FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: John Nevin
December 19,
2008
(202) 256-1368
Study Board Announces Revised
Schedule for Release of St. Clair River Report
The International Upper Great
Lakes Study (IUGLS) has announced that the draft St. Clair River report will be released in early May, 2009, and
the final report transmitted to the International Joint Commission (IJC) in
October, 2009. In particular, the change accommodates the time needed for
integration of all technical work group findings, the Independent Peer Review
process and extended public comment.
The new schedule
allows for an extended 60-day comment period on the draft report – as
urged by the IUGLS Public Interest Advisory Group. The additional time is
also needed for integration of the findings from more than forty Study projects
and more thorough data evaluation, verification and quality control and the
Independent Peer Review Group to review each of the key chapters. The new
schedule will also allow for collection of additional
field data to corroborate hydraulic and sediment
modelling results, if required.
IUGLS is a five-year
investigation launched by the IJC in March of 2007 to examine whether
regulation of outflows from Lake Superior might be improved to take into
consideration changing climate and evolving interests of property owners,
ecosystems, municipal and industrial water users, hydropower, the shipping
sector, and the recreation/tourism industry. The first component of the
Study addresses the question of whether possible physical changes in the St.
Clair River are affecting the relative levels of Lake Erie and
Even with the change, the St. Clair River portion of
IUGLS still remains well ahead of the original schedule in the Plan of Study,
which called for publishing the draft report in 2010. The IJC fully
supported the revision of the schedule.
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