Jackfish Bay

What Is an Area of Concern?

Jackfish Bay was designated a Great Lakes Area of Concern (AOC) in 1987 under the Canada–U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, one of 43 sites identified around the Great Lakes basin. The source of the problem was straightforward: decades of effluent from the bleached-kraft pulp mill at Terrace Bay, discharged into Blackbird Creek and carried roughly 15 kilometres downstream into the bay. To decide whether a site qualifies as an AOC, regulators score it against 14 standardized "beneficial use impairments" (BUIs) — measurable indicators covering ecological, human-health, and economic effects of poor water quality, from restrictions on eating local fish to degraded fish habitat. At Jackfish Bay, six of the 14 BUIs were classed as impaired, and two more were flagged as needing further study.

Three of those original impairments have since been fully restored: restrictions on dredging activity were lifted in 1998, and both fish tumours/deformities and bird or animal reproductive problems were reclassified as "not impaired" in 2010, helped by a documented decline of more than 7% in fish liver tumour rates between 1985 and 2006. Five beneficial uses are still being tracked — the health of fish and wildlife populations, the state of the benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrate community, fish and wildlife habitat, fish consumption safety, and general aesthetics such as water clarity and odour. Each remains under active reassessment as the ecosystem continues to recover.

The Remedial Action Plan and "In Recovery" Status

In 2011, Jackfish Bay was redesignated as an Area of Concern in Recovery under the same Canada–U.S. agreement. That status change signals that every remediation action considered scientifically and economically feasible has already been carried out — treatment upgrades, process changes, sediment work — and what remains is time: the ecosystem needs years, not another engineering fix, to fully recover. A long-term monitoring plan, run jointly by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Ontario government, and local partners, tracks sediment and water quality, benthic health, fish contaminant levels, and aesthetics, so recovery can eventually be confirmed and the site removed from the AOC list altogether.