More monitoring for Ontario's greenhouse growers

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario greenhouse vegetable growers, and some flower greenhouses, are facing a new inspection from the Ontario environment ministry to ensure they’re following environmental regulations.

The inspections began last year and the program is being done over three years, says Justine Taylor, energy and environment coordinator with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers. The ministry checked 72 greenhouses in 2015.

Dan McDonald, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change technical support manager for the southwest region, says the ministry is checking to see if greenhouse operations are complying with environmental rules and regulations.

Rick Seguin, general manager of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, says the ministry started with inspections of the vegetable greenhouses in southwestern Ontario “but they are expanding to all greenhouses, is my understanding.”

Taylor says the ministry’s inspection, which takes about two to three hours to complete, includes checks of the greenhouses’ storm water management, septic and domestic wastes, pesticides and nutrient management.

“It’s quite a comprehensive inspection that they’re doing,” she says. Inspectors walk through the entire operation. They’re also doing sampling and testing of storm water discharges (the point where the storm water discharges into the surface water) as part of the inspections.

Seguin says the ministry is focusing on the storm water ponds “and the phosphorus-loading of those ponds and making sure there’s nothing leaching out of them.”

The greenhouse sector is working with the ministry, he explains. “We tell them what we’re doing. They tell us what they’re doing, what they need and what their compliance requirements are. And we tell them how we can work with our growers to respond that.”

Seguin says, “we’re looking to find solutions that work for our growers and still meet the objectives of the ministry of the environment.”

Taylor notes the inspections are mandatory. “I’m pretty sure you can’t say no to the ministry of the environment.”

The inspection process has gone pretty well so far and “everybody seems quite happy,” Taylor says. The Greenhouse Vegetable Growers has been providing growers with a checklist in advance of the inspection so they’re aware of what’s being inspected. And ministry officials call ahead and schedule appointments rather than making unannounced visits.

The biggest concern is the phosphorus levels in the general waterways, especially in the Kingsville/Leamington areas of Essex County. “That has been an issue for the past couple of years or so,” Taylor notes.

The Greenhouse Vegetable Growers is also working with individual growers to help them “address any sources of phosphorus that might be coming from their greenhouse,” she adds. “We’re helping growers make use of land applications, through the Nutrient Management Act.”

Starting Jan. 1, 2015, greenhouse growers could start applying their recycled nutrient/water mixture, called nutrient feed water, to farmland, provided they comply with a number of conditions.

“We’re also working with the government to see if we can get any phosphorus-reduction funds, and things like that, in place to help growers either upgrade their equipment or put in place contingency plans in the case of a spill,” Taylor says.

The sector is working to help eliminate any sources of phosphorus that “might be originating from the greenhouses,” she says, noting phosphorus pollution in waterways is a very complicated problem. The phosphorus is coming from anyone contributing to the waterways, including farmers of all commodities, residential properties and septic beds.

McDonald says the overall compliance inspection program is in addition to work the ministry is doing in the Leamington/Kingsville area and Lake Erie watershed to investigate sources of phosphorus. Investigation over the past two years has shown “that greenhouses are a source of phosphorus in that watershed” and the ministry’s goal is to determine if phosphorus discharges are continuing to occur, he says.

The 2015 results from the program are still being finalized, McDonald says. But in previous years “the monitoring indicated greenhouse discharges continue to be a significant source of elevated nutrients, typically phosphorus. And this material is occurring in drains that flow into Lake Erie.”

The Lake Erie watershed-monitoring program has been ongoing for three years and is evaluated annually to determine if it will continue, McDonald notes. The ministry plans to do the monitoring again this year. BF