Book Description

In Canada, all pulp & paper mills in Canada are required to conduct environmental effects monitoring (EEM) under the Fisheries Act in order to determine if there were environmental concerns related to fish, fish habitat, or utilization of the fisheries resource. Since 1992, mills have completed two cycles of this monitoring program. This report assesses EEM data in cycle 2 in order to determine the type & magnitude of effects occurring on fish & benthic invertebrate communities on a national scale. Some comparisons are made with data from cycle 1, which was primarily used as a baseline, to indicate trends in the environment over the past decade. After an introduction on the national EEM program and the rationale for this study, chapter 2 presents a historical review of the effects of pulp & paper mill effluents with respect to EEM endpoints. Chapter 3 outlines methodologies used for data analysis. Chapters 4 & 5 describe results of benthic community & fish surveys respectively. Chapter 6 shows the results of a combined analysis of fish population survey & benthic invertebrate community survey endpoints. Chapter 7 highlights the results of an analysis of the data on sublethal toxicity. The final chapter provides an overall summary of report conclusions, recommendations, and next steps for analysis.