Water superintendent Frank Smedley sees the town being “in for a bit of a rocky ride” when it comes to implementing source water protection.
“There are a lot of items with the Clean Water Act which are still up in the air,” he told council Feb. 21.
Smedley said the draft source water protection plan policy responses are being submitted to Wellington County, which is working on behalf of the Lake Erie source protection committee. Many of the policies are similar to the Credit Valley and CTC [Credit Valley, Toronto and Central Lake Ontario] policies reviewed by council a few months earlier.
Because of that similarity, Smedley said he took the comments from the previous review. He noted Erin has a local representative in Dale Murray as part of the committee.
Smedley said Murray, an engineer, is capable and has a good knowledge of Erin and source water protection.
Smedley said under the Clean Water Act a source protection plan must be developed and source protection plan policies implemented in the source protection areas. For Erin, some areas for wells in neighboring jurisdictions extend into the town, such as Halton Hills and Rockwood.
He believes additional efforts must be made to educate councils. He said while regulatory requirements are being met, “I feel municipal councils still do not have a full understanding of the implications of the Clean Water Act to municipalities.”
The impact will be onerous on municipalities, which, in turn, will need to charge costs to residents.
He added it is likely municipal water systems will be responsible for the costs of protecting intake zones and well head protection areas.
He suggested associated costs to administer and implement those could be very high for areas where significant threats have been identified, and the overall costs and staffing requirements are currently unknown.
He suggested financial and political pressures could result in current wells being taken off line. In turn, new wells would require additional land at additional cost.
Smedley anticipates the environmental process for new wells will become much more complicated and expensive as a significant amount of study will be needed to identify impacts to the environment and adjacent properties.
Councillor John Brennan referred to the documents received and said he is pleased and surprised to see the number of times the group called upon provincial ministries to report back to the source water protection committees and various aspects of implementation.
Smedley said they are because some items, such as certificates of approval already go through the Ministry of Environment, it would be very easy for it to deal with those issues.
Mayor Lou Maieron said the area that will be most laborious or expensive will be where the well head protection area includes Erin, but the well head itself lies outside of the town’s municipal boundary.
He cited the recent Drummond Report that indicates the Clean Water Source Protection Agency should pay for itself.
“It would be somewhat unfair if our taxpayers were covering the cost or being limited in planning applications or develop plans in Erin for a well head protection zone of another municipality,” Maieron said.
Smedley said there is the potential of a municipality being required to protect another municipality’s groundwater – but not getting any money to do it.
