Editing James Bay Project (section)

=== Mercury pollution ===
Two of these main diverted rivers are the [[Caniapiscau River]] and the [[Eastmain River]] into which the James Bay Project submerged about 11,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> of boreal forest ([[taiga]]). Consequently, the flooded vegetation's stored [[mercury (element)|mercury]] (Hg) was released into the aquatic ecosystem, and due to the diversion of the water flow to contained reservoirs, the sudden abundance of mercury in the James Bay area in 1979 was unable to be dispersed and diluted as would have been the case in natural waters. Because the James Bay Cree ([[East Cree]]) live a mostly traditional lifestyle including a diet rich in fish and sea mammals, there is a possibility that the damming project has contributed to northern Quebec's Cree having the highest measured methyl-mercury concentration of all Canadian First Nations. Because of the simultaneous mercury contamination in James Bay from other activities in the area, including paper milling, the direct effect of the project on mercury levels has been difficult to ascertain. From 1981 to 1982, a few years after the flooding of [[La Grande River]], mercury levels in [[lake whitefish]] (Coregonus clupeaformis) increased up to fourfold their pre-flooding levels, while those in [[northern pike]] (Esox lucius) rose up to sevenfold during the same period. In natural lakes, these concentrations are five to six times less than in the James Bay area.{{sfn|Roebuck|1999|p=79, 81–82}} This rapid spike of mercury levels in two of the fish species used extensively by the area's Cree is attributed to the processes of [[bioaccumulation]] and [[biomagnification]]. Biaccumulation is the initial consequence of mercury pollution, as the toxin is first incorporated into the given ecosystem's producers. In the James Bay area ecosystem, mercury being released from the decaying flooded trees would be incorporated in trace amounts in [[zooplankton]]. Benthic organisms ([[benthos]]), the whitefish's primary prey, consume a great deal of zooplankton, causing the mercury concentration in a single organism to magnify due to accumulation of mercury and its inability to be excreted. In turn, whitefish, due to their greater size, consume large numbers of benthic [[invertebrates]], thus incorporating the individual mercury accumulations of each organism and creating their own store of mercury.{{sfn|Trudel|Tremblay|Schetagne|Rasmussen|2001|p=395}} The effect is further exacerbated by humans consuming this built up store of mercury. The James Bay Mercury Agreement, signed in 1986 between the [[Grand Council of the Crees]] (of Québec), the [[Cree Regional Authority]], the Cree Bands, the [[Government of Québec]], [[Hydro-Québec]] and the Société d’énergie de la Baie James ([[James Bay Energy]]), aims "to restore and strengthen Cree fisheries [...] but [...] also adequately take into account the health risks associated with human exposure to mercury."<ref>{{cite web|title=Mercury Agreement|url=http://www.gcc.ca/archive/article.php?id=167|access-date=20 February 2013|archive-date=21 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921195915/http://www.gcc.ca/archive/article.php?id=167|url-status=dead}}</ref>