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Two local environmental groups say the Ottawa River should be managed more wisely.
Ottawa Riverkeeper, a group created to protect the river’s well-being, says with three levels of government responsible for the river—but who don’t share a communications protocol—maintaining the health and beauty of the historic waterway often falls through the cracks.
“No one is taking responsibility for the river,” said Delphine Hasle, director of outreach for the group. “No one has the mandate to take care of the river.”
SHARE JURISDICTION
The federal, provincial and municipal governments share jurisdiction over the river, but they don’t share a single communications protocol, which explains why not a lot of attention is paid to what ends up in the river, Hasle said.
Hasle said the federal government should be the official agency that looks after the river.
Without reliable communication, it’s no wonder spills like the 960,000 cubic metres of raw sewage dumped into the river in August 2006 go unreported, Hasle said.
The spill occurred between Aug. 1, 2006, and Aug. 15, 2006, because a sewer gate failed to close after a major rainfall.
A year ago, the city made the connection between the spill and high levels of E. coli detected downstream at Petrie Island beach.
LIED TO PROVINCE
A city supervisor was fired earlier this week after he admitted he lied to city officials about reporting the accident to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
Rick Findlay, the director of the water program for Pollution Probe, said the provincial and federal governments do a good job maintaining the water levels along the 1,200-km system that empties into the St. Lawrence River at Montreal.
But he said all three levels of government do a poor job maintaining the river’s water quality.
“The quality is a challenge,” Findlay said.
As far as having one level of government assume total responsibility for the river, Findlay isn’t counting on that happening.
“It would be nice but it’s not that simple,” he said.
Ottawa Sun