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EMC News – First Nations leaders, elected officials and municipal staff from Ontario and Quebec will be coming together this August to work together on river-related issues.
The first ever Ottawa River Summit will be taking place Friday, Aug. 27 as is supported by the cities of Ottawa, Gatineau and the National Capital Commission (NCC). It is designed to develop a more shared vision and protection strategy for the river.
“What led to it (summit) is the demonstrated lack of jurisdictional collaboration. It is an issue that is relatively unique to the Ottawa River,” said Ottawa Riverkeeper public relations coordinator Natasha Wilson. “Here in this area we have 90 or so municipalities in the watershed, two major municipalities – Ottawa and Gatineau – operating in two different provinces, governed by different by provincial jurisdictions and legislations as well as federal issues.”
With so many agencies having an interest in the Ottawa River, it prompted Ottawa Riverkeeper to form an advisory committee to set the agenda for the summit and ensure the program will be successful for all who take part.
The Ottawa River watershed drains an area of 1467,000 square kilometers. Most of the larger municipalities in the watershed are located on shores of the Ottawa River and rely on it for drinking water, energy, recreation and tourism.
By bringing various individuals/agencies together, the hope that a network and shared awareness of the watershed can be created.
“Our experience has been that there a lack of cooperation between those agencies, lack of information sharing and no clear understanding of who is responsible for the Ottawa River,” said Wilson. “The purpose of this summit is to answer those questions and to get people working together and more collaboratively on these issues.”
To date, more than 40 groups have agreed to participate in the summit and there is “vocalized support” from province and federal politicians.
“It’s a one-day session. It’s not a conference. It is designed around information sharing and collaboration. The format will include will include several break out work groups where people will have the opportunity to share their success stories and challenges and also where we can review best practice models for watershed management and looks at some examples of where other watersheds in other regions are working better than we are,” Wilson explained. “This is not targeted at larger municipalities. This is for everyone. This is an opportunity to show larger municipalities that their waste management and their practices really impact small municipalities.”
The idea of hosting a river summit is something that has been floating around for some time. In fact, where Meredith Brown took on the role of executive director and riverkeeper with Ottawa Riverkeeper, she felt this was something that needed to happen.
“She identified the interjusdictional issues as being one of the major threat to the future of the Ottawa River and she identified that as being something we needed to work on and resolve with others,” Wilson said. “It’s (summit) is a project that has been many years in the making that is now materializing now that we have support from municipalities and the National Capital Commission.”
As of press deadline, a location for the summit had not been chosen but Wilson it would be taking place somewhere in the National Capital Region.
Arnprior councillor Eric Burton had hoped the Town of Arnprior would play host to the event but his fellow councillors felt it was too big a venture for the community to take on at this point in time.
“Eric Burton has been a great supporter of ours,” Wilson noted, adding she was hopeful smaller communities like Arnprior would be active in the Ottawa River Summit.