Tag Archives: dam

Misner Dam Removal – Save the Lynn, by Richard Delaney

Misner Dam News Updates:

2019:  Misner Dam repair bill already way over budget
2019:  Tender call coming for Misner Dam
2019:  Misner Dam ‘task force’ to “create a road map”
2019: Task force charts course on Silver Lake 
2018:  Misner Dam’s Future is Up in the Air
2016:  The County of Norfolk Council voted 6 to 2 to repair the Misner Dam
2016:  County told repairs of $929,000 should make Misner Dam good for another 25 years
2015:  Mayor Luke takes Misner Dam, Silver Lake issues to MNR
2015:  Where are we with Port Dover’s Misner’s Dam
2014:  Friends of Silver Lake Show County Owns Misner Dam
2013:  Misner Dam can’t hold back ‘Super Flood’

A presentation made by Richard Delaney at ORA’s 28 October 2012 Annual General Meeting.

Download (PDF, 3.67MB)



Review of Long Term Energy Plan – EBR # 011-9490 – Rob MacGregor

16 September 2013

Dear Ms. Green

I tried to submit my brief comments online but only found a save button so I am uncertain if my comments were received. So I am providing comments again directly via email.

My major comment is that any public consultation regarding choices in long-term energy plans is incomplete without including the environmental risks associated with each choice.  For instance, significant collateral ecological damage often comes with waterpower and asking the public to consider choices and comment on them with out a clear articulation of environmental risks associated with each sector is not only incomplete, it can be viewed as deceptive if later the government indicates it consulted with the public over the LTEP. I know the argument will be that there are other environmental processes that look after this aspect and that this consideration is out of scope. This siloed approach is rampant in government and extremely flawed.  For instance, there have been many instances of serious collateral ecological damage in the past with waterpower projects, despite the existence of  environmental regulations and processes, some could have been easily mitigated, mitigation of others would have been more difficult.  Consulting with the public over energy plans for the province without a full discussion/disclosure of the environmental risks is a serious oversight, particularly in view of the fact that the environmental review process for energy projects is not working and needs to be reviewed and amended accordingly. Added to this is the simple fact that once a site is release for consideration for energy projects, a train starts rolling that is difficult if not impossible to stop. Indeed. finding ways to approve such projects can become the unwritten rule. A better approach would be for the province to first to develop a strategy that evaluates where such projects make ecological sense, and where they do not before sites are released for further consideration and investment by the various energy sectors. Continue reading


BC is no different from Ontario in this respect

Memo to Media: Watchdog the Environment

Six issues the press must cover to hold power in this province accountable.

By Rafe Mair, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Excerpt – full article found here.

Misema River - After Hydro Facility

Misema River – After Hydro Facility

So-called ‘run of river’ projects. This donation of our wild rivers to Independent Power Projects (IPPs) so that they can make power, is one of the great heists in history. Their dams (and that’s what they are) divert water within rivers to generate power that BC Hydro is compelled to buy at double the market price and up to 10 times what they can produce it for themselves. And, it must be emphasized, nearly all of it is produced during run-off time when BC Hydro doesn’t need it but must buy anyway. They are on a “take or pay” contract forced upon BC Hydro by the Liberal government. Thanks to this unbelievable Liberal government policy, BC Hydro isnow in future debt to IPPs for some 50 to 60 billion dollars.

This has all been achieved with hardly a peep from the mainstream media! BC Hydro, the jewel in the provincial crown is now financially ruined by greedy business, urged on by a far right-wing government with nary a murmur by the mainstream media! BC Hydro, if in the private sector, would be bankrupt and escapes bankruptcy only because it can turn to us the public for their ongoing fiscal requirements. This is scandal of major proportions yet unmentioned by the media who are supposed to be protecting the province from this sort of corporate and government fiscal vandalism.



High Falls, Sturgeon River – 1993 Dam Project – MNR Report abandoned in 2006

Click here to Listen to this episode of Tapestry.

Season 18: Episode 29

Anthony Lawlor is an architect who has made it his job to find the sacred in the ordinary. He and Mary talk about how the divine is not limited to churches, mosques, synagogues and temples. Lawlor says you can find it everywhere, if you just look  – even in your own kitchen.  For more on our show and our guests…
I’m drawing your attention to the interview at 34:40 min.:
After that, we visit a place where a construction worker dug up something he didn’t expect to find. In High Falls, Ontario in the fall of 1992, a dam project was at a crucial phase. The plan was to generate hydro and provide development for the local economy.However, a skull and two bones showed up after several days of heavy rains. Testing revealed they were human remains, and suddenly, the site took on a whole new meaning for the nearby Poplar Point Ojibway First Nation.Many Ojibway believe that wind and rushing water are vital for communication between the living and the dead. The dam would block the voices of many ancestors. Jody Porter‘s documentary, This Powerful Place, explores the difficult questions faced from the perspective of one of the band’s elders and an archeologist hired to investigate.

Experimental Lakes Research in Kenora Reveals just how Dirty Hydroelectric Really Is – Groundbreaking Information

Harper seals our fate on water and energy sustainability

By Emma Lui | March 5, 2013
Note:  This is an excerpt of the original article – access by clicking here.

The federal government states that Fisheries and Oceans Canada no longer need to do this type of research. And yet when we look at the research being conducted at the ELA, the scientific data is sorely needed for a sustainable energy strategy.

One ELA study assesses the effects of hydroelectric development. Hydroelectric dams are often touted as a ‘clean’ energy solution. However, the ELA study raises questions about whether hydroelectric dams have similar impacts as burning fossil fuels.

“There’s a new idea around that reservoirs may be significant sources of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. And we want to test that idea, ”says Drew Bodaly, Research Scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in this Experimental Lakes video (see below). Continue reading


Green Energy be Dammed!

We all want green energy, but let’s ensure it is truly green.

Wabagishik Rapids is a beautiful 1 km stretch of rapids on the Vermilion River, about 1/2 hour west of Sudbury, Ontario.  A developer is proposing to build a modified peaking  hydroelectric dam that would only produce enough power to supply about 1,600 homes.  These types of dams have numerous negative impacts associated with them, and are very harmful to the riverine ecosystem.  Check out this film to find out more.


Dam the American Eels, by Gord Miller, ECO

In Ontario, many rivers and streams have been fragmented by dams and hydro-electric stations, creating substantial barriers to fish migration. For example, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) operates 65 hydro-electric stations and 240 dams on 24 river systems. While hydro-electric dams contribute to Ontario’s energy supply, these structures can have damaging effects on aquatic ecosystems and species. Dams can fragment aquatic ecosystems, create barriers to fish migrating upstream, alter river flow and temperature, and kill fish in turbines during downstream passage.

Dams and hydro-electric stations along the St. Lawrence River, such as the Moses-Saunders Power Dam near Cornwall, are considered a threat to the survival of the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) population in Ontario. It is classified as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA).

Eels have a complex life cycle. They are born, spawn and die at sea, have a single breeding population, and some migrate to freshwater to mature. The eel has a vast range on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean from Venezuela to Greenland and Iceland. They migrate great distances throughout their life stages, some travelling as far as 6,000 km. The species’ native Canadian distribution includes all fresh water, estuaries and coastal marine waters that are accessible from the Atlantic Ocean. Juvenile eels (elver) migrate through the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, where they mature into silver eels and migrate back to the Atlantic Ocean, to spawn in the Sargasso Sea. More than 25,000 dams block the eels’ freshwater range, from Florida to Ontario.

Eels are an important fishery worldwide, for both Aboriginal traditional use and as a commercial fishery. Eels are harvested at virtually all life stages and in most of their habitats, such as freshwater lakes and rivers, estuaries and marine environments. However, a plummeting eel population forced MNR to close Ontario’s commercial eel fishery in 2004 and the recreational fishery in 2005.

Eels were once abundant in the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, which by some estimates comprised approximately half the fish biomass in the 1600s. Since the 1970s, the eel population has been declining at an alarming rate and the full causes for the decline are unknown. However, dams have an impact on eel populations in two ways: they restrict access to upstream habitats and cause eel mortality in turbines.

In the St. Lawrence River watershed, over 8,000 dams restrict access to more than 12,000 km2 of freshwater habitat for eels. Two major dams block eel migration from Lake Ontario; the Moses- Saunders Power Dam (which includes the R. H. Saunders Generating Station in Ontario and the Robert Moses dam in New York State) constructed in the 1950s and the Beauharnois dam near Montreal constructed in the 1930s. Both dams were retrofitted with eel ladders in 1974 and 1994, respectively, to facilitate the upward passage of eel migration. Unfortunately, eels migrating downstream are estimated to suffer at least 40 per cent mortality due to passage through turbines.

