Without collaboration between all levels of government, some city councillors say trying to protect the Ottawa River will be like paddling upstream.
Councillors Clive Doucet and Christine Leadman have notified council of a motion to petition the federal, Ontario and Quebec governments for a plan to protect the Ottawa River that includes all municipalities on both sides of its banks.
They argue that as long as the Ontario and Quebec governments aren’t obligated to enforce the same rules when it comes to protecting the purity of the water, any measures taken by just one side will be useless.
“People have suddenly started to connect the dots and realize you cannot divide the cleanliness of the Ottawa River at the political boundary of Ottawa or Gatineau, says Doucet.
“Everyone drinks from the same water. And that’s about 2 million people.”
The Ottawa River watershed, a term referring to the area of land where water from rain or melted snow drains downhill into a body of water, is twice the size of New Brunswick – about 146,300 square kilometres. Two thirds of that area is located in Quebec.
Several events in the last few months have spotlighted the quality of water in the river.
In October 2008 the provincial government fined the City of Ottawa $562,000 for failing to report millions of litres of raw sewage spilled into the river in August 2006.
Since then, the city has admitted to regularly dumping untreated waste water from sewage overflows.
The Chalk River nuclear facility, located about 185 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, reported a leak which released 50 litres of heavy water into the river in December 2008.
Most recently, more than 2,700 kilograms of Freon-22 leaked from a federal heating and cooling plant on the river at Tunney’s Pasture.
The city is working to fix ongoing issues like the sewage overflow problem – for which the three levels of government have pledged a total of $100 million – and maintains Ottawa’s drinking water supply is safe.
A recent program introduced by the provincial government is also working to improve drinking water purity.
The Walkerton inquiry, established after contaminated drinking water killed seven people and made more than 2,300 people sick in Walkerton in May 2000, recommended a system be put in place to monitor Ontario’s drinking water more closely.
The program, Source Protection, is run by 19 committees across Ontario and set up through local conservation authorities.
The committees will meet publicly once a month for the next year, using established data to find all potential risks to the source water in their community. For two years after that, they’ll discuss policies to lower those risks.
In Ottawa, there are three water protection committees: South Nation, Rideau, and Mississippi.
Overall, there are roughly 44 communities living near the Ottawa River, each with full responsibility for its own treatment of water going into and coming out of the river.
That there isn’t one overall plan to protect the Ottawa River watershed in its entirety is a huge flaw according to Ottawa Riverkeeper executive director Meredith Brown.
“So we’ve got not only the river itself,” says Brown. “We’ve got inputs from both provinces, from many municipalities."
That means, says Brown, that solutions to the river's problems must take a multi-jurisdictional approach.
"A watershed approach for the Ottawa River means looking at all the potential sources of pollution upstream from Ottawa."
There are some signs the sides involved are