IJC: Stop knowingly ruining our lives

Close to 300 people flooded into the auditorium of the Duncan McDonald Community Gardens in Trenton Wednesday night to protest the recent damaging flooding along the shores of Lake Ontario and the Bay of Quinte.  People were standing along the side and back walls.

The event, led by Quinte West Mayor Jim Harrison and organized by Quinte West staff with the help of others, was called Rally to Repeal Plan 2014.

The crowd cheered as they heard several speakers demand that the International Joint Commission immediately and significantly drop the water levels in the lake.

Flooding has devastated properties belonging to residents and businesses along the lake’s shoreline and that of the upper St. Lawrence River in 2017 and last year.

And many predict with the current record high water levels filling Lake Ontario, there’s a 50/50 chance that flooding next spring could be worse than last year’s, much worse.  Some say levels could be 12 inches higher than those that caused multi-millions of dollars damage last spring.

Speaker after speaker reiterated that Plan 2014, which is a written policy that the International Joint Commission (IJC) follows to regulate water levels in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, was designed in secret and was designed with the full knowledge that the people most affected by flooding would be those living on the shores of Lake Ontario and the upper part of the Seaway.

The International Joint Commission is made up of six Commissioners, three from Canada (two from Quebec) and three from the United States.

Several speakers said those involved in drawing up Plan 2014 were focusing on protecting the interests of the commercial shipping industry and promoting the interests of environmental activists who wanted high water to permanently replenish inland swamps.

An American environmentalist involved in creating Plan 2014 was quoted as saying “we have to stop making the protection of property along the shoreline of the lake the main priority when controlling water levels.  People have to learn that beautiful manicured lawns don’t need to be running up to the shoreline.  Things have to change.  Worrying about saving shoreline property is simply bad water management policy.”

The feature speaker was Sarah Delicate, herself a victim of serious flooding on the lake, the founder of United Shorelines Ontario. 

Sarah Delicate passionately shared some of the policies within Plan 2014 that appear to bring harm to the shores of Lake Ontario. According to Delicate, one such policy, the L-limit, reduces outflow to protect the shipping industry. Another, the F-limit, transfers flood damage from downstream Montreal to upstream Lake Ontario. According to Delicate, both have resulted in a very high lake, for a very long time. Sarah advocated for immediate action to bring down water levels before next spring, as well as an immediate overhaul to Plan 2014.

Many local and regional politicians were on hand for the almost two hour long rally.  Bay of Quinte riding MP Neil Ellis told the crowd he was as frustrated as anyone else with the seeming intransigence of the IJC.  “I’ve set up a shoreline caucus which will involve MPs from ridings being affected by this policy, this flooding.  This is a non-partisan issue and we’ll be meeting very soon to try and pressure the Commission to lower water levels in the lake.”

Other local MPs, such as Conservatives Derek Sloan of Hastings-Lennox and Addington and Philip Lawrence of Northumberland-Peterborough South will sit on Ellis’ shoreline caucus.

Mayor Harrison read out a letter from Premier Doug Ford calling for the Commission to add another Commissioner to represent Ontario’s interests and demanded the Commission change its policy on water levels.

Meanwhile, a retired American professor and a 23-year member of the St. Lawrence River Board of Control (which preceded the IJC) Dr. Frank Sciremammano had some good news in a statement delivered via video at the rally.

“In the past couple of days, I’ve learned that the Commission will be veering away from Plan 2014 and releasing significantly more water out of the lake right through June of next year than it would under the Plan.  I believe this shows that the new Commissioners are beginning to understand that things aren’t working and that plan 2014 needs to be modified.”

Near the end of the rally local singer songwriter Charlene Marcus, whose lakeside property has 1,500 permanent sandbags along the shoreline to protect against flooding, got the crowd to sing along with her song demanding the IJC help flooding victims.  The words to the chorus appear below.  Below that is audio of part of the tune.