Sessions List and Chairs

Chair: Ngan Diep
This session is soliciting oral and poster presentations related to the potential environmental effects of land-based and cage aquaculture in the freshwater environment. Assessment and evaluation of water quality, sediment quality, and fisheries are of key interest. Presentations on environmental monitoring programs, development and application of modeling tools, risk assessments, and cost/benefit studies related to freshwater aquaculture are welcomed.

Chair: Kelly Munkittrick
This Session will present options (and opportunities) for bringing multi-stakeholders together to design Regional Monitoring Frameworks to help move forward “Cumulative Effects Assessment” in Canada.

Chair: Peter Hodson
In light of current marine disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and freshwater tragedies such as the 2005 Wabamun Lake (Alberta) oil spill, considerable attention has focused on oil spills and their resulting impacts. Equally important are the impacts from clean-up procedures. This Session will focus on these critical issues.

Co-Chairs: Michael van den Heuvel and Karsten Liber
There is a need to revisit past aquatic toxicological research and to investigate current studies, particularly within a rural-to-urban context, in order to know where to position future ecotoxicological programs. This Session provides a chance to discuss all areas of aquatic toxicology, including past research that has relevance to today’s issues, which allow us to frame our questions and potential solutions within a current technological milieu.

Co-Chairs: Guy Gilron and Warren Norwood
Much research has been done on enhanced tools to assess the effects of metals on the environment and this session will focus on new developments in assessment of metals, metal mixtures, organo-metals, metal alloys and nano-metals using various approaches such as Biotic Ligand Modelling (BLM), metal speciation/bioavailability (measurement and modelling), and other mechanistic approaches.

Chair: Caren Helbing
The use of ‘omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) and related approaches (e.g. quantitative real time PCR) in the field of aquatic toxicology is featured. Topics of interest for this session include molecular approaches using aquatic laboratory and wildlife species for environmental monitoring and water quality assessment, methods development, and metagenomic analyses of microbial populations.

Co-chairs: Jim Sherry and Carol Reinisch
The session will explore links between exposure to environmental stressors and the occurrence of cancer in bivalves. The lead-off talk by Professor Reinisch will provide an overview of the topic. Talks are invited that explore the evidence for relationships between cancers, such as leukemia, in bivalves and exposure to environmental contaminants or other stressors. Talks that deal with the underlying mechanisms of cancers in bivalves, or that explore the similarities between leukemia in bivalves and in humans are also welcome.

Chair: Lynda McCarthy
Assessing the potential toxicity of contaminants, ranging from legacy chemicals such as mercury, to emerging contaminants such as triclosan, can only be done using living organisms. Whether at the molecular level, or at the whole-organism response (ie. swimming behaviours) level, the use of biota, alongside chemical analysis, can inform policy-makers and regulators on the chemicals to truly spend time and money monitoring.

Co-chairs: Warren Norwood and M. Munawar
There is a great deal of communication gap between toxicologists and ecologists concerning ecosystem health assessment. The proposed session attempts to break through the barrier between laboratory and field researchers by applying and adopting toxicity testing under natural field conditions. A top down integrated approach to develop a battery of bioassessment and field tests might generate multi-disciplinary and multi-trophic indicators which can be used to identify and predict ecosystem impairments, remediation, recovery and management. All scientists and managers are invited to take up this challenge!

Co-Chairs: Guy Gilron and Ben Chalmers
There is currently a need to balance the adequate protection of valuable water resources and aquatic ecosystems without creating unnecessary roadblocks for economic development. The purpose of this session will be two-fold: 1) to present several case studies relating to collaborations between government agencies and industry proponents to generate and use sound science to support effective policy and regulation; and, 2) through a panel discussion, to explore how these collaborations can become more effective in the future.

Chair: Andrew Laursen

Chair: Tom Moon
Wastewaters that are discharged to the environment contain a diversity of agents amongst which many are neuroactive that act on brain function or through neuroendocrine pathways. This session will examine any such agent including estrogens and non-estrogenic compounds (e.g. human pharmaceuticals, metals, pesticides, etc) that act on the brain to modify normal physiological functions. The body functions most clearly associated with higher brain control include reproduction and stress, feeding and growth. However this session is not restricted to only these processes and a diversity of oral and poster presentations should provide a wide-ranging discussion of this critical area and the compromises it may make to the fitness of wildlife. Presentations in the area of policy and policy needs are welcomed.

