Source water protection plans head into the final stretch

Thursday, January 5, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

Municipalities will be required to install staff later this year to enforce source water protection plans being developed now by local committees.

Kate Jordan, Environment Ministry spokesperson, says the risk management officials must be in place after the plans are reviewed and approved by the ministry. They will be in charge of enforcing and launching implementation of the plans. The draft plans are due by August.

After the ministry reviews the plans it will work with committees “on what they’re proposing in terms of implementation,” she says.

Bob Bedggood, chair of the Thames, Sydenham and Region Source Protection Committee, says the impact of the plans on farmers and others located near water intake areas will be minor.

Farmers have had almost 20 years of experience protecting the environment with their Environmental Farm plans. “I think farmers have been doing the right thing for a long time,” he says.

Bedggood, a former Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario president, notes municipalities may be concerned because they’ll have to spend additional funds for the risk management officials. And some landowners may face added costs too because of the plans.

But society must recognize water is a precious resource and it needs to look after the sources even though that will cost more. Those costs need to be borne in partnership with governments, landowners and organizations.

Bedggood says work on the Thames committee’s plan is slower than they’d like but they want to do a good job. “At the end of the day we will have a plan that works pretty well and is sensitive to everyone’s needs.”

Jordan says the plans are a requirement under the Clean Water Act, which came into effect in 2007, and source protection has been ongoing since then. The Act strives to protect water supplies from source to tap through prevention. The committees’ first job was to draft terms of reference, then locate drinking water sources in their watershed and assess potential threats. Those assessment reports were submitted to the ministry for review and approval. The ministry is finalizing its review and a summary of the reports will be available soon.

Jayme Crittenden, Conservation Ontario communications officer, says by email the Act gives municipalities the responsibility for appointing risk management officials. A municipality can arrange an agreement with a board of health, planning board, or source protection authority to act as the risk management officer in its place. Municipalities can also partner with adjacent municipalities.

There are 38 watershed-based source protection areas, which have been grouped under 19 committees, according to Conservation Ontario’s web site. Conservation Ontario is the network of the 36 conservation authorities that manage the watersheds. The areas mostly coincide with conservation authorities’ jurisdictions. The conservation authorities provide technical and administrative support to the committees. Others members are municipal officials, business people, landowners and the public.

Jordan says risk management officials will be required for each local area preparing a draft source water protection plan.

If a committee identifies a certain property as a potential risk it will contact the owner. But that doesn’t mean the “property owner is on the hook for doing any action,” she says. It just means a dialogue will begin. That may have already started if properties were identified when the committees did their assessment reports.

Jordan says there’s assistance available to landowners, municipalities and conservation authorities for source water protection measures through the Drinking Water Stewardship program. The Environment Ministry has provided more than $200 million since 2006/2007 for the program. BF