Better Pork - December 2006

Environment

The Clean Water Act – “expropriation without compensation “

So said a representative of Ontario Pork in addressing a Queen’s Park committee reviewing the legislation. And others share his view that it is placing an unfair burden on agriculture

by SAM BRADSHAW

Urban runoff, flowing like a sheet of water off rooftops and over pavement, washes heavy metals, road salt, animal waste, and oil and grease directly into nearby waterways. Storm water, laden with silt and sediment, muddies streams, suffocates aquatic life and buries fish spawning grounds. And combined sewer overflows, swollen with rainwater, flush untreated sewage into local rivers, streams and lakes. Within 24 hours, the warning signs go up and the beaches are closed again.

This is the opening statement in a document called “Municipal Waste Water Treatment in the Great Lakes Basin,” introducing the draft Canada-Ontario Agreement (COA) Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem Web site.

COA outlines how the governments of Canada and Ontario will co-operate and co-ordinate their efforts to restore, protect and conserve the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem. It builds on the actions taken through previous agreements and focuses on priorities for future action.

We certainly need agreements like this designed to protect the Great Lakes. It’s also good to know that farmers have been looking after their part of the environment for many years, but it is somewhat frustrating that certain facets of our society spend much of their time either debasing agriculture or thinking up new ways to regulate it.

I wonder what would happen to our environment if farmers said to our lawmakers, environmentalists and rural non-farm neighbours: “OK, we’ve been looking after the environment for as long as anyone can remember. Now it’s your turn. You are now in charge of Ontario’s roughly 12 million acres of farmland. We have kept the water reasonably clean, certainly cleaner than the water in some of the beaches adjacent to some major urban areas.

“We don’t bypass manure on a regular basis into streams and watercourses. We spread our manure on soil which is, by the way, the very best treatment available. We grow crops very successfully on this manured land and keep the weeds down. Besides providing the best and cheapest food available anywhere, we provide a very pleasant landscape for anyone travelling the back roads of Ontario.” Yes, we have some manure spills. Can anyone imagine the outrage if almost every farmer in the province had a manure spill once or even several times a year, as many municipalities do?

We certainly don’t take our spills lightly. When there is a spill, farmers put their contingency plans into action and these spills are generally cleaned up quickly with very little long-term harm to the environment.
Others are also becoming frustrated with environmentalists. New Zealand Federated Farmers' president Charlie Pedersen was quoted as launching an extraordinary attack on environmentalists during a speech to the group’s annual meeting. He summed up his talk by saying: "In this country, thousands now owe their living and personal prosperity to continued development of environmental controls." I believe the same holds true in Canada.

Jim Dalrymple of Livestock Technology Services in Brighton recently offered examples of how farming has advanced over the years.

He says:

• For those concerned about agricultural water use, it takes 40 per cent less water to grow a pig to market size now than it did in 1950.
  
  
• In Northumberland County, where corn yielded 45 bushels to the acre in 1950, it now yields about 125 bushels.
  
  
• In addition, farm pesticide use has dropped by more than 50 per cent over the past 15 years, and the use of antimicrobials on farm animals has dropped by 29 per cent.

In a recent column promoting Ontario’s Agriculture Week, Paul Mistele, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said: “There’s an abundance of evidence showing farmers’ contribution to the people of Ontario and the economy of the province.

Current statistics tell us there’s a growing list of reasons to be proud of our farmers and the work they do. In 2005, the agri-food sector provided 727,000 jobs. That’s 11 per cent of Ontario’s employment and a major contribution to the province’s economy. But then you see that in 2006 Ontario farmers are also forecasted to spend $7.8 billion as they produce the food consumers depend on for their families.”

Our farmers are also known for their dedication to quality and food safety. For decades, farmers from other countries have come to Ontario in search of production improvements for their farms. Our farmers have always been on the leading edge of innovation as they strive for ways to improve our industry.

Because of the efficiencies Ontario farmers have developed over the years, the food they produce represents the best value in the world. Canadian consumers need to work fewer hours than their counterparts around the world to be able to feed their families.

