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Participation aux consultations

Monday, March 15, 2004

Sentinelle Outaouais a participé à la très productive journée de consultation publique qui a eu lieu à Ottawa le 8 mars 2004. Nous avons souligné qu’en protégeant et en améliorant les fonctions écologiques des bassins versants, nous préservons la santé publique en plus de conserver la valeur de ce que nous jugeons être une denrée économique de plus en plus importante.

Le livre blanc présente des idées et des solutions liées à la protection et à la planification des bassins versants de l’Ontario. Il a été à la base des discussions qui ont eu lieu lors de nombreuses consultations aux quatre coins de la province.

Faits saillants :

Le livre blanc n’est pas sans failles. Vous trouverez ci-dessous une lettre que nous avons fait parvenir à la ministre de l’Environnement Leona Dombrowsky, qui en résume les lacunes. Parmi ces dernières, notons le besoin d’une définition plus scientifique du bassin versant de la rivière des Outaouais en Ontario (pour l’instant, le bassin compte deux unités administratives; le sud et le nord) et le besoin d’aller de l’avant rapidement dans ce projet (aucun calendrier fixe n’est proposé). À long terme, personne ne gagne à mettre en place sans hâte des mesures efficaces et utiles en matière de protection des bassins versants et des sources d’eau.

Cette initiative constitue vraisemblablement l’avancée la plus importante en Ontario au plan de la protection des sources d’eau depuis l’éblissement des bureaux de protection de la nature à la fin des années 1940. Sentinelle Outaouais continuera bien entendu de s’impliquer dans ce processus. De plus, il est important que les citoyens ontariens du bassin versant de la rivière des Outaouais se familiarisent avec ces enjeux (le livre blanc a été rédigé en ce sens) et informent leur député de leurs préoccupations à cet égard.

(Lettre en version originale anglaise)

Letter to the minister of the environment
Leona Dombrowsky,
Minister of the Environment,
12th Floor, 135 St. Clair Avenue West,
Toronto, Ontario M4V 1P5

Re: Watershed-based Source Protection Planning White Paper

Dear Ms. Dombrowsky;

We participated in the recent Ottawa consultation concerning the Source Protection White Paper as part of your Ministry’s development of a comprehensive source water protection plan for Ontario. We wish to congratulate MOE for initiating this important program and the valuable White Paper consultations associated with it. We were particularly pleased to note that those conducting the consultations were MOE personnel involved in drafting the White Paper, not hired facilitators. This underscores the serious nature of the subject and seriousness with which your Ministry is addressing the subject. It was not lost on the Ottawa consultation participants that people in Ontario had died before such an initiative got under way.

Many valuable and perceptive comments were passed on to the MOE personnel during the Ottawa consultation. We want to emphasis a couple of the most important of these directly to you which we believe to be of particular importance to the citizens of the Ottawa River.

Firstly, it is critical that Ontario source protection planning understands and explicitly states that water is not just a commodity. That recognition is consistent with our letter to you of 19 December 2003 concerning the Ontario moratorium on water-taking permits. A broader perspective emphasizing the maintenance and enhancement of ecological functions within watersheds, is essential to the protection of public health,. It also is necessary in order to satisfy other important aspects of the Ontario Planning Act’s 1999 Provincial Policy Statement which is becoming an increasingly significant municipal planning tool. Our commitment to an ecosystem-based approach to watershed management needs to be more explicitly expressed and applied throughout the documentation of source protection planning in Ontario. As it presently appears in the White Paper, however, one could be left with the misguided belief that this is a discussion of commodity market share and pricing amongst traders. Fresh water, of course, is so much more than that.

Secondly, the proposed treatment of the Ottawa River watershed is both uniquely inaccurate and inappropriate. The Ottawa River constitutes the largest watershed in Ontario outside of the Hudson Bay Basin. It is also proposed to be the only watershed in the province split between the distinctly different management standards and practices regimes identified for northern and southern Ontario. Aside from setting the stage for serious communications and management problems, this implies serious inconsistencies and contradictions for science-based decision-making within what in reality is a single watershed. This also contradicts the White Paper’s own acknowledgement that “watersheds are generally considered to be the most practical unit for managing water…” page 8). Indeed they are – so why does the White Paper suggest we continue with the fragmented, disjointed approach which has caused so many problems for the Ottawa River in the past ?

This fractured, unscientific treatment should be remedied by combining watersheds 2J, 2K, 2L and 2MC of the White Paper watershed Map (appendix 1) into a single, secondary watershed, to be administered under southern Ontario standards and practices. The need for Ottawa River watershed unification is further emphasized by the inter-provincial nature of this river. Smooth co-ordination with Quebec-side initiatives will be very important for effective overall watershed management.

Finally, while the establishment of a Watershed Planning Branch within MOE may satisfy the Walkerton Commission’s call for the establishment of a Watershed Management Branch, we are concerned that establishment of new structures not be permitted to slow down the implementation of much needed watershed protection mechanisms in Ontario. In other words, while developing new legislation and agencies over the long term, we also need to see the Ontario government initiate immediate, effective source water protection measures using the many regulatory tools presently at its disposal.

We hope and trust that these key points will be satisfactorily accommodated in the on-going development of the source protection plan for Ontario. Ottawa Riverkeeper eagerly anticipates the speediest possible development of such plans for all Ontario watersheds.

Yours very truly,

George Brown, President


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