UPDATE ON THE CLEAN WATER ACT

Le point sur la Loi sur l'eau saine

ACS2007-PTE-POL-0025

Judy Flavin, Program Manager, Natural Systems, provided a PowerPoint presentation for the information of Committee on the above item, and the accompanying draft regulations that had been posted by the Province after the publication of the report. A Copy of her PowerPoint presentation is held on file with the City Clerk. Also present to answer questions was Sommer Casgrain-Robertson, who works for the Mississippi Valley and Rideau Valley Conservation Authority bringing them forward on the Clean Water Act.

In response to questions from Councillor Harder regarding the makeup of the Committees, Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that they were proposing that one third of the members represent municipal interests, one third represent sectoral interests (ie. agricultural, industrial and commercial interests) and one third represent any other interests including the general public. As to whether the same person could represent different stakeholder groups, she noted that there has been much discussion on that. The agricultural sector has made it clear that whatever representatives are chosen to represent that sector should not be representing other sectors. Some groups may be able to share representatives, while other will have to be specific to a particular sector.

In response to questions from Councillor Brooks, Ms. Flavin explained that there would be 15 members on the Raisin-South Nation Committee, and 12 members on the Mississippi-Rideau Committee. Councillor Brooks noted the City of Ottawa is responsible for much of the area in question, and wondered how many people would represent the City of Ottawa on the committees.

Ms. Flavin speculated that the City of Ottawa might get one representative on the Mississippi-Rideau committee, given that it has 5 of the 12 wells and covers much of the geographic area. She did not expect the City of Ottawa to have municipal representation on the Raisin-South Nation, as there are only the Vars and Greely wells, which are fairly small service areas.

Councillor Harder wondered if this was over and above the conservation authorities. Ms. Flavin explained that the Conservation Authorities have indicated their concern about the firm 1/3 municipal interest representation and a provision in the draft regulations that says persons who are currently serving on the boards of conservation authorities cannot be appointed to the source protection committee. She noted that the board members are extremely knowledgeable about the issues in the watershed, and this is a watershed-based planning process.

She explained that the terms of reference propose that nominations for the source protection committees be sought through the placement of public notices in widely spread newspapers and also notices to the clerks of municipalities. The notices are also to be posted on the web sites of the two source protection authorities. City staff have been speaking with the staff of the Conservation Authorities about how to communicate effectively with the rural areas and advising them that, because there is 60% broadband coverage pending the increase in 2007, web-based postings are not ideal.

Ms. Flavin continued her presentation, outlining the scope of the plan and next steps.

Questions

Chair Jellett suggested it was a typical provincial move to pass legislation and make the municipalities pick up the cost. He suggested this would be an expensive process, and was part of the downloading that is taking place.

Councillor El-Chantiry noted that the City of Ottawa supports the Mississippi Valley conservation authority with 90% of their costs. He wondered what the City’s contribution to the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority was. Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that the City of Ottawa’s levy to Rideau was up to 96%.

Councillor El-Chantiry noted that the City of Ottawa is the main source of funding for the Conservation Authorities, and yet they are saying the City will only have a part of the 1/3 municipal representation on the source protection committee. He has a problem with that. He noted that he was on the board of the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority. He wondered if this was another body that would delay the planning process that the City has.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that the roles and responsibilities of the source protection committees are limited specifically to the work coming out of the Clean Water Act. Their first role is to develop a terms of reference to create a technical assessment report and a source protection plan looking specifically at the sources supplying municipal systems. It wouldn’t comment on anything else the municipalities were working on outside that specific work of the Clean Water Act.

Councillor El-Chantiry inquired, with this source water protection, if you go to a village and find something in the water, who will pay the cost to bring the services to those villages.

Mr. Jacobs suggested that it would fall to the municipalities. Whether the province would provide funding at the time of an emergency is difficult to say. He agreed with chair Jellett that this was something falling to the municipalities where they have very little input.

Councillor El-Chantiry wondered how far they were in the process of being able to make a comment and have it sent to the process. He wondered if making a comment in the committee would have any impact.

Mr. Jacobs noted that he had been on several panel discussions on this issue with other municipalities. He stated that what the committee was saying is being said in every municipality and those messages are definitely going back to the province. The province needs to take this into account and the conservation authorities are saying similar things to the province. Whether the province listens remains to be seen, but this is a general concern being raised by a number of municipalities, which is mounting in intensity.

