SUMMARY

Official Kick-off of Phase III
of the St. Lawrence Action Plan

Last June 8th, at the press conference announcing the signature of the new Cooperative Agreement for the Implementation of Phase III of the St. Lawrence Action Plan.

From left to right: Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Co-chair of the Agreement for Canada; Christine S. Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister; Paul Bégin, Minister Minister of the Environment and Wildlife of Quebec; Diane Gaudet, Deputy Minister of or the Environment and Wildlife of Quebec; George Arsenault, Co-chair of the Agreement for Quebec.

Photo by: Normand Rajotte

The outcome of more than twelve months of preparation and planning by both managers and government and non-government representatives concerned by the future of the St. Lawrence ecosystem, the Agreement on Phase III of the St. Lawrence Action Plan (1998-2003) was officially signed last June 8th by Ms. Christine Stewart, the Canadian Environment Minister, and Mr. Paul Bégin, Minister of the Environment and Wildlife of Quebec. The press conference was a timely event to boast the accomplishments of the first ten years of the St. Lawrence Action Plan, and to underline both the new aspects and the ongoing activities of St. Lawrence Vision 2000, Phase III (SLV 2000). The six fields of priority intervention over the five-year duration of Phase III will be: Community Involvement, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Urban and Industrial Works, Navigation, and Public Health.

Importance of community involvement and prevention endeavours

For this third five-year plan, governments have placed emphasis on cooperation and community involvement, for experience has shown that, over the years, public participation has proven to be the best guarantee for effective and relevant actions being carried out in the St. Lawrence River Valley. "In fact, involvement on the part of riverside communities is both a major objective and one of the intervention sectors of Phase III," indicates Mr. Bégin, "for the St. Lawrence can recover from the ills plaguing it only if the general public becomes actively involved, particularly the communities who live along its shore and who have daily contact with the river."

The overall budget for the Community Involvement sector rings in at $17.2 million. Stratégies Saint-Laurent will continue to coordinate the ZIP program (or Priority Intervention Zone Program, but known under its French acronym), by lending support to the creation of four new ZIP committees and by guiding their steps toward the accomplishment of 150 community projects, most of which were devised during Phase II as part of the ERAP Program (Ecological Remedial Action Plans).

Urban and Industrial Works: Prevention is the watchword

In the Urban and Industrial Works sector, Phase III will be continuing the actions of the previous two phases, but will place emphasis on prevention and pollution. The first two St. Lawrence Action Plans (SLAPs) mostly targetted clean-up activities, particularly the reduction of industrial waste effluents discharged by the 106 priority industries set up along the shoreline of the river, and the financing of technological development projects. In the second phase, partners perfected a more global, ecosystemic approach, adding new intervention sectors such as public health, and cultivated the participation of riverside communities through the setting up of the ZIP Program.

"We have reached a new stage," confirms Ms. Stewart. "Results obtained to date are encouraging but, if we want to continue along these lines, the time has come to devise more preventive solutions which call for an integration of the entire production process, not only clean-up measures. Restoration and conservation activities of the ecosystems will also remain on our list of priorities, if we want to bequeath a healthy river to future generations."



Issues raised by shipping and boating

Preparatory work for Phase III highlighted the fact that shipping and boating could no longer be ignored from a viewpoint of the river’s sustainable development. Plans are on the table to deal with the issues of dredging, embankment erosion control, sediment control and contaminated site management.



Biodiversity

A key component of Phase III, Biodiversity will encompass several types of intervention with a view to protect 120,000 hectares of natural habitat and 35 precarious plant and animal species. Concerns by both experts and ordinary citizens as to the environmental impact of water level fluctuations have had this matter added to the list of priorities for the Biodiversity sector. Whether they are caused by diversion works or climate change, the fluctuations have an impact, especially in wetlands and intermediary zones, where the river is not as deep.



Farming is an environmental issue

The Agricultural Intervention sector is also one of the major thrusts of Phase III. The governments of Quebec and Canada have planned for several actions to promote the adoption, by farm producers, of sustainable farming techniques, in particular, integrated pest management and the implementation of agri-environmental management measures.



Safeguarding public health

As a natural continuation of the work accomplished in Phase II, activities planned for the Public Health sector aim to both gather more information and disseminate information we already have in a fair and relevant fashion so that people can act accordingly to reduce their exposure to contaminants.



Budgets reaching $239 million over the next 5 years

A total investment of $239 million was announced for the activities slated for Phase III of the St. Lawrence Action Plan, as follows: $123 million for the government of Canada and $116 million for the government of Quebec. A portion of these amounts-$184 million-comes from a pooling of existing resources, and a new budget of $55 million is earmarked to support efforts to meet the expectations of the public in the improvement of the quality of the St. Lawrence River.