Water troubles everywhere

(Published in the Ottawa Citizen, July 19, 2007; photo credit: John Tanguay, The Ottawa Citizen )

Water Troubles Everywhere: Ottawa’s connection to its waterways is its defining characteristic, but we still don’t really know what’s going on beneath the surface

The Ottawa area is envied for being home, to the impressive Parliament Buildings, national- treasure-filled museumsand the kind of good restaurants and desirable neighbourhoods that make living here such a pleasure. Perhaps our greatest asset, however, is one we rarely think about and even take for granted: water. Our city is defined by it.

Two magnificent rivers, one World Heritage canal, and a pretty little lake—all in the heart of the city—infuse and affect our daily lives, making them subtly and deeply richer. And more than that. We depend on the water in the Ottawa River to keep us alive.

Just how much do we know about this water that surrounds us? Not nearly enough, I would argue. The recently published River Report by Meredith Brown, executive director of Ottawa Riverkeeper, should make us sit up and take note.

It is amazing that in 2007 Ms. Brown’s is the first comprehensive report ever published on the state of the Ottawa River. Finally, someone has detailed the cumulative impacts of pollution and development on the whole river system. And Ms. Brown is worried. She worries about water toxins, about discharge from the Chalk River nuclear site, and about the effects of the pulp-and-paper industry.

She is right to be concerned.

As far back as 1867, legislation was introduced to prohibit lumber mills from disposing sawdust in rivers. Of course, a huge fight broke out with the lumber barons who were more concerned about potential damage to their industry than about pollution. Many of them preferred to pay fines instead of complying with regulations.

When I last swam at Westboro Beach, I couldn’t help scanning the riverbed and wonder exactly what was down there, knowing that pulp mills had operated on the river for more than 100 years.

Perhaps most shockingly, Ms. Brown’s 84-page report reveals that no person, no organization, no level of government is taking responsibility for the health of the river. Furthermore, more than a million people are drinking from the river without knowledge of what extraneous substances are being put in it.

However, it is not only the water of the Ottawa River that should concern us. Patterson’s Creek was used for dumping offal and Dows Lake was originally Dows Great Swamp until Colonel By and his engineers got involved. Industry, in the form of a lumberyard and railyard, bordered the lake’s west side right up until the 1930s.

Water treatment did not appear until 1932. That was the year the Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant introduced clean water to Ottawa residents. Meanwhile, Mechanicsville had been annexed by the city in 1911 in large part because it provided a location for a western outfall sewer. In addition, very few people are aware that Hurdman Station on the transitway sits atop what was a major refuse dump and not only that, it borders the Rideau River.

Just this spring, many of us who own homes constructed before 1955 were jolted from any complacency by a City of Ottawa pamphlet with the provocative title: “Lead in Drinking Water and the Lead Pipe Replacement Program.” While the pamphlet noted that lead concentration in Ottawa’s water supply is very low, it also noted that the characteristics of the Ottawa River mean that our treated drinking water may be slightly corrosive, making the old lead pipes undesirable.

In a one-year pilot project, homeowners are encouraged to call the city for a free water quality test. If the result indicates the presence of problem pipes, the city will offer to replace the private-property portion (at the homeowner’s cost) at the same time it replaces its own portion.

None of this water history paints a confidence-building picture of a clean water future for Ottawa.

But far from being discouraged by all this information, we should instead be inspired to seek the type of political leadership that enables all water problems to be identified and the information to be widely and coherently shared.

The 2000 Walkerton tragedy, in which seven people died and 2,300 others became ill when bacteria-filled water flowed from their taps, gave us a terrible wakeup call. The province of Ontario established a public inquiry that was later followed by new legislation, the Clean Water Act, requiring municipalities and stakeholders to collaborate in the development and application of water-quality protection plans.

In addition to new provincial legislation, there are all types of vigilant groups out there, across many jurisdictions, all of them “watching” our water for us—its movement, its quality, its composition.

Since 1946, provincially funded conservation authorities in Ontario have been keeping tabs on source water—the raw water we take from lakes, rivers and underground aquifers to supply us with drinking water.

Similarly, the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, which is dedicated to strengthening the laws that safeguard our environment and public health, constantly monitors, not water but legislation to make sure it is effective. Recently, it expressed deep concern that the federal government is too lax in enforcing the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations (PPER).

Other respected organizations envision a “watershed” approach to water management. Pollution Probe’s must-read document, Towards a Vision and Strategy for Water

Management in Canada, urges us to think of the total local watershed area as the place where we belong, rather than just as an area determined by random political boundaries. This mind shift assists in creating a stewardship ethic, one in which people need to know—and care about—what happens “over there” because it affects what happens “here.” The Pollution Probe report goes further, with comments on much more than water management. It enters the obscure world of water governance with its myriad overlay of jurisdictional confusion, noting that “institutionally, water policy is orphaned in most jurisdictions,” and “in terms of accountability, water is everywhere and nowhere.” The bad news is that the federal government appears to be in danger of confusion on the issue of water governance. Responsibility for overseeing water involves no fewer than 22 federal departments with a combined budget of about $750 million a year. It is no wonder, then, that enforcement of laws may be problematic.

While “water awareness” is beginning to creep into our collective political consciousness, we are really only on the edge of a tipping point. Our vast country is estimated to have seven per cent of the global supply of renewable fresh water. This being so makes it absolutely imperative that we actively seek out and own the reality of our water situation—the bad news and the good. The way we govern our water supplies now and in the future, reflects our obligation as stewards of such bounty.

What do we know about our water? Do we or don’t we have safe water? If we do, why are we paying for bottled water? If we don’t, how can we fix the problem? Are we capable of shared and clear lines of responsibility regarding the earth’s most precious natural resource? If not now, when?

Penny Collenette is executive in residence at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, and federal Liberal candidate for Ottawa Centre.