Recommendations for Budget 2005
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Building Capacity for Municipalities
to Protect Water from Source to Tap

Summary
As part of the “New Deal” for cities and communities, the federal government should provide financial assistance to municipalities for building the capacity to develop and implement watershed based source water protection plans.

Investment
$110 Million over 5 years

Benefits for Canadians

• safe drinking water
• a reduction in illness resulting from waterborne disease outbreaks and reduced chronic health problems resulting from long-term exposure to drinking water contaminants?
• decreased health care costs and lost work costs due to drinking water related illness
• increased environmental protection of wetlands, aquifers and other source water areas

Background and Rationale
Water issues are a priority for all Canadians. We are all concerned with the health of our aquatic ecosystems, the quality of the water we drink, and protecting our properties from floods and droughts. Recently, safeguarding drinking water has taken a more holistic approach that includes source water protection as a key component to water quality management. Source water is supplied from a myriad of surface streams and lakes as well as from wetlands and underground aquifers. These waters often flow in a connected and continuous fashion which transcends jurisdictional boundaries.

Water is contaminated by a full range of point, non-point and cumulative pollution sources. Microorganisms, heavy metals, endocrine disrupters and nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen can all accumulate within a watershed. As a result, pollution monitoring and mitigation necessarily involves collaboration and the sharing of information between a broad range of actors.

The most significant participant in source water protection is usually the municipality. Municipalities of all sizes are at the front lines when it comes to protecting water. True protection, from source to tap, requires collaboration between rural municipalities, their urban neighbours, as well as provincial and federal authorities. However, municipalities rarely have the means or the resources necessary to coordinate such complex inter-jurisdictional issues.

Source to tap programs involve protecting, monitoring and treating water through its full delivery cycle. Source protection involves conservation of wetlands and aquifers to prevent pollution at source. Monitoring involves collaboration between various environmental and health agencies to share data on water quality across and between watersheds.

Pollution abatement/mitigation involves effective enforcement of pollution laws to prevent emitters from contaminating water as well as a range of treatment efforts to address both natural and anthropogenic contaminants that infiltrate water supply. A holistic source to tap program encompasses all of these functions within a proper governance framework.

Implementation of source to tap programs typically involves the development of comprehensive water management plans. These plans explicitly identify source protection, monitoring, and pollution abatement/mitigation measures and targets. They are only successful:

• if they are created by the jurisdictions responsible for implementing them
• if these jurisdictions have the proper inter-jurisdictional governance mechanisms in place to coordinate this implementation and
• if these jurisdictions have the necessary capacity to complete implementation

Resolution of these issues is complex and often requires partnerships formed between various levels of government and others.Decision making can be improved with technologies to access and integrate quality information across these areas. The Government of Canada can promote watershed sustainability objectives by supporting cities and communities with a range of fiscal and technological measures — extending their capacity with innovation as
well as dollars.⁶⁰

Both urban centres and rural communities are using geomatics technologies increasingly to plan and manage infrastructure to meet social, cultural, economic and environmental objectives. In fact, these technologies, which include remote sensing, geographic information systems and global positioning systems, provide essential tools to align federal, provincial and local objectives. Whether a city or community is accommodating green spaces and Kyoto emission targets while planning transportation corridors, designing the delivery of social services, working in regional partnerships to protect watersheds, or coordinating emergency response and disease surveillance with other levels of government, these tools provide the geographic context for decision-making.

Recommendation
Through matched equal contributions by both provincial and municipal government partners, the federal government should help build this capacity through:

• the provision of financial assistance to municipalities for developing and implementing watershed based source water protection plans
• requiring that a watershed based source water protection plan is in place as a condition of receiving federal infrastructure funding
• working with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to develop governance models and management frameworks and to share best practices among municipalities
• providing geomatics capacity through a renewed NRCan GeoConnections program to develop and implement regional source water protection plans.

Using GeoConnections technology, NRCan and other federal departments can improve municipal capacity to develop and share monitoring, planning and inventory information on water, wetlands and pollutants

Alternative and Complementary Policies
To date, the federal government has undertaken a range of policy efforts to improve watershed protection. Environment Canada has worked through the CCME and its health counterparts to develop “From Source to Tap: the Multi-Barrier Approach to Safe Drinking Water” guidance document. Agriculture and AgriFood Canada has made water a cornerstone of its departmental policy framework. Natural Resources Canada is developing a “Collaborative Framework for Groundwater”. However implementation of source water protection relies heavily on coordination with provinces and municipalities and on significant capacity building at the municipal level.

Contact
Rick Findlay
Pollution Probe
613-237-8666

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