Work of Independent Expert Advisory Committee (IEAC) Begins – Independent Experts and Research Director Appointed
Press Release
HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, NL – Dr. Kenneth Reimer, Chair of the IEAC Oversight Committee, is pleased to announce that the IEAC has formally appointed a research director, as well as six (6) scientific experts and three (3) Indigenous knowledge experts to an Independent Experts Sub-Committee.
This new sub-committee will provide advice on methlymercuy mitigation to the Oversight Committee based on Indigenous traditional knowledge and scientific information.
Appointed as independent scientific experts are Dr. Maureen Baikie, Dr. Trevor Bell, Dr. Wolfgang Jansen, Dr. Jane Kirk, Dr. David Lean and James McCarthy. The traditional knowledge experts are Mr. Carl Michelin, Mr. Stewart Michelin and Mr. Etienne Pone. Ms. Marina Biasutti-Brown has been named to the position of Research Director. (Biographies attached)
“I am extremely excited that we have assembled our team and are getting started with the work of the IEAC. The experts that were nominated by the IEAC Oversight Committee have a broad range of expertise and I look forward to working with them on this important project.” said Dr. Reimer.
The IEAC’s Oversight Committee is comprised of the Innu Nation, Nunatsiavut Government, NunatuKavut Community Council, the provincial and federal governments, Nalcor, and the Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The establishment of the IEAC was a key agreement reached between the Provincial Government and the three Indigenous groups on October 26, 2016 to make recommendations on mitigating potential impacts of methylmercury from the Lower Churchill Project at Muskrat Falls, Labrador, NL.
The IEAC office will officially open on September 5, 2017 at 169 Hamilton River Rd., Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL.
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Media contacts
Marina Biasutti-Brown Research Director marinab@bellaliant’net
Terms of Reference for the IEAC
Chair Appointed to Independent Expert Advisory Committee
Backgrounder
Members of the Independent Experts Sub-Committee
Research Director:
Marina Biasutti-Brown, M.Sc
Ms. Biasutti-Brown is an environmental consultant with 17 years of combined research, management and analytical experience in environment and community development in Labrador, Canada, and Latin America. Her expertise includes environmental research and monitoring, environmental protection, environmental impact assessment and management policy, and environmental co-management by multi-stakeholder groups, particularly those involving Indigenous self-governments and communities. Marina has been involved in various capacities with environmental research and monitoring in the Churchill River valley/Lake Melville region of Labrador since 2011. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and a Master of Science in Rural Extension Studies and International Development.
Traditional Knowledge Experts:
Carl Michelin, Nunatsiavut Government
Mr. Michelin is Nunatsiavut beneficiary and has extensive knowledge of the Lake Melville area. He was born in Mud Lake and moved to Rigolet at the age of 3. He grew up harvesting from the land and currently spends the majority of his time hunting, trapping and fishing in the Lake Melville area. Using his extensive local and traditional knowledge, Carl works as a professional guide throughout Labrador and Quebec.
Stewart Michelin, NunatuKavut Community Council
Mr. Michelin is a traditional Inuk hunter, trapper and fisher. He is a lifelong resident of Happy Valley-Goose Bay with deep family roots in Lake Melville. He has strong ties to the land and water and has tremendous local knowledge of the changing environment in the area. Mr. Michelin is currently employed as a welder with Barnard Pennecon. He has also been volunteering as an assistant coordinator with ground search and rescue for approximately 25 years.
Etienne Pone, Innu Nation
Mr. Pone, with twenty-five years experience in his position as Guardian, is the longest serving member of the Innu Nation’s environment department. Etienne works on fish and wildlife issues and his career has spanned a range of important projects at the Innu Nation from caribou to the communal fishery, the Trans-Labrador Highway to the newly established Akami-uapishku – KakKasuak – Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve and the Lower Churchill Project at Manitu-Utshu (Muskrat Falls).
Having spent a lifetime in Nutshimit (on the land), Etienne is fluent in his first language of Innu-Aimun, an important Innu Knowledge holder in his community of Sheshatshiu, NL and well respected by Tshishennuat (Elders). Through the course of his employment, Etienne has also completed many accredited training programs. Etienne practices and transmits many important Innu cultural practices and traditions to Innu youth, like the Makushan, and is committed to best-practice environmental management within Nitassinan (Innu territory).
Scientific Experts:
Maureen Baikie MD, FRCP(C)
Dr. Baikie is a public health physician who received a BSc in Pharmacy from the University of Toronto in 1973 and a Medical Degree from McMaster University in 1976 followed by Family Medicine training at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She subsequently practiced medicine in Labrador before returning to university in 1992 to complete her Masters of Science in Design, Measurement and Evaluation (Epidemiology) at McMaster University along with specialty training in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Baikie has a special interest in northern and indigenous health issues and has lived and worked in the north for over 20 years. She has worked as a Medical Officer of Health in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut and Nova Scotia. She has extensive experience in environmental health issues along with expertise in communicable disease control and emergency preparedness and response from the public health viewpoint. She has participated in the development of public health legislation and public health information systems. Dr. Baikie is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, Doctors Nova Scotia and Physicians of Nunavut.