And now we are dealing with Ontario’s proposed Clean Water Act. Ontario Pork and all other commodity groups made presentations to the Standing Committee on Social Policy and apparently got some needed revisions to the proposed legislation. But, as of this writing, we can’t be sure of what we achieved yet since the Act has not been proclaimed. The most important part of the act, the regulations, also has not been made public yet. As everyone likes to say, the devil is in the details, and the regulations will certainly be detailed.

I’d like to leave you with a taste of what two of your representatives said to the Standing Committee on Social Policy, which recently conducted hearings into the proposed Clean Water Act.

Some excerpts follow from remarks by Bill Wymenga, a provincial director with Ontario Pork and also chair of its environmental committee.

He said in part: “Ontario pork producers understand the importance of clean water legislation and a necessity of exercising best practices in environmental stewardship. We are quite proud of the way pork producers have stepped up to the plate since the passage of the Nutrient Management Act, and we are certain we will continue to do so with workable clean water legislation containing proper economic incentives, as recommended in the Walkerton inquiry. We want to use our time today to raise three fundamental concerns that we have with the legislation. First, it is our view that the current legislation is overly punitive and does not make a positive improvement over existing legislation to improve Ontario's drinking water quality or risks. All impacted business and landowner groups agree that it is vital to have a safe and reliable source of water in this province. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that high standards for drinking water are already in place in Ontario. Further, there are laws in place to regulate and punish polluters. In this context, it is difficult to understand the business case and administrative need for additional rules, regulations and enforcement protocols. In contrast, there is a need for targeted education, incentives and implementation procedures based on risk and linked to local source water protection objectives. It is disappointing that Bill 43 is entirely punitive and does not focus on the development of a practical and workable framework for making progress in water quality improvement.

Secondly, Bill 43 is vague on key definitions and scope which, because of farmers' large land bases, places a disproportionate burden on farmers and this burden could well grow over time. Agricultural groups are confused by the inconsistency between the broad purpose statement found in the Clean Water Act - it says that purpose is "to protect existing and future sources of drinking water" - and assurances that the focus of the proposed legislation is municipal residential drinking water sources. Further, our concern is that surface water intake zones, as defined in the yet-to-be-finalized regulations, will impact a much larger land area than the municipal wellhead protection zones.

Finally, the proposed act is inconsistent with the Walkerton inquiry recommendations that there be a clear commitment for fair funding principles. The implementation cost and various benefits of Bill 43 are unknown, and a cost would appear to fall disproportionately on rural businesses and landowners. The bill appears to be so structured that all of the implementation cost is picked up by either the impacted municipalities or the impacted landowner. It is essentially a case of expropriation without compensation. It is our position that Bill 43, as it stands, will have serious financial consequences for landowners, operating to effectively expropriate lands without any apparent compensation. Section 88(6) should be removed and replaced with a section with clearly defined protocols that source protection authorities and municipalities can use to negotiate fair solutions with impacted agricultural landowners. The concept of a provincially supported agricultural stewardship fund to assist impacted landowners and municipalities should be specified in the act.”

An excerpt from Kim Systma’s talk follows. Kim is a board member of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association (OCA).

“I’ll state right up front that the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association is all for targeting based on risk, using science, but is very concerned about Bill 43 and we would like you to heed the advice you are receiving from rural Ontario. You might think that our concern is solely with the lack of funding. Well, it is not. It is our concern that the government is attempting to be all things to all people and no one will be happy.

We are not against clean water. You are not against clean water. The message you need to hear from farmers and, in particular, the OCA is: don’t make source protection harder than it really needs to be.

I am sure that all stakeholders, including the environmental groups, would support a better approach to source protection. Do your scientific studies. Identify any areas of geographic risk. Identify land use risks. Prioritize and implement. Then put your money where your mouth is and, as they say in rural Ontario, GIT ’ER DONE.”

Sam Bradshaw is environmental specialist with Ontario Pork BP