Councillor El-Chantiry suggested that if the City of Ottawa is contributing 90% to the Conservation authority in the area, they should be the major stakeholder on that committee, and that one representative was not enough.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson suggested that this was an important point. She noted that other municipalities had raised it. She explained that, at this point, the province of Ontario is funding the source water program, so no levy dollars are paying for the work of the source water staff. 100% funding from the province will carry through for the next five years, until the first source protection plan is created. At that point, funding is yet unanswered. She noted that on Mississippi-Rideau, there are four seats for municipalities, and how those seats are to be allotted is currently under discussion. She recognized that Ottawa had 5 of the 12 systems, and though it is fair to say that the City of Ottawa would have one of the 4 seats. There is pressure from the other municipalities as well to be represented on the committee. She thought it important to hear the committee’s perspective, and suggested she would bring it back to the people she works with.

In response to questions from Councillor Jellett as to who makes the final decision on how the municipal seats will be allotted, Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that it would be up to the conservation authority boards.

Councillor El-Chantiry noted that he would be going to the board meeting later that day and would be happy to bring them any direction from the committee.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson agreed that she and the Councillor could raise the issue with both Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority and Rideau Valley Conservation Authority boards, who had meetings that day.

Councillor Harder stated that at some point we have to get our act together and just say no to the province, we are not paying for your stuff anymore. She noted that a while back she suggested that there be some kind of round table forum this year and invite the area MPPs. She suggested that it was the area MPPs who need to lobby for us. There is now a situation where the City of Ottawa is paying the lion’s share, have the lion’s share of the people, and probably the lion’s share of the problems – with no money and no say. The City has representation on the Conservation Authorities and should be using this forum to say no.

She further suggested that the source protection should be done through the conservation authorities, and that another body was not needed. The Province seems to come up with these ridiculous ideas. She brought up the issue of long-term care, and suggested we are under-funded more in long-term care as a percentage by the province than in any other area, yet we just allow them to keep doing it. They put through the legislation to make it worse, to cost the City more and take more time of the staff in our long term care facilities away from the patient, just so they can do some extra reporting to them. She suggested this was no different.

She commented that this would be another delay in the planning process, which is a process people are already complaining about. She referenced a situation in her ward, north of Barrhaven, in a rural area, where they are just at the point where the RVCA is ready to sign off on the wetland. She wondered what happens when there is another player in the mix.

Councillor Harder further stated that this was just another layer of bureaucracy and proposed that Council should do everything in its power to not get sucked into it. The City should stand up and say you are not taking another nickel from us, we already pay the bill, and we have the people in place through the authorities that can do the job.

She proposed that they should send a clear message to the local MPPs and tell them that it is their job to make sure our views are listened to and that this project does not go forward. She suggested this had a greater impact in this area than in Toronto.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that the conservation authority boards would decide the composition. Regarding the actual members, the draft regulation indicates that all municipal councils within the region have to jointly appoint the four people. All 27 municipalities in the Mississippi-Rideau have to somehow jointly appoint the members. She noted that they had raised this as a concern to the Ministry of the Environment. It will be a huge challenge to bring the municipalities together to do this. She confirmed that the Conservation Authorities would step in and try to facilitate that process. She explained that the other people – the 1/3 sectoral and 1/3 general public would be selected through an open application process.

In response to questions from Councillor Harder on how long they have to do this, Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that 30 days after the regulation is posted, you get notice of the process. Then the municipalities have 45 days after that – so a total of 80 days to come up with the 4 names.

Councillor Harder suggested that the Conservation Board’s don’t really care, as it won’t be impacting on them, it will be impacting on the City. The Authorities set the levies and the City always approves them. She questioned a situation where we will have to get the approval from all these little municipalities for four people, when we have such a large percentage of the population.

Councillor Jellett suggested the City of Ottawa should have some representation on the committee dealing with the South Nation and Raisin regions, as they do have the majority of the population. He noted he is on the SNCA and they were briefed on it last night.

Councillor Hunter suggested that a committee wasn’t the way to solve the problem if there was a problem. What is a committee for the Mississippi and Rideau watersheds going to do for the protection of the Ottawa River.