Trevor Bell, PhD
Dr. Bell (PhD Alberta 1992) is a University Research Professor in Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. For over three decades, he has studied northern landscape history from a variety of perspectives, including climate change impacts and human-environment interactions. His research approach is strongly interdisciplinary and collaborative, involving analysis and expertise from a range of disciplines in the earth, life, and social sciences. Dr. Bell has played an important role in the ArcticNet NCE, both as project leader and coordinator of the Eastern Arctic integrated regional impact study. He recently co-authored the North Coast chapter in the 2016 Government of Canada publication on Canada’s Marine Coasts in a Changing Climate, and is a founding member and co-lead of CACCON, the Circum-Arctic Coastal Communities Knowledge Network. Dr. Bell has also led the development of the SmartICE initiative that supports safer travel for sea-ice users in northern coastal regions under changing climate. SmartICE was a recipient of the 2016 Arctic Inspiration Prize for its knowledge-to-action plan to expand across the arctic through a northern social enterprise.
Wolfgang Jansen, PhD
Dr. Jansen has been an aquatic scientist with North/South Consultants Inc. in Winnipeg since 2001. From 1999-2009, he was a consulting/casual research scientist at the Freshwater Institute of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Winnipeg. Dr. Jansen graduated with a B.Sc of Agricultural Engineering from the University of Bonn (Germany) in 1982. He achieved an M.Sc from the Department of Zoology in 1986 from the University of Manitoba. In 1998, Dr. Jansen received his Ph.D. with the Department of Zoology from the University of Hohenheim (Germany). Dr. Jansen’s areas of expertise are ecology of freshwater fish and invertebrates; bioaccumulation of mercury and human health risk assessment; environmental monitoring and bioindication; aquatic environment study design; fish bioenergetics and fish migration; aquatic invasive species; environmental impact assessment; ecology of bogs; and life-history of mayflies. Dr. Jansen is been a long-time member of the Mercury and Human Health Working Group for the Keeyask Hydroelectric Generating Project in northern Manitoba.
Jane L. Kirk, PhD
Dr. Kirk has been a research scientist with the Aquatic Contaminants Research Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters since 2009. She has also been an adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography with the University of Toronto Mississauga since 2014. Dr. Kirk achieved a B.Sc. in Molecular Genetics in 2001 and a PhD in Environmental Biology at the University of Alberta in 2009. Dr. Kirk studies the biogeochemical cycling of elements and contaminants in the environment. Her recent studies have focused on the deposition, transformation, and bioaccumulation of mercury and metals in aquatic ecosystems undergoing change, including: Atmospheric deposition of contaminants in the Alberta Oil Sands region; the impact of multiple stressors, such as climate change and eutrophication, on mercury cycling in freshwater ecosystems of Canada, including the high and sub Arctic; and the deposition and bioaccumulation of mercury downwind of major Canadian point sources.
Dr. David R. S. Lean, PhD
Dr. Lean achieved a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1962 and a Ph.D in Zoology from the University of Toronto in 1973. He is currently working on human health related to mercury exposure in Costa Rica and Cambodia. Dr. Lean was a full professor at University of Ottawa from 1996 to 2009 where he held an NSERC Industrial Chair in Ecotoxicology and was Director of the Joint Ecotoxicology Program at University of Ottawa and Carleton University. He now runs his consulting firm, Lean Environmental. Prior to 1996, he spent 24 years as a scientist and project leader at Environment Canada’s National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. In 1993, Dr. Lean received the Chandler-Misener Award for excellence in Great Lakes research; in 2003 the Frank Rigler Award for outstanding freshwater research and the Miroslaw Romanowski Medal given by the Royal Society of Canada for his research in environmental toxicology. The current focus of his work is on mercury sources and its role as a toxic chemical in aquatic ecosystems and includes the role of UV radiation, nutrients, pesticides, drugs and other toxic chemicals in natural ecosystems.
James McCarthy, M.Sc
Mr. McCarthy is an associate biologist with Amec Foster Wheeler. He achieved a B.Sc. in Biology from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1991 and M.Sc in Biology at the same university in 1996. Mr. McCarthy is currently a PhD candidate at the Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick where he is investigating various aspects of environmental change and fish adaptation including downstream mercury transport from the Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Facility, fish adaptation to rapid habitat changes caused by reservoir formations, and adaptive management. He has been involved in a wide range of projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, Alaska, British Columbia and Nova Scotia for private organizations and government agencies. Projects have generally entailed the design and implementation of baseline studies, aquatic offset plans, environmental effects monitoring programs, impact assessments related to various human activities such as hydroelectric developments, oil and gas, mining/construction, and forest harvesting. Mr. McCarthy has also managed numerous biological, remediation, assessment, and water quality projects. His current projects include the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Development, Vale Long Harbour Processing Facility, and the Government of Nunavut Fisheries and Sealing Division Research Planning. He is a Certified Fisheries Professional with the American Fisheries Society with over twenty years of experience, and a Licensed Hunting and Fishing Guide.
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