In Conversation: On the right to clean water
This week, the International Water Association World Water Congress and Exhibition is being held in Montreal attracting thousands of water experts to discuss methods to improve the responsible use of water and to ensure global access.
We invited Catherine Mulligan, of the Department of Building, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Concordia Research Chair in Geoenvironmental Sustainability (Tier I), and Monica Mulrennan, of the Department of Geography, Planning & Environment, to discuss their research, which reflects a before-and-after approach to the issue. Both researchers have been working on projects to ensure access to clean water, in Quebec and elsewhere.
Mulrennan has been involved in a Community University Research Alliance (CURA) funded project through SSHRC for the past five years working with the James Bay Cree community of Wemindji (Northern Quebec). The CURA project was intended to research the viability of protected areas in the James Bay region “but thanks to the commitment of the local community and support from the regional Cree leadership, we have actually managed to get a biodiversity reserve established within the timeframe of our project.” This work complements Mulrennan’s ongoing research on indigenous resource use in Torres Strait, northern Australia.
Meanwhile, Mulligan has been working with Japanese researchers with initial funding from the Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade to develop ways to remove suspended solids from waterways. Her work in remediation of soils and groundwater and her dedication as Chair of the Geoenvironmental Division of the Canadian Geotechinical Society recently earned her their prestigious A.G. Stermac Award.
She has done sampling and some testing throughout Quebec, and in Japan, in more urban areas. Concerned with suspended solids due to development, heavy industry and agricultural activity, she has been invited to explore whether her techniques can successfully remove phosphorous, the primary cause of blue-green algae blooms in Quebec lakes. She spent the summer conducting a pilot project in the Sainte-Anne-des-Lacs region of the Laurentians.
Mulrennan is working on preemptive strategies with indigenous communities to ensure protection of their rivers, lakes and marine areas. The 4 500 sq km. area that has successfully been declared a biodiversity reserve (triggering a moratorium on mining claims and other forms of large scale development) includes two of the largest remaining “relatively intact” watersheds in the James Bay region. They represent areas of remarkable ecological and cultural significance in a broader context of a dramatically modified regional hydrology associated with the James Bay hydroelectric project.
Mulrennan is encouraged by the success of this protected area project, led by the local Cree communities, rather than Parks Canada. “The only hope for any significant expansion of the parks and protected area systems in countries like Canada and Australia is to work with Aboriginal communities because most of the remaining lands and waters of interest for conservation are in the traditional territories of northern Aboriginal peoples."
Meanwhile, Mulligan’s clean-up work is necessary, in Quebec and elsewhere. She reports that the blue-green algae scares of a few years ago are still very real. Although lake associations are actively monitoring and policing potential threats to water, the problems still exist. They just aren’t making the headlines they did a few years ago.
Ultimately, Quebec is not facing the same crisis as in Japan. “What they did is like what China is doing currently,” says Mulligan, “ They went full steam on the development side and they didn’t really care too much about the environment at that time.”
Other factors, perhaps related to climate change, are exacerbating the problem. Mulligan points out that warmer winters mean less snow, which means less water running into the lakes. Add to that the warmer temperatures experienced this past summer and blue-green algae can grow more efficiently.
Mulrennan adds that climate change is a factor in her research as well. For example, the role Wemindji’s proposed marine protected area can play in species conservation, including the survival of the most southerly polar bear population of the world, is of growing interest. The issue of sea level rise is less pressing because the land in this region is rising, at a rate of about a metre a century. “Within the lifetime of an individual, islands attach and become part of the mainland,” Mulrennan says. “This represents one of the most dynamic coastlines in the world, affording a unique opportunity to document coastal change.”
Both researchers recognize the need for local communities, government and industry to work together to both protect and remediate waterways.
Listen to the conversation in full between Catherine Mulligan and Monica Mulrennan: