12 the first however many kilometres of the floodway? 13 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct. The 14 floodway channel does not need to start being 15 widened until west of, or sorry, just east of the 16 CPR Emerson bridge, which is just -- the bridge 17 itself is between the Seine River and highway 59. 18 So because of the efficiency of water entering in 19 stages through the original entrance and the first 20 and second gap, that section of the floodway 21 between the entrance and approximately the Seine 22 River, does not need to be increased in capacity. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: So then back to my 24 original question, are there any concerns about 25 the effect of significantly increasing this 00526 1 overbank flow, particularly in the Grande Pointe 2 area? Let me speak in respect of local planning 3 and development controls and matters like that. 4 MR. MCNEIL: I guess I still don't 5 quite understand your question, Mr. Chair. I will 6 go right to the 700 year flood. First of all, the 7 Grande Pointe dyke, which is immediately -- well 8 first of all, the Grande Pointe area, subdivision 9 in the RM of Ritchot is immediately west of 10 Highway 59, south of the floodway structure. And 11 following the 1997 flood, under that community 12 ring dyke program that was financed by the 13 province and the feds, they built a dyke around 14 that community to the '97 plus 2 foot level. 15 Highway 59 forms the east leg of that dyke, and 16 then the dyke crosses the Seine River and then 17 runs on the west side of the river back to the 18 embankment. In a 700 year flood, the water level 19 in this area will be higher than the '97 plus two 20 protection level of Grande Pointe. 21 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. I should have 22 elaborated a little more initially. This comes 23 out of one of your responses to the 768 24 Association and their IR number 3. You indicate, 25 and I quote. 00527 1 "Although overland flow conveyance 2 must be maintained through appropriate 3 local planning and development 4 controls, dedicated conveyance 5 channels are not required." 6 MR. MCNEIL: Could you repeat the IR 7 number so we can look that up, please? 8 THE CHAIRMAN: 768, IR number 3. 9 MR. MCNEIL: So the question that was 10 raised, have dedicated conveyance routes been 11 planned for the overland flows that would approach 12 the three gaps and future east embankment of the 13 floodway? And the simple answer is no. 14 The progression of flood overland is 15 very slow. And in fact, in the area south of the 16 floodway, it first -- the Red River backs up 17 Richardson Coulee, which almost reaches the first 18 gap. And as it floods and spills over into the 19 flood plain, it does so in a very slow manner. 20 And that's throughout, even as the flood plain -- 21 or the spillage of water from the Red River, as 22 the flood progresses throughout the other areas, 23 for the most part it is fairly slow. And so there 24 is no planned routes to lead that water to those 25 gaps. It does, as I said, for the first gap, 00528 1 follow a natural route by backing up the 2 Richardson Coulee. 3 And then the progression of the flood 4 is slow right up until the gaps are fully 5 utilized. So the water just slowly rises and then 6 builds up to the level of whatever flood occurs. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So are there 8 overland flow conveyances required anywhere else 9 in the Red River Valley? 10 MR. MCNEIL: No. 11 MR. BOWERING: Could I add something 12 here? 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly. 14 MR. BOWERING: I think what 768 15 Association -- what 768 Association was I think 16 getting at is, could something restrict that 17 conveyance? And for example, a raising of an 18 east/west road like the Richardson Road is the 19 kind of thing that could restrict that conveyance. 20 So it is really up to us as Water Stewardship to 21 ensure that such things don't happen, particularly 22 on those very important conveyance routes. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. 24 Webster. 25 MR. WEBSTER: One further point. My 00529 1 understanding at this point is that that southern 2 bank of the floodway at this point in fact need 3 not have any berm, any dyke on it at all, that 4 soil is there simply because you want a place to 5 put it. Am I correct? 6 MR. MCNEIL: That's correct, the bank 7 there is primarily a spoil bank. 8 MR. WEBSTER: So, in fact, that soil 9 in what turns out to be three residual piles there 10 is, in fact, material that you would really rather 11 not have there at all; is that correct? 12 MR. MCNEIL: Well, actually, Mr. 13 Carson was just reminding me that the other 14 purpose of those embankments is to -- if ice was 15 to get into the channel -- is that right, Rick -- 16 to keep it within the channel? Even though we 17 don't like ice getting into the channel. 18 MR. WEBSTER: So it does have some 19 purpose, that was the point of my question. 20 Because elsewhere in the channel, as I recall, 21 there has been some mining of those banks for 22 construction projects and so forth, and I wondered 23 in fact if that area would be enhanced by people 24 taking more of the soil away? If it has a 25 mechanical purpose, then that's not a good idea 00530 1 then. 2 MR. MCNEIL: Correct. 