New plan will help restore Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence River ecosystem: officials
Officials in Canada and the U.S. have signed a new plan to regulate water levels and flows in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River that they say will help restore coastal ecosystems.
The agreement, called Plan 2014, will set the flows through the Moses-Saunders Dam, which is on the St. Lawrence between Cornwall, Ont., and Massena, N.Y.
It takes effect in January and replaces an earlier water regulation system established in the 1950s.
The International Joint Commission, which signed the plan Thursday, says the previous model unnaturally compressed water levels, causing harm to the surrounding 26,000 hectares of coastal wetlands.