Who will pay the bill for resolving 'significant' threats to drinking water?

Monday, November 1, 2010

Compensation is just one of the questions that are bothering local Source Protection Committees and their farm members as they try to get a handle on what the Clean Water Act means for them

by DON STONEMAN

John Fitzgibbon has been going through the stack of reports from Source Water protection committees on his desk. But the co-chair of the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition still doesn't have a handle on what the Clean Water Act is going to cost Ontario's farming community.

Threats to drinking water are categorized across the province as "significant," "moderate" or "low." "The number of significant threats from all sources is on the order of thousands," says Fitzgibbon, with the majority being non-farm. "We know there will restrictions on these threats," says Fitzgibbon.

But there is no way to determine if the "threats" are agricultural or otherwise and how much farmland is going to be brought under regulation. His educated guess is that there are between 700 and 1,500 "significant" threats to drinking water on farms across the province.

"Manure pretty well spells out a farm," Fitzgibbon says. "Fuel, pesticides and other things could be a golf course, could be a farm; could be an input supplier." The list of actual locations and business is confidential, which Fitzgibbon says is fair. "Nobody wants to be advertised as a potential threat."

The biggest number of "significant" threats to drinking water is located in intake protection zones, areas where surface water is drawn for drinking purposes. Fitzgibbon says there are 763 significant threats in three intake protection zones in Essex Region alone. Wellhead protection zones (around wells that draw groundwater) are smaller than intake protection zones.

It's unclear who will bear the costs of restricting land use. "At the present time, the view is it is either going to be at the cost of the municipality which operates the water systems or the landowner, not the province," he says. "The beneficiaries of the action are not the people who have to take the measures and absorb the cost."

Small towns are exceedingly hard pressed, Fitzgibbon says. "They are not in great shape and they are not looking forward to paying for more. On the other hand, the same is true of the farmers."

The province has not promised compensation for landowners affected by source water risk designations if they are forced to change their farming practices – or cease farming land altogether, for that matter.

The Grey-Sauble-Saugeen Source Area committee tried for over a year to get compensation into the terms of reference for that area's source water planning.
But the province gets to approve the terms and they were sent back to the committee time after time, says committee member and Walkerton farmer David Biesenthal. In the end, the term "compensation" was taken out.

However, the terms of reference say the local Source Protection Committee (SPC) "expects a level of financial commitment from the province of Ontario to ensure the successful implementation of SPP (Source Protection Plan) policies. The SPC also expects that landowners will not be unduly affected by the implementation of these policies."

The Grey-Sauble-Saugeen area was the last to have its terms of reference approved by the province and the only one of all of the areas where words even close to compensation were being used.

Fitzgibbon expects there will be some "assistance" – the province's word for stewardship funding – for owners of properties deemed to be a threat to sources of drinking water.

But, he stresses, it is not for certain and the government hasn't set aside monies for it.
There is a clause in the Clean Water Act which says nothing under the Act constitutes expropriation, Fitzgibbon notes. It is really only under the Expropriation Act where the government tends to compensate.

The policy of the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, says Fitzgibbon, is: "If regulation made it impossible for a farmer to make a living from a piece of land, the question is why he would own that piece of land. Therefore, some compensation is owed."

Biesenthal was reassured by the words of environment ministry officials. "They told us that if you have to do something to bring your land up to standards, you do not have to do that until funds are available."

Biesenthal says the farm position was supported by all the conservation authorities and municipalities in his water source area. Municipal representatives on the source water committee are all farmers. On top of that, "we discussed compensation long before it became an issue."

Agricultural representatives are not as happy in the South Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe Source Protection Region. There, says Don Goodyear, director of source protection planning, farmers received a seven-page questionnaire asking them about their activities. He says the survey was developed by borrowing similar surveys used in Waterloo Region and an area in eastern Ontario. Agricultural reps on the committee reviewed the questions and the survey was mailed out based on assessment rolls and aerial photographs.

Fitzgibbon is concerned about the process. "If you do not answer the questionnaire, the assessment made by the Conservation Authority (CA) stands and you will be presumed to be a threat. I am concerned that, if you do answer the questionnaire, you are being forced possibly to self-incriminate. It is a poor process at best, particularly with the lack of trust between the farmers and the CAs with regards to source protection."

Agricultural representative Colin Elliott, an Elmvale dairy farmer and cash cropper, says the questionnaire was written by "typical non-farmers." The original questionnaire asked farmers how much septage they spread on their fields. Spreading septage on farmland is illegal in that area, he says. "Why would you ask someone (about a practice) that is against the law?"

In York Region, he says, the aerial photographs resulted in some barns being identified as having as many as 200 head of cattle in them when "there probably hasn't been a cow in 20 years on that property." Fitzgibbon adds that pig barns that have been shut down are labelled as significant threats because they might be brought back into use again.

And Elliot's most recent complaint is with a recent Ministry of Environment presentation at a meeting in late September that a septic tank is not a threat to ground water, while spreading fertilizer that will be removed by that year's corn crop is deemed a threat. "I think septics are more a threat to a well than farmers putting on fertilizer and taking it back off in crops," Elliot asserts.

The Ministry of Environment says a technical bulletin outlined in the presentation hasn't been developed yet and won't be ready until December.

In answer to some questions, the ministry wrote: "Erosion, runoff, and improperly maintained wells and septic systems can all pose a risk to water supplies. The province is making financial assistance available to reduce those risks, and make it easier for property owners and businesses to take action once threats to local water supplies are identified." BF