Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 10, Number 2 • March-April 2002
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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Linda Pim
Federation of Ontario Naturalists
Environmentalists are cheering the end of the legal gymnastics performed over the last four years by Norampac, Inc., which has offered the dioxin-containing liquid waste called Dombind free of charge to Ontario municipalities as a dust suppressant for rural roads. The water-soluble waste tends to wash off roads and contaminate aquatic habitats. In February, the company lost its final court bid to appeal rulings from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) and the Environmental Review Tribunal that required the company’s Trenton mill (on the Trent River near Lake Ontario) to stop giving away Dombind by October 31, 2002 and to install proper waste treatment technology. Ontario citizens’ groups that have fought for the Dombind ban over the past five years — Quinte Watershed Cleanup, Federation of Ontario Naturalists, and Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations — are grateful to GLAHNF for its financial assistance in this campaign. The MOE needed that extra nudge from the NGOs to bring this polluter to heel. WE made it happen!
The Ontario government called a public inquiry after seven people died and over 2,300 became ill in May 2000 from drinking municipal tap water infected with a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria in the town of Walkerton, in the Lake Huron Watershed. The Part 1 report, issued in January 2002, found that the town failed to protect one of its wells from manure spread on a nearby farm and failed to adequately monitor water quality and disinfect the water sufficiently. The report also found serious shortcomings in the approvals and inspections programs at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment which, if operating properly, would have detected and corrected the terrible problems that plagued Walkerton’s public utilities commission.
The Part 2 report, not yet released at press time, will be about ensuring the safety of drinking water across Ontario, including wellhead protection through tighter land-use controls. The Walkerton Inquiry has arguably been the most important investigation ever into the links among land use, water quality, and human health in Ontario. You can access the Part 1 summary report (35 pages) at www.walkertoninquiry.com. The full Part 1 report is also on the website, but since it is over 600 pages long, you may wish to order a bound copy by credit card from Publications Ontario at (416) 326-5300 or toll-free within Ontario at 1-800-668-9938. While there will be no Part 2 summary report, an equivalent summary will be found in Chapter 1 of the full Part 2 report, soon to be on the website.
There has been an exciting sequel to the article “Grey County Citizens Fight Habitat-Destroying Plans for Bottled Water” by the Water Protection Coalition of South Grey, published in the January-February issue of Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News: The Grey Association for Better Planning (GABP), a sister group helping in the same struggle, has won the right to appeal an unfavourable decision of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) that would have permitted Artemesia Waters Ltd. to store and transport up to 176 million litres (35 million gallons) of groundwater per year taken from near Flesherton in southeastern Grey County (in the Lake Huron Watershed). If it proceeds, the water-taking is expected to suck a wetland dry and destroy fish habitat.
A late-February 2002 court decision will allow GABP to challenge in Ontario’s Divisional Court what it sees as two fundamental errors in the OMB hearing decision: First, the OMB did not treat the taking of groundwater as a land use under Ontario’s Planning Act and thus wrongly failed to consider the land-use plans of both the local municipality and the county. Second, the OMB failed to consider the effect of water-taking on the environment. If GABP wins its appeal, a precedent will be set and the repercussions for commercial water extraction across Ontario will be enormous.
The court struggle against Artemesia Waters Ltd., part of one of Canada’s largest water-bottling conglomerates, will be expensive and will extend at least into late 2002. For information about this important court fight, please contact GABP at our_water_works@hotmail.com or call (519) 922-2033 or (519) 794-3259.
By the time you read this, the Ontario government will have passed into law the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan! This is a protective land-use plan for the 160-kilometre-long (100-mile-long) Oak Ridges Moraine north of Toronto that is the headwaters area for 65 rivers and streams, and much of which is under intense urban development pressure. To read the plan, go to www.mah.gov.on.ca and click on Oak Ridges Moraine. For the NGO perspective, visit Save the Oak Ridges Moraine Coalition at www.stormco.org and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists (FON) at www.ontarionature.org. GLAHNF’s financial support helped us secure this big win! The FON is using the Oak Ridges success as a jumping-off point for a major anti-sprawl, smart growth campaign across Ontario over the next year. FON will lead the Limiting Sprawl portion of the Great Lake Action Agenda, coordinated by Great Lakes United.
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists’ popular booklet Protecting Nature Close to Home: A Guide to Municipal Environmental Advisory Committees in Ontario, is now available in an updated third edition. It shows citizens how they can foster the establishment of citizen committees that give environmental advice to municipal councils. FON thanks GLAHNF for funding this reprint. To obtain a copy of this free 32-page booklet, containing contact info for the 30 municipal environmental committees in Ontario and tips for setting up a committee in your municipality, please contact lindap@ontarionature.org
Linda Pim |