3 MR. WEBSTER: So what you are telling 4 me, in fact, is that you have a design there where 5 not only the gaps but the remaining berms have a 6 purpose? 7 MR. MCNEIL: Sorry, I'm misleading you 8 here, and I didn't understand what Rick was 9 saying. 10 The embankment in this area, which 11 still exists today, is intended wholly to prevent 12 ice from the river to get into the channel. So it 13 serves a purpose in this vicinity between St. 14 Mary's Road and the southern tip of that 15 embankment on the east side of the Red River. 16 But to go back to your earlier 17 question, or statement, in fact for the flood 18 proofing program, Manitoba Water Stewardship did 19 allow mining of some of that material in this 20 vicinity, immediately east of St. Mary's Road, to 21 go towards some of those flood proofing projects, 22 because in this area you don't need that 23 embankment to protect the flood plain from water 24 in the floodway. 25 MR. WEBSTER: So there is that 00531 1 embankment, there is a portion further down the 2 channel, and another one further down the channel 3 before we get to the Seine River. Are all three 4 of those in the same category? 5 MR. MCNEIL: Yes. 6 MR. WEBSTER: In fact, if they were 7 removed, the overland flow into the channel would 8 be facilitated and the number of hot spots would 9 be reduced? 10 MR. MCNEIL: Yes, except that we have 11 shown through hydraulic analysis -- figure 21 of 12 appendix H of preliminary engineering report 13 indicates velocity profiles, and they are not 14 significant. And of course, the engineering 15 analysis was to optimize the size of these 16 openings for these larger floods, so -- 17 MR. WEBSTER: Again, my point would 18 be, is it something that we should be recommending 19 that those areas be considered to be available for 20 people to use as a resource, or are they in fact 21 something that we should leaving where they are 22 because they are an integral part of your plan for 23 a functioning floodway? 24 MR. MCNEIL: In this area, those ones 25 wouldn't be needed, no. 00532 1 MR. WEBSTER: They are not an integral 2 part of the functioning of the floodway, they are 3 extra? 4 MR. MCNEIL: Right. 5 MR. BOWERING: Can I add that they do 6 have a small residual value in that if you have a 7 large wind on the Red Sea south, in a very large 8 flood, they do provide some wave barrier 9 protection from the other dyke. So I think Water 10 Stewardship would prefer to see something left 11 there for that purpose. 12 MR. MCNEIL: Actually, Mr. Bowering 13 does make a good point. We had planned in any 14 event to raise portions of this dyke for that 15 purpose, but that would be -- leaving these here 16 would add value to that wind and wave situation. 17 That's important. 18 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. 19 THE CHAIRMAN: Will there be any other 20 restrictions? You mentioned some road 21 restrictions. Will there be any restrictions on 22 homes or farms in this area because of this 23 overland flow? Will people be prohibited from 24 building, or will they have a higher standard of 25 building in this area? Will that be required? 00533 1 MR. MCNEIL: I guess the assumption 2 when this analysis was made is that there wouldn't 3 be any restrictions immediately upstream of these 4 gaps. In terms of the effectiveness on the gaps, 5 I don't believe it would be significant, but it 6 would be not a good situation for any development 7 immediately in this area because of the potential 8 for wind and wave uprush immediately upstream of 9 the structure. 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think we 11 can leave the gaps for now and go down to the 12 other end of the floodway and have a few questions 13 about the outlet structure. 14 Now, were two options considered, like 15 a straight one as you have now and then a flared 16 outlet structure, were they considered in your 17 engineering considerations? 18 MR. MCNEIL: I'm going to ask Rick 19 Carson to answer these more detailed engineering 20 questions. 21 MR. CARSON: Could you repeat the 22 question, please? 23 THE CHAIRMAN: I understand that you 24 considered sort of two options for the outlet 25 structure, more or less situated as the current 00534 1 one is, but wider, or a flared one that would turn 2 the angle somewhat more into the river; is that 3 correct? 4 MR. CARSON: That wasn't really the 5 structure, that was the outlet channel which leads 6 from the structure to the river. 7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. 8 MR. CARSON: And we considered two 9 configurations of that channel. That was back in 10 the earlier studies, and we left it with a rather 11 conservative design with a wide curvature to let 12 the flow re-enter the river. But then there were 13 subsequent studies done on a more detailed basis 14 using a two dimensional model analysis that showed 15 that we didn't have to do that, it really didn't 16 impact on the west side of the Red River if we had 17 a more abrupt change in angle there. 18 THE CHAIRMAN: It made no difference, 19 if you flared it a bit more to the right, it 20 didn't make much difference or any difference on 21 the other bank? 22 MR. CARSON: No, it did not. 23 THE CHAIRMAN: No difference at all or 24 very little? 25 MR. CARSON: