An annual public meeting on the regulation of Namakan and Rainy lakes and the water quality of Rainy River will be conducted at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the LaPlace Rendez-Vous Hotel in Fort Frances.
The meeting is held jointly by the International Rainy Lake Board of Control and the International Rainy River Water Pollution Board.
Ed Eaton, engineering advisor to the IRLBC, said the annual meetings are now geared more toward hearing concerns and interests from people attending the meeting than a lengthy presentation by the joint board.
He said the change in meeting format was prompted in 2001 or 2002 during a high water event when attendees grew frustrated by a 45 minute presentation, which left little time for answers to their questions about flooding.
“Ever since that time the presentation is down to the bare minimum,” he said. The presentation includes information about water level regulation, hydro conditions and if there is any particular board activities of significance to the audience, he said.
“We want the experience to be meaningful for the people involved,” he said of the joint meeting.
The U.S. and Canada’s recent agreement with the recommendation from the Lake of the Woods Task Force may be of interest during the meeting, said Eaton.
“It has some far reaching implications with establishing a merged board with an expanded quality mandate for Lake of the Woods,” Eaton said. “It carries with it a fairly significant work effort in the future for developing a plan of study looking at watershed management and those kind of things.”
Eaton said details are still being developed to determine what form that plan would take.
And the joint board will be in Borderland for more than just the annual basin public meeting, he said. The joint board will meet on Tuesday and Thursday, as well as meet Wednesday with area government resource managers, dam operators, Voyageurs National Park staff and other citizens of organizations from Canada and the United States during a boat tour to the Kettle Falls dam.
Meanwhile, Eaton said the planned review of the rule curve set in 2000 that guides the levels of Rainy and Namakan lakes is on target for a review in 2015.
The water levels are controlled by a hydroelectric dam on the Rainy River in International Falls and Fort Frances and two water-control dams located at Kettle Falls, the outlet of Namakan Lake.
The structures are owned and operated by H2O Power LP on the Canadian side and by Boise Inc. on the United States side. The companies manage the water levels of Rainy and Namakan lakes in accordance with the rule curves established by the International Joint Commission. The IJC has delegated the oversight of the rule curves to the International Rainy Lake Board of Control, which has both a U.S. and Canadian representative as well as technical staff. There is a similar group known as the Lake of the Woods Control Board for that area.
The first rule curves were introduced by the IJC in 1949 after detailed study and public hearings. The serious floods, which occurred in 1950 and 1954, led to a reevaluation and modification of the rule curves in 1957. The rule curves were modified again in 1970 due to high and low water events on Rainy and Namakan Lakes from 1957 to 1968. The latest revisions to the rule curves came on Jan. 6, 2000 after a self-appointed group known as the International Steering Committee advocated further changes to the rule curves on both lakes.
An assessment work group, of which Eaton was a member, developed a plan of study for producing a body of scientific defensible evidence to be used for the rule curve review, he said.
“That is an ongoing process now,” he said. “A number of studies have been identified as sort of the baseline that would be needed for whomever conducts the review in 2015 to have this cadre of studies to look at and try to discern whether the rule curves have been a net positive, net negative or neutral in these interest areas.”
The studies will consider the 2000 rule curve effects on areas such as fisheries, recreation, vegetation and flood control, he explained.
“The studies will consider the economic, social and recreational impacts related to the rule curve changes,” he said.
The commission is expected to conduct hearings in the basin to receive public input on the 2000 rule curves in 2015, he said, adding the commission has not yet made any final decision on how the review will be structured.
“Everything is going well along those lines, in terms of the body of scientific evidence that will allow for a successful and meaningful review of the curves,” said Eaton.
