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By Kristy Nease, The Ottawa CitizenMay 22, 2010
Ottawa Riverkeeper has joined two other water agencies in Vancouver and Toronto to condemn proposed Environment Canada regulations that they claim effectively decriminalize sewer discharges and give many Canadian municipalities too much time to clean up their acts.
Meredith Brown, Ottawa Riverkeeper’s executive director, said in a release Thursday that incentives should be provided for facilities to upgrade sooner rather than later.
“Permissive federal regulation is a step backward,” Brown said.
The three waterkeeping agencies have put forward 16 recommendations they say will keep the teeth in the existing Fisheries Act, while allowing the government some leeway to balance enforcement with achieving the goal of operators improving their sewage systems, the report says.
Environment Canada’s proposal “would allow wastewater systems to discharge substances in quantities and locations that would otherwise violate section 36(3), one of the main pollution prevention provisions of that act, and one of the strongest sources of environmental protection in Canada.”
The report recommends that Environment Canada preserve section 36(3) of the act, which prohibits the deposit of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish.
Some of the other recommendations include setting binding discharge limits and enforceable reduction targets for combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows, lengthier timelines for keeping environmental monitoring documents, and a detailed, daily fine schedule for compliance violations of the regulations — after which point a violator would be forced to return to criminal sanctions.
In Ottawa, sewage overflows into the Ottawa River after heavy rainfalls have been cause for concern in recent years. In 2008, between April and November, about 895 million litres of combined precipitation and sewage flowed into the river. In 2009, that figure jumped to more than one billion litres, according to an Ottawa Riverkeeper release.
“It’s a moral issue,” said MP John Baird, minister of transport, infrastructure and communities, in February. “It’s just simply wrong and bad environmental stewardship.”
Later that month, city council approved a $250-million plan for a large underground storage system that will nearly eliminate discharges of raw sewage into the Ottawa River.
Of Ontario’s 109 wastewater facilities — based on information gathered in 2006 — only four are deemed medium risk, and three high risk.
Environment Canada’s proposed regulations, published in the Canada Gazette in March, call for medium-risk facilities to upgrade by 2030 and high-risk facilities to upgrade by 2020, while low-risk facilities would have to upgrade by 2040.
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