We’re doing awesome! Harbour cleanup works
Report says Hamilton’s come a long way since harbour was a hot spot
Thirty years ago this year, Hamilton Harbour received a scarlet letter from the International Joint Commission.
The harbour was deemed an “area of concern,” along with a numerous other locations in the Great Lakes, by the binational commission that watches over shared waters between Canada and the U.S. It meant that Hamilton Harbour was an environmental mess.
As a result of the 1987 designation — and a local movement to create a “Remedial Action Plan” that had been gathering steam before that — a mammoth effort was launched, as they said back then, to “bring back the bay.”
This week, the local group that keeps tabs on harbour progress — the Bay Area Restoration Council — released a report card about how the effort has been proceeding. It praised improvements in areas such as the ongoing construction to contain polluted sediments at Randle Reef but it noted the harbour faces challenges with development pressure, invasive species and climate change.
Chris McLaughlin, the executive director of BARC, said issues are much different today than they were in the 1980s.
“Back in the early days, there were pipes everywhere you looked along the south shore spewing something. All of those point sources over the decades have been regulated in some significant way.”
But one big emerging concern, McLaughlin said, is how high water levels will play out. Will it be the new normal of the future, and what can be done to mitigate the damage to shorelines as well as fish and wildlife habitat?
When asked when the harbour might finally work itself back to health — delisted by the IJC as an area of concern — he said it’s not clear.
But what is becoming certain, he said, is that restoring Hamilton’s Harbour “is not just a long-term project, it’s a really long-term project.”
Environment Hamilton’s Lynda Lukasik agreed with the assessment in the report. “I think the past 30 years have had a profound impact on the harbour ... and our ability as community members to access the waterfront and enjoy it ... but we have new challenges that we don’t have a good handle on such as the impact of extreme wind,
rains and high water levels we’ve been having.
“We have to pay attention to those challenges so all the progress we’ve made over 30 years doesn’t start to unravel.”
This week, the Bay Area Restoration Council released an assessment of the multi-year effort to bring Hamilton Harbour back to health.
The report, which was last done five years ago, is mostly good news, but there are some areas of difficulty.
The council is an organization that keeps track of the harbour’s restoration effort, known as the Remedial Action Plan for Hamilton Harbour.
The report identified six subcategories: C+ Healthy water and habitat The report says new problems are emerging because of development pressure and climate change. Improvements in wastewater management and wetland restoration “are being overshadowed” by “challenges posed by regional population growth, land development and climate change.” C+ Fish and wildlife The health of harbour fish and wildlife varies dramatically from species to species. The reintroduction of walleye, a top native predator, has been largely successful and colonial bird communities are doing well. But the nearshore fish community continues to be dominated by non-native and pollutiontolerant species such as carp. Further water-quality improvement, controls on invasive species and improved habitat will improve fish and wildlife further. B+ Toxic contaminants and sediment The ongoing construction of the “Randle Reef containment facility is the single most significant step forward in containing toxic sediment in the Harbour.” But “there are still areas beyond Randle Reef that are contaminated.”
However, most important, the report says, “the contamination of fish and wildlife is slowly declining overall, and continuing cleanup will lead to further reductions in exposure to and the effects of toxic deposits.” Research and monitoring Very good: Compared to other badly polluted waters in the Great Lakes, research and monitoring of Hamilton Harbour has been “extraordinary” and “have benefited from recent investment in the science behind restoring habitat, water quality, aquatic plants and fish and wildlife.” Watershed management Good: Water quality — through the reduction of sediment and phosphorus — is improving, “but those benefits are reduced by the influence of changing land uses and development across the watershed.”
Public information, education and access
Very good: Area residents know more about and are using Hamilton Harbour recreationally more than ever. But there are “key challenges” that include articulating remedial action plan “progress and challenges, as well as ensuring that the public connects downstream water quality issues with their own upstream activities.”
Pollution has been a serious problem in Hamilton Harbour for more than a century.
But in 1987, the issue was given urgency when the International Joint Commission deemed the bay an “area of concern.”
The designation by the IJC set in place a Remedial Action Plan to clean up the body of water that is still being followed today.
Since the 1980s, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to improve sewer systems, wastewater treatment and habitat.
The Bay Area Restoration Council estimates it will ultimately cost $1.9 billion (including financial estimates of volunteer work and in kind support) to have the harbour reach a point that it will be delisted by the IJC as an area of concern.