A Consolidated Report for Six Workshops - April-June 2000

Chapter 7: Suggestions Made By The Participants Regarding The Improvements Of Presentations On Sectors (Appendix-1, Volume-2)

During the second breakout session of the workshops, participants at all workshops except Ottawa, were asked to provide their suggestions for the improvement on all sectors contained in Appendix-1, volume-2 of the handbook. Responses of participants were recorded as listed next:

Agriculture

• Quebec experience in agricultural sector could be broaden to include other regions such as prairie (Regina Workshop)
• need to address different agricultural enterprises beyond intensive livestock operations (Regina Workshop)
• need to address the cumulative effects of all rural enterprises on rural communities through community assessment (Regina Workshop)
• on grids in page 162, add the following 2 columns; a column for provincial standards and a column for occupational health hazards with links to community health (Regina Workshop)
• comprehensive database for this sector could enhance analysis (Regina Workshop)
• need to provide main steps of the HIA process using Determinants of Health (Regina Workshop)
• need to incorporate the activities of multi-disciplinary EA team in relation to agricultural sector (Regina Workshop)
• relate agriculture to human health (Toronto Workshop)
• charts could be simplified (Toronto Workshop)
• provide major issues of this sector (Toronto Workshop)
• a good effort is given for the analysis of hog farming in the Handbook and this could be extended for other farm enterprises (Halifax Workshop)
• benefits and risks of pesticides use should be analyzed (Halifax Workshop)
• injuries in agriculture sector could be included (Halifax Workshop)
• on-farm assessment of environmental impacts could have been included (Halifax Workshop)
• health / environmental issues of composting should be studied (Halifax Workshop)
• disposal of dead farm animals is a significant issue which should be addressed in the Handbook (Halifax Workshop)
• could explore the possibility of incorporating the effects on consumers of genetically modified foods (Vancouver Workshop)
• issues related to strategic environmental assessment vs. local environmental assessment could be included (Vancouver Workshop)
• more attention could be provided to agricultural activities on the land. Eg. Sumas prairie - fertilizers (Vancouver Workshop)
• cross referencing of related concerns between sectors (Vancouver Workshop)

Forestry

• it is helpful to provide impacts of pesticide use in forest lands (Regina Workshop)
• need to analyze the forestry management practice which uses only one specie of tree in terms of the impact of this practice on bio-diversity (Regina Workshop)
• analyze the impacts of clear-cutting of forests (Regina Workshop) analyze the environmental impacts of new forestry technologies (Regina Workshop)
• need to consider health risks such as encephalitis, west nile fever, lyme disease (Toronto Workshop)
• general lack of information on occupational health and safety for forestry sector (Vancouver Workshop)
• listing of typical forestry activities could be included especially those with potential critical impacts (Vancouver Workshop)
• two case studies noted are good (Vancouver Workshop)
• would like to see more case studies such as Tree Planting / Replanting, Road building etc. (Vancouver Workshop)
• could provide impacts from all facets of the sector (Vancouver Workshop)

Mining

• more detail information than given in volume 2 can be useful (Regina Workshop)
• major rewrite is recommended due to inaccuracies (Toronto Workshop)
• resource efficiency could be included (Toronto Workshop)
• proper use of terms should be adopted (Toronto Workshop)
• expand the number of examples in this sector (Toronto Workshop)
• accidents in mining could be included (Toronto Workshop)
• expand the sources of information by checking the organizations such as Mining Association of Canada, Ontario Mining Association and International Councils (Toronto Workshop)
• level of detail should connect to target audience (Vancouver Workshop)

Energy

• more hydrological analysis of hydro-electric dam is required (Regina Workshop)
• down-stream impacts of hydroelectric dam must be provided. The issues can include dam releasing low quality water, turbidity, temperature changes etc. (Regina Workshop)
• need to look at health risks from energy sector and mitigation of health problems (Regina Workshop)
• include positive health impacts from energy sector (Regina Workshop)
• both positive and negative impacts of co-generation power stations should be analyzed (Regina Workshop)
• emergence of new technology needs to be considered for the analysis (Regina Workshop)
• include impacts of hydroelectric dam projects on issues such as the fish population for communities depend on fish, the trappers who depend on animals, costs to replace the loss of resources etc. (Regina Workshop)
• audible noise section is good (Toronto Workshop)
• make all descriptions very generic (Toronto Workshop)
• describe the characteristics and life cycles of power lines (Toronto Workshop)
• there is a question on the relevancy of the "Energy use in Quebec" Section (Vancouver Workshop)
• too much focus on PAC RIM, but it is not a common project (Vancouver Workshop).
• not much on pipelines (it is buried in PAC RIM) (Vancouver Workshop)
• this exercise should be an identification of issues, not projects (Vancouver workshop)
• it is too descriptive and not inclusive (Vancouver Workshop)