Chair: Carrie Rickwood
This session will focus on the status and evolution of environmental effects monitoring for mining in Canada including presentations on new/updated guidelines, initiatives and novel methods (e.g. cumulative assessments, trophic transfer). Additionally, we invite presentations on work being conducted towards establishing guidelines for investigation of cause and presentations on data-poor metals.

Chair: Pierre Martel
Effluent monitoring is not only useful in establishing conformity to regulatory parameters but also has value in the investigation of links between industrial processes, resulting effluent characteristics and toxicological endpoints. This session will focus on the use of industrial effluent monitoring with emphasis on toxicological effects, source and identity of contaminants and potential solutions for remediation.

Co-Chairs: Dominique Turcotte and Marie-Claude Roy
This session is soliciting oral and poster presentations related to the assessment and evaluation of potential environmental impacts and the effectiveness of reclamation strategies in aquatic and terrestrial environments associated with oil sands mining and refining in northeastern Alberta. Topics of interest for this session include the development and application of environmental assessment protocols using both acute and chronic toxicological endpoints for bitumen, and waste discharges, including oil sands tailings in the reclamation landscape. In addition, the session will also provide a forum for discussion on the environmental benefits of current and proposed site remediation procedures to mitigate toxic effects and reclaim mined landscapes to their original function. The application of toxicological data for the development of predictive risk assessment models for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) will also be discussed. Tools and techniques will be featured but we also welcome conceptual, feasibility studies, and presentations addressing barriers, costs and risks associated with reclamation.

Co-Chairs: John Struger and Ed Sverko
The focus of this session is on the fate (levels) and effects of currently used pesticides in Canadian urban environments.

Chair: Miriam Diamond
This Session will examine the legacy and current state of rivers that flow through urban centres such as Toronto (ie. Don River, Rouge River, etc.) and the Kitchener-Waterloo Region (ie. Grand River) and their resulting impairment. Solutions that can lead to an improved water and environmental quality will be discussed and debated.

Co-chairs: Natalie Feisthauer and Lesley Novak
The focus of this session is to discuss monitoring of municipal wastewater effluent (MWWE) and its receiving environments and assessments of the risk and/or impacts to ecological receptors exposed to MWWE in receiving waters.

Chair: Guillaume Tixier
Stormwater has long been considered non-point-source (NPS) pollution. As cities grow, impervious areas are preventing rainwater from percolating down to the groundwater. Resulting dramatic increases in stormwater runoff volumes and associated contaminants from various urban activities may threaten surface receiving waters. This Session will investigate all factors involved in these urban stormwater issues.

Co-chairs: Ken Doe and Rick Scroggins
This session is soliciting oral and poster presentations on the development, validation and/or standardization of new biological testing methods for the measurement of toxicity or bioavailability of contaminants in sediment or soil. Presentations will cover new or improved methodologies that measure subtle effects at the cellular level using genomic techniques, physiological and biochemical effects measured through the use of biomarker techniques or whole-organism effects in single-species exposures. Presentations are also being sought that will demonstrate how these new methodologies can be applied in measuring the effects of individual substances or contaminant mixtures in sediment and surface soils. Presentations will be solicited from practioners who manage research studies or monitoring/remediation programs that demonstrate how these methodologies can be applied in measuring and remediating the effects and fate of contaminants in environmental media.

Co-chairs Vance Trudeau and Bruce Pauli
Amphibians are particularly sensitive to environmental pollutants and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), yet they are often overlooked in ecotoxicological assessments. In some estimates, less than 5 percent of the ecotoxicological literature is dedicated to amphibians. This is surprising given their ecological significance and recent dramatic global population declines. Little is known about the effects of EDCs in amphibians and reptiles, other than in turtles. This session will bring together papers that specifically address major issues related to amphibian and reptile population health. It is intended to showcase the range of experimental models and methods used, from the molecular to the ecosystem level, and efforts to use reptile and amphibian toxicology data for regulatory purposes.

Co-chairs Katrina Leigh and Andrea Fogg
This session will highlight the importance of sediments in aquatic systems, as demonstrated by the recent Canada-Ontario Decision-Making Framework for Assessment of Great Lakes Contaminated Sediment (2008). The proposed session fits well within the workshop theme (Big Cities - Large Problems Great Solutions), because chemicals released to aquatic systems from highly urban and industrialized areas are often deposited in sediment.

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