Poor communication slows investigation of river fish deaths
Feds can’t get Quebec data without filing access to information requests
Relations among the governments that jointly oversee the Ottawa River are so distant that Environment Canada has to file access to information requests to get scientific data from Quebec.
The Ottawa Riverkeeper says this is happening now, as both Environment Canada and Quebec’s Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks look for causes of four recent fish kills. Dead fish showed up in the Ottawa River, but the source is believed to be the Lièvre River, a tributary.
“It’s a transboundary watershed. There’s a lot of jurisdictions,” Riverkeeper’s executive director, Patrick Nadeau, said Friday.
“We’ve been observing that the collaboration between all these government entities isn’t at its best. One example of that is that the federal government, which has also sent enforcement officers looking into these exact same incidents … has also had to file access to information requests to get Quebec government lab data,” he said.
The Quebec ministry confirmed this in a brief email: “The federal government and the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks are currently investigating (the fish incidents). They collaborate according to established processes, according to their field of expertise. These processes may require access to information requests, where appropriate.”
Nadeau said this was not good enough.
“We’ve been calling for a watershed council precisely for this reason, so that authorities develop channels of communication and develop relationships, so that, in the middle of a crisis like this, information can be shared,” he said.
“There are some parallels” with the film Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a comedy about a body found on the QuebecOntario border that draws in police from both sides, he said.
Nadeau said Riverkeeper also had to use access-to-information laws to obtain data from Quebec.
“We understand there is an ongoing investigation. So obviously they can’t share all their information in real time,” he said. “But recently, for example, they are refusing to say whether they have taken sediment samples” after the fish kills.
“We know for a fact that the federal government did take sediment samples. Have they shared that information? Are they talking to each other? We have no clue.
“It’s a bit difficult to understand especially because this is a live and time-sensitive file.
“Clearly, something needs to change in the way these authorities are working with each other.”
Access requests in Canada often take months to process.
The fish kills of July 8, 19, 29 and 31 remain a mystery. Quebec has announced that the cause was not a disease, but that left many possibilities: a chemical spill, changes in temperature, or low levels of oxygen in the water, for instance.
Testing for chemicals is a huge task “when there are potentially thousands out there,” Nadeau said.
And he said sampling was difficult because the Lièvre was a fast-flowing river, so that, by the time people notice dead fish and an investigator comes, the cause may have flowed far downstream.
One “silver lining” is that, with repeated fish kills, investigators are coming to the scene more quickly, he said. Quebec has staff stationed near the river now to respond if there is another fish kill, and there is at least one probe in one of the rivers to monitor changes. He would prefer more probes.
The Ontario government has been less involved in the investigation as the fish kills have been on the Quebec side of the river.
Riverkeeper is asking anyone who sees more dead fish to call its pollution hotline at 888-9533737. Both Environment Canada and Mathieu Lacombe, who represents Papineau riding (site of the fish kills) in Quebec’s National Assembly, ignored requests to discuss why the federal and provincial scientists relied on access to information to talk to each other.