Action NPS-1: Development of a Multi-Agency Sediment Management Program

Current Status: UNDERWAY

BUIs Addressed: Degradations of Fish and Wildlife Populations, Fish Tumours and Other Deformities, Degradation of Benthos, Restrictions on Dredging Activities

The most important of all the non-point source remediation activities is the development and implementation of a Multi-Agency Sediment Management Program for the St. Marys River system. This would be a long term program which would include the wide scope of planning, remediation, and monitoring activities described in the following list, many of which are touched on elsewhere in this report. It should be noted that this list includes a number of recommendations contained in the IJC’s 1998 status assessment, and several that were identified by the Clean Up and Restoration Task Team as described in section 5.4.
a) The sediment mapping in the St Marys River system should be continued until all significant zones of contaminated sediment, including those in the “down river regions,” have been included in the survey. Once these zones have all been located and identified, they should each be characterized, if they haven’t already, by determining their spatial distribution and by identifying and quantifying the contaminants within them. The identification would be done using the most current benthic, toxicity, and sediment chemistry studies (see Actions NPS-2 and NPS-3 below). The zones should also be ranked on the basis of toxicity and/or degradation of benthos.
b) Using the monitoring data described above, develop a consistent, scientifically defensible, and publicly acceptable decision-making framework that will identify remediation options and provide a logical basis to guide community-based management decisions on sediment remediation within the AOC (Krantzberg, 1998). This framework would contain, for example, the decision criteria used in identifying which zones require remediation and which remediation options are most appropriate for each zone. It would also provide the logical justification for these criteria and identify all of the data requirements needed for their application, thereby guiding decision making and providing the public with the means to understand and participate in the management process. Using available data, the framework would identify the range of remediation and disposal options for each site and would identify what additional information is needed to choose between them. Then, once this information has been obtained, it would guide the final selection of the most appropriate option (e.g., dredging, in situ treatment, capping, etc.).
c) Once the final options have been selected in consultation with the public, implementation would be carried out with agency support and would be guided by precisely defined, numerically quantified objectives developed by the sediment management teams and incorporated into the delisting criteria (see management Action MNG-1). These objectives would define the completion-point for both implementation and ultimate remediation, and would be the focus of appropriate monitoring activities, as described under item (h) below.
d) To prevent additional accumulation of contaminants, and also their re-accumulation following remediation, it would be necessary to implement, prior to sediment remediation, a strategy to identify and control all major point and non-point sources of contaminant loadings to sediments within the St. Marys River system.
e) The identification of contaminant sources, as described in item (d), would require a monitoring program that would track water and sediment quality at stations above, at, and below major dischargers, with the downstream limit for stations extending to the point of near-background conditions (IJC, 1998). It would also require the monitoring of any nonpoint sources (and tributaries) which may be contributing contaminants to the waterways within the AOC. The control measures, referred to in item (d), for point and non-point sources would include process upgrades at industrial and municipal facilities, cooperative environmental management agreements between industry and government, enforcement of government regulations, and the measures described below under Action NPS-6.
f) There would also be a requirement to monitor and control any resuspension of contaminants that may occur during sediment remediation activities (see Action NPSM-4c) or during the dredging of navigation channels (see Action NPSM-4d).
g) Atmospheric inputs of persistent toxic substances to the waters and basin of the River would also need to be tracked (IJC, 1998; see also Action NPSM-4a).
h) Appropriate monitoring of remediation, both short-term and long-term, would be a vital component of the sediment management program. The short term monitoring would track progress toward the immediate implementation objectives, whereas the long term monitoring would track ecosystem response to the remediation and control measures and the ultimate effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of these measures in meeting the delisting criteria. These monitoring activities, therefore, would provide the necessary information for adaptive management decisions on any changes or additions which may be required in the remediation strategy in order that it meet its designated goals.
i) The management program should also incorporate the benefits afforded by advancing technology. Thus, for example, remedial actions previously considered necessary but unrealistic, should be initiated once new technology makes them feasible, provided the necessity of these actions is still supported by current monitoring data and decision criteria.
j) All the above monitoring and remediation activities, furthermore, should be fully coordinated with those of the Lake Superior LaMP (IJC, 1998) and those of the various RAP task teams. Furthermore, since Lake Huron is downstream from the St. Marys River, they should also be coordinated with those of the Lake Huron Binational Initiative.

Primary responsibility for Action NPS-1 is to be shared jointly by Environment Canada and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, with the cooperation of local industry.