Councillor Hunter wondered what the City would be able to do to protect one of their wells if there was a use in an outlying municipality, such as a quarry, that would affect the aquifer. He suggested this was something the province should be addressing and passing legislation and specific regulations as to what municipalities can and cannot do. He suggested that setting up a committee does not add any value to the residents or to the water.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson suggested that Councillor Hunter was correct in that if we identify the process to as to where municipal systems are and where they draw water from and look at potential issues, threats and risks and if we identify a threat that is outside our watershed region where there is no conservation authority, we have no jurisdiction over that area. On the other scenario, if there is an issue identified in a neighbouring municipality within the region that affects a neighbouring municipal system, that’s where the Act will be able to accomplish something. This process will capture threats upstream; the source protection program will protect the source supplying all the municipal systems in the watershed region. As far as the committee and value added, she suggested that was an important thing to bring to the province. The Ministry of Environment selected the process. Suggested Councillor Hunter’s point was a valid one.

Mr. Jacobs noted that, with respect to the Ottawa River, Ottawa is unique. There are specific provisions for municipalities that are along Lake Ontario and the St. Clair River where there are interprovincial, interstate issues. However Ottawa was not recognized as being in that same situation, despite the fact that the Ottawa River is on the boundary with Quebec. He suggested that this issue has been raised with the province before.

In response to further questions from Councillor Hunter, Ms. Casgrain-Robertson confirmed that the plan looks at quantity and quality issues.

Councillor Hunter noted that roughly 10 years ago the former region participated in a groundwater quality study for Ottawa-Carleton and the surrounding municipalities and wondered if that was still valid. Ms. Casgrain-Robertson explained that the City participated in a few studies – the Renfrew-Mississippi-Rideau groundwater Study, the Eastern Ontario Water Resource Management Study (EOWRMS). These two studies are being heavily used by the conservation authorities in the technical work they are doing. She emphasized that they were not starting from scratch, rather building on what has already been done and filling the data gaps.

Councillor Brooks stated that the provincial and federal government bring forth legislation then leave it up to the municipal councillors to explain it, sell it, and/or defend. He wondered where the MPs were. He suggested this was not right. It should be taken back to every MPP, MP, the Prime Minister and the Premier to say if you bring this legislation forward, you get the people out there, you sell it, you answer the tough questions and suffer the consequences.

Regarding wellhead protection, he noted they had gone through a process in Goulbourn recently regarding “wetlands.” He noted that municipalities might find an area and designate it as a protected area because of the water. How is the City we going to find the funds to compensate these people, especially if we are going to go back into Goulbourn and lay out another area that needs to be protected.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson suggested that Councillor Brooks had raised some excellent points that had been raised at every municipal council she had been to. With regards to who sells it to the public, that issue has been raised to the Ministry of the Environment. Municipalities don’t want to be in that position and the conservation authority staff have indicated that this is a provincial act, so the Ministry needs to be the one to come out and defend it. The Conservation Authority staff is there to educate the public and let them know what we know about the process and what their role is. However, the province is hoping to be able to step up that role and communicate more directly with municipalities and the public about this piece of legislation that they have created and are writing the regulations for.

With regards to the wetland issue, Ms. Casgrain-Robertson stated that the process would define areas around municipal systems where you need to look more closely at what land uses are being undertaken. What we are looking for is land uses that pose a significant risk. We will look more closely at those land uses and say this land in this location near a municipal system has been deemed a significant risk for these reasons, i.e. types of materials, practices. Once you have identified the significant risk, it’s how can you mitigate that risk. The worst-case scenario would be eliminating that land use, but we don’t anticipate that to be used often if at all. There are always measures to implement best management practices and precautions that would be sufficient to mitigate that risk.

The source protection plan has to be written 5 years after the chair of the committee is appointed. Ms. Casgrain-Robertson stated that they are looking at a plan to have it written by September 2012. That plan will outline where the significant risks are and how they will be addressed. There are many tools to use to address risk, some being land use policy which would be in the hands of the municipality to implement.

Regarding the costs. The province, except for staff time through the City of Ottawa, will cover the cost up until the point of developing the first Source Protection Plan in 2012. Once the plan is done it needs to be implemented. The Clean Water Act, because much will be done through land use planning, will fall to the municipalities unless they want to delegate it to another authority. This is the concern municipalities have. At this point, because we haven’t started writing the plan it is hard to know what the implementation will cost.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson stated in response to Councillor Brooks’ statement on complexing systems that in terms of the Clean Water Act and developing the source protection plan, the complexing of wetlands wouldn’t factor in. The approach that the plan would take is looking at lot-specific activities, so land uses not in the natural sense, but in the human sense.

