The city’s environment stewardship advisory committee approved a long-overdue Water Environment Strategy late last month.
The strategy is one of 17 components of the Ottawa River Action Plan, which was enacted in 2010.
The plan aims to protect the 4,500-kilometre network of watersheds in the city by controlling sewer overflow, reducing beach closures, protecting drinking water, adapting to extreme weather events and maintaining aquatic ecosystems.
The Ottawa River Action Plan’s initial goal was to have the Water Environment Strategy put into place by 2012.
“Even though it’s a couple of years late, better late than never,” says Meredith Brown from Ottawa Riverkeeper, a group that protects the Ottawa River.
The water strategy is being carried through in two phases. Ottawa is currently in phase one, which includes an analysis of the current state of the city’s watersheds, reviews of existing water management policies and discussions between water authorities to ensure their work is collaborative and does not overlap.
While this is a stepping stone for phase two of the strategy, some people would like to see more done this year.
“The things that they are starting to do aren’t really action oriented as much as they could be,” says Brown.
Brown says she would like to see more emphasis on public education.
“A lot of this is around educating people about how they are connected to the river, what they can’t do on an individual level around water conservation and what they are putting down their drains,” says Brown.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes also says there will be little action this year with the strategy.
“There’s nothing that brings in new programs, there’re no action happening that I had expected in this report. I would have expected some actions items that would work on water conservation,” says Holmes.
Holmes says she would like to see more efforts in the strategy towards raising public awareness to conserve water during the summer.
Despite a recent report from the province praising the quality of Ottawa’s drinking water, large quantities of sewage continue to be dumped into the river every year.
Phase two of the water strategy sets out plans to construct two tunnels, or underground storage units to contain sewage. After a storm, the sewage and storm overflow would be trapped in the tunnels and then treated before being released into the city’s watersheds, says Coun. Scott Moffatt.
The city plans for the tunnels to be built right under Confederation Square between 2015 and 2016, says Moffatt.
However, no concrete financial decisions on phase two will be made until after the upcoming municipal election.
“We can’t bind a future council financially,” Moffatt says, “so the idea is to work this year on developing the phase one of the strategy to set up so that the next council can make decisions on what they want to spend money on and what priorities they have.”
The final decision on the underground sewage tunnels will be made in 2015 when it is presented to city council as a part of phase two.