Q-2 - Environment Quality Act

Section 31.102 Disposition versions

2011-09-01

31.102. The Minister must conduct an assessment of the cumulative impacts of water withdrawals and consumptive uses in the St. Lawrence River Basin on the Basin ecosystem, particularly on the waters and water-dependent natural resources of the Basin, in accordance with the requirements of the Agreement. The assessment must be conducted in coordination with the assessments that the other parties to the Agreement are required to conduct within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin.

The assessment must evaluate the application of the prevention principle and the precautionary principle as well as the effects of past and reasonably foreseeable future withdrawals and consumptive uses, the effects of climate change and any other factor that may significantly damage the Basin’s aquatic ecosystems.

The assessment prescribed by this section must be done every five years. It must also be done each time the incremental losses to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin reach an average of 190 million litres per day in excess of the quantity at the time of the last assessment, or each time one or more of the parties to the Agreement so request.

2009, c. 21, s. 19.