Councillor Brooks noted that when you get into wellhead protection, you get into the complexing because they are all interconnected. If you are going to do the complexing from the wellhead in Goulbourn, then you will be sterilizing vast land masses.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson stated that the wellheads for Richmond and Munster have already been delineated, so they will be using the delineations done as part of the Renfrew-Mississippi- Rideau groundwater study. Delineating zones around wellheads are done looking at groundwater and how it flows in that area, so the wetland complexing doesn’t factor into that very much.

Chair Jellett had questions. Assuming that we go forward with this in the manner presented, when will we be seeing a list of what the conservation Authorities are doing in terms of their settlement areas with regards to the source protection plans. Will we get a list of which areas they will actually include in the Source Protection Plan and how do we have input to make sure certain areas that are not on municipal wells, but are within the settlement area guidelines, qualify?

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson – you are talking about the option to designate systems other than the municipal systems? Chair Jellett agrees. She clarified that under the Act and through the Draft Regulations there are only two bodies that can designate systems other than municipal systems – the Municipal Council or the Minister of Environment. To designate a non-municipal system and include it in the work is being done and treat it as municipal systems are treated, there would have to be a resolution passed by Council requesting that they include that system. Or if there was pressure from the public and the minister was in favour of it then she could designate it.

Chair Jellett wondered what the cost would be if they decided to, for example, that the village of Cumberland should be included and a source protection plan done. Roddy Bolivar, Program Manager, Infrastructure Planning, stated that their experience to date – the Cumberland study was 400 thousand dollars, Metcalfe was $400,000. There are other groundwater studies the City is doing on a village scale, which is more the sampling programs, and those run about $60,000 each. These are being provided to the Conservation Authorities. The planning process around source protection and solutions are unknown at this time.

Councillor Jellett noted that the vast majority of the settlement areas within the rural area of the City of Ottawa are not on municipal wells. He wondered if it made sense not to look at source protection and the clean water for those areas, which seems to be what the act says.

Ms. Casgrain-Robertson suggested that it was a very important question that needed to be looked at carefully by municipalities. We are at the stage now where we know that the act and the draft regulations provide that option. Municipal systems have to be studied under the Act - and with non-municipal systems, there is the option. She suggested they have a lot of questions into the Ministry. The Authority has stated to the Ministry of the Environment – you’re covering the cost to study municipal systems. If a municipality opts to include non-municipal systems, how is that work undertaken, who does it, who pays for it? We would not come to our municipalities and ask them to start designating those clusters through Council until we can answer those questions. You as councillors need to have those answers as far as costs and who undertakes it. That’s the stage the Conservation Authorities are at – we have put the question back to the MOE saying that the option is in there – we have municipalities who are interested in the idea, but they need to know who does the work and who pays, and what kind of costs municipalities should expect if they decide to go down that road and that village is included in the planning process when the source protection plan is created. Until we can answer that I would never ask a municipality to make that decision. We are trying to get those answers, and when we know those answers we sill get them to you.

Councillor Jellett noted that Carlsbad Springs is not listed as a municipal well on Slide 3. He wondered why.

Mr. Bolivar confirmed that they are on a trickle system and the Lemieux Island treatment plant supplies the trickle feed.

Councillor El-Chantiry moved the following motion:

Whereas the City of Ottawa has the largest population being served by municipal wells and,

Whereas the City of Ottawa is the largest contributor to the levies for the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority and South Nation Conservation Authority and,

Whereas the City of Ottawa has more municipal wellheads than any other municipality within the Mississipi and Rideau Valley Source Protection Area,

Therefore be it resolved that the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee recommend to the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority and the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority that the City of Ottawa have the majority of seats for municipal interests on the Mississippi and Rideau Valley Source Protection Committee, and be properly represented on the South Nation/Raisin Source Protection Committee.

CARRIED

He suggested that if there was any message to the Province is that there is no plan here for funding the implementation. This will be the biggest for all municipalities. Not all municipalities will be able to do the implementation on their own.

That the Planning and Environment Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee recommend that Council:

1. Receive this report for information;

RECEIVED

2. Endorse the comments from staff previously submitted to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment on the Discussion Paper on Source Protection Committees under the Clean Water Act, 2006;

3. Request that staff forward to the Ministry of the Environment the minutes of the committee and Council meetings on this report as further indication of Council’s position on these matters.

CARRIED