MNR has monitored eels ascending the Moses-Saunders Dam ladder since its construction. In 1982 and 1983, more than 26,000 eels per day were observed ascending the ladder during peak migration; by 2002, eel passage declined to approximately 55 eels per day. The Lake Ontario Committee of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission issued a statement in 2002 that without management intervention, extirpation of the eel in the Great Lakes Basin is likely and that management actions within the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario should be taken to reduce eel mortality at all life stages and to encourage safe, effective upstream and downstream migration.

In 2007, eels were classified as an endangered species under the ESA. Ontario Regulation 242/08 under the ESA exempts hydro-electric generating stations from the prohibitions against killing and habitat destruction if an agreement is entered into with the Minister of Natural Resources. While all other stations have a three-year grace period to enter into an agreement, the R. H. Saunders Generating Station had one year (until June 2009) to enter into an agreement respecting eels.

In June 2009, the Minister of Natural Resources entered into a 20-year agreement with OPG under the ESA respecting eels at the R.H. Saunders Generating Station. The agreement includes a five-year implementation plan consisting of a trap and transport project (to capture, transport and release large eels upstream and downstream of the generating station), a juvenile eel stocking program (to supplement natural recruitment loss) into the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, and requirements to operate and maintain the existing eel ladder. Under the agreement, OPG is required to implement and monitor the effectiveness of the implementation plan. MNR will audit OPG at least once a year to review compliance with the agreement.

It is noteworthy that the eel recovery strategy and the government’s response were not finalized prior to this agreement. The ECO believes that the agreement should be amended if necessary to reflect both documents once they are completed. While the agreement appears to mitigate some of the effects of the hydro-electric station on eels (e.g., stocking and transporting eels), it does not effectively address the protection and recovery of eels. For example, the agreement’s pilot trap and transport program superficially addresses safe downstream migration of eels – it artificially relocates eels that may or may not be ready to migrate. An amended, strengthened agreement would emphasize safe, natural migration of eels downstream, such as the installation of bypass structures or altering the timing of operation (turn off turbines at night during migration) to reduce turbine mortality.

Safe and effective natural passage of eels, both upstream and downstream, must be addressed at dams along the St. Lawrence River and tributaries if Ontario’s eel population is to recover. Given these concerns, the ECO cautions MNR in using this agreement as a template for other hydro-electric stations where eels are present. Although the Moses-Saunders and Beauharnois dams have eel ladders to help migration upstream, there are many dams in Ontario with no fish or eel ladders. For example, the Ottawa River is blocked by 12 hydro-dams, none of which are equipped with an eel ladder. Fragmented rivers and streams have damaging effects on the survival of many other aquatic species: dams prevented Atlantic salmon from reaching their spawning grounds, and were considered to be a significant factor in their decline and ultimate extirpation from Lake Ontario.

The ECO believes that MNR should require, through approvals issued under the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act (LRIA), that all new dams facilitate natural passage of fish by installing fish ladders or other similar structures. In addition, MNR should require all existing dams to be retrofitted with fish ladders or other similar structures to facilitate safe and natural migration along the course of all Ontario’s streams and rivers, through LRIA approvals for improvement or repair to dams.

Read original article here.


Black Sturgeon River Dam Decommissioning – Virginia Rook to Minister Gravelle

Virginia Rook
RR 2, Site 10, Comp 4
Alban, Ontario P0M 1A0

February 5, 2013

Honourable Michael Gravelle
Minister of Natural Resources
Suite 6630, 6th Floor, Whitney Block
99 Wellesley Street West
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1W3
Fax to: 416 325-5316

Dear Minister Gravelle:

Re: Black Sturgeon River Dam decommissioning

I have recently read Technical Report No. 06-03 produced for the Upper Great Lakes Management Unit – Lake Superior. This is a very thorough report that states that the collapse of the Black Bay walleye fishery coincides with the dam construction1. It states that many costly mitigation attempts were made to improve the fishery in the area, with little or no improvement.
The final recommendation of this report is to remove the dam.

I find it interesting that the major concerns were regarding the collapse of the commercial fishery and the loss of the recreational fishery. The report claims that if the dam was removed “Black Bay walleye population that is sufficiently recovered to permit recreational angling on Black Bay would be worth several hundred thousand dollars per year to open-water anglers from Thunder Bay alone.”2 To me, this means that the main concern of the Ministry of Natural Resources is all about profits!

I struggle to understand this. Continue reading