The New COA

Draft Agreement

Draft Annexes

• Areas of Concern
• Harmful Pollutants
• Lakewide Management
• Monitoring and Information

Farmers Target Non-Point Source Pollution

CANADA-ONTARIO AGREEMENT RESPECTING
THE GREAT LAKES BASIN ECOSYSTEM

Some sources of pollution are easy to track. You can observe, measure, even sample the dirty smoke that comes from a stack or the wastewater flowing out of a discharge pipe. While the control of point source pollution may be neither simple nor inexpensive, you always know where to begin.

Rural non-point source pollution can be more difficult to control than fixing a pipe or a smoke stack. It may come from many possible sources – septic tanks, impoundments and improperly stored manure, the runoff from fields and feedlots. The impact of an individual family farm may be very small in the larger scheme of things; however, cumulatively and if not managed properly, the environmental pressure can damage an ecosystem.

Measuring farm impacts in the Great Lakes Basin is a complicated task. There are many kinds of farms producing everything from grains and oilseeds, corn, fruit and vegetables, livestock, eggs, poultry, and dairy products. Each employs different production methods which affects a shared ecosystem.

Considerable progress has been made under the Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem (coa) to reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural and rural land use activities. A variety of intiatives and financial incentives have encouraged: the use of conservation tillage to curb runoff and erosion; the proper handling, storage and application of farm wastes to reduce bacteriological contamination; rural buffer strips to protect stream water quality; and integrated pest management techniques to reduce chemical use.

An excellent example of the progress made to date can be found in the Bay of Quinte Area of Concern (AOC).

These projects have cut the loading of sediment to tributaries and, ultimately,to the Bay of Quinte by 12,000 tonnes a year, and reduced annual phosphorous loadings by 16,500 kilograms.

Cleaning up the Bay of Quinte

Rural water quality has been a key concern in the remediation of the Bay of Quinte, one of 16 Great Lakes Areas of Concern (aocs) in Ontario. Runoff from agricultural and rural lands can carry a heavy load of phosphorous and other nutrients, as well as pesticides and sediment, into local streams and on down to the shallow, warm waters of the bay.

“Essentially, tributary sources were responsible for between 70 and 75 percent of the nutrient loadings to the Bay of Quinte,” says Barry Jones, Implementation Manager for the bay’s Remedial Action Plan (rap). Stream silting and sedimentation problems were also linked to rural land use practices.

The Bay of Quinte is a twisting Z-shaped embayment stretching approximately 50 kilometres, east from Trenton, past Belleville, and then south before entering Lake Ontario just west of Kingston. Its huge drainage basin is 17,315 square kilometres of farmland, forests, small villages and larger towns. To the north lie the dairy farms and corn fields of Hastings and Northumberland counties. To the south, separating the bay from the lake, are the market gardens, beef and dairy farms of Prince Edward County.

“We know that poor agricultural land use management can result in significant changes to local water bodies,” says Jennifer Vincent, a project coordinator for habitat and rural non-point source projects with Environment Canada. “Non-point sources of pollution from agricultural lands can contribute a substantial portion of the sediment, phosphorous, and other pollutants entering water courses.”

As land is developed for agricultural use, its natural buffering capacity for processing sediment, nutrients and pollutants is often knocked out of balance. Poor tillage practices can turn watercourses brown with silt. Heavy chemical use can flood streams with nutrients and pesticides. Improper manure management can contaminate drinking water.

Rural non-point source pollution is one of a number of wide-spread environmental problems in the Great Lakes Basin. “It’s a concern pretty much across the board in all the AOCs in southern Ontario,” says Vincent. And it’s certainly a primary concern of the Bay of Quinte RAP although much progress has been made through partnerships with farmers and rural landowners.

“One of the most cost-effective ways to control nutrient loadings is for farmers to practice conservation tillage rather than conventional tillage” says the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ Peter Roberts. When the stubble and other crop residues are left on a field (rather than plowed under), erosion is reduced, and less nutrients and sediment are washed into streams.

Crop yields may drop temporarily, “It takes about three to five years to re-establish the populations of soil bacteria and worms back to where they’ll do a proper job,” says Vincent. In the meantime, “you spend a lot less time on the seat of your tractor. The fuel and time savings should help make up for the more expensive offset disks, seed drills, and heavy duty planters needed to work the fields,” she explains.

Partners key to Quinte cleanup

The governments of Canada and Ontario have supported a number of programs that have contributed to the cleanup of the Bay of Quinte. The Government of Ontario has contributed almost $1 million to implement remedial measures to address non-point source inputs to the Bay of Quinte AOC and through initiatives such as the Environmental Farm Plan, the development and implementation of Nutrient Management Plans and Integrated Pest Management has assisted water quality improvements within the watershed.

Between 1992 and 2001, the Government of Canada’s Great Lakes Sustainability Fund (glsf) and its predecessor, the Great Lakes 2000 Cleanup Fund, have contributed almost $2 million to environmental projects on farms and promoted remediation efforts around the Bay of Quinte. GLSF support has been crucial to the remediation of the Bay of Quinte. “We would have been no where without them,” asserts the RAP’s Jones. Because the GLSF covers only up to one-third of a project’s total budget, this financing served as a catalyst to leverage an additional million in support from farmers and other stakeholders. GLSF works closely with area farmers, landowners, and local agencies to help set funding priorities based on local needs.

Rural water program hits targets

To cut phosphorous loadings, a total of 27,000 hectares of cropland have been converted from conventional to reduced or conservation tillage in 198 separate projects. There have been 101 domestic sewage system upgrades, and 50 manure and milkhouse management projects to cut nutrient inputs and bacterial contamination. In addition, 17 erosion control projects, 55 fencing projects, and 25 tree planting projects have helped protect vulnerable stream habitat. Planting shade trees and shrubs along stream banks helps keep the water cool, preserves aquatic habitat, and filters out some of the sediments and other potential contaminants in farm runoff.

Cumulatively, these projects have cut the loading of sediment to tributaries and, ultimately, to the Bay of Quinte by 12,000 tonnes a year, and reduced annual phosphorous loadings by 16,500 kilograms. Fencing projects have protected 40 kilometres of sensitive stream banks and kept thousands of horses, cows and sheep from eroding stream bank and trampling aquatic habitat into muck. In addition, 49 hectares of fragile riverside farmland have been retired from agricultural use.

On March 31, 2001, the Bay of Quinte RAP office shut down its Rural Water Quality Program; after eight years of intensive work controlling nutrient loadings, it had hit all its objectives and the team was ready to move on to other priorities. “We needed to cut the annual phosphorous loadings by 12,500 kilograms,” says Jones, “but we raised that by one-third to 16,500 kilograms to add a margin of comfort to the predictive model used to estimate loading reductions.

Our original goal was to bring down the number of summer beach closures to zero,” says Jones. “We haven’t quite managed that, but the number of beach closures in rural areas is definitely down.” The Rural Water Quality Program, together with other RAP projects, has managed to reduce phosphorous concentrations in the Bay to a more acceptable 30 to 40 micrograms per litre level for much of the year.

New COA will focus on challenges

The continuing challenges for agriculture in the Great Lakes Basin are to adopt sustainable management practices for conserving soil, water and wildlife habitat, and to improve the management of nutrients, particularly in areas of intensive livestock and crop production. The governments of Canada and Ontario will work with farmers to address these challenges, both on thousands of individual farms and across entire watersheds.

To learn more about COA and the RAPs, contact:
	Environment Canada www.on.ec.gc.ca (416) 739-4809	Ontario Ministry of the Environment www.ene.gov.on.ca (416) 325-4000 or 1-800-565-4923

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