The International Joint Commission (IJC)’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Adaptive Management (GLAM) Committee, made up of government scientists and engineers and knowledgeable specialists from outside organizations, has begun work on the second phase of an expedited review of the binational regulation plan for Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, known formally as Plan 2014 (Plan). This is the plan that regulates Lake Ontario outflows into the St. Lawrence River and went into effect in January 2017.
This second phase of the Plan’s review will strive to find improvements for managing Lake Ontario outflows, especially during extremely wet or dry periods to reduce impacts on the various uses and interests throughout the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River system. It should be noted that no regulation plan will be able to prevent extremely high or low water levels and flows or eliminate their impacts.
To do this, the GLAM Committee will be gathering and analyzing data that reflects the impacts of extreme high and low water across individuals, communities and organizations that live, work and enjoy the lake and river, as well as ecosystem impacts in the basin. Indigenous engagement, perspectives and traditional knowledge are also being considered as an important part of this review. The GLAM Committee’s efforts will include the re-establishment of a Public Advisory Group initiated during the Phase 1 effort to continue robust engagement with the public over the course of the review.
The expedited review is part of the IJC’s integrated adaptive management approach, which seeks to help address future uncertainties due to climate change. In the case of Plan 2014, the GLAM Committee follows this approach to continually review the outcomes and management of this regulation plan by assessing its performance and the challenges regulators face using a broad range of environmental and socio-economic indicators. The GLAM Committee will advise the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board, who will evaluate whether adjustments to the plan may be warranted and should be recommended to the IJC.
The final results from the Phase 2 effort are expected to be submitted to the IJC in the spring of 2025.
The Phase 1 report is available online at: https://ijc.org/en/glam. The focus of Phase 1 was to provide the International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board with better information to help them explore alternative deviation decisions should extremely high water as seen in 2017 and 2019 be repeated in the coming years.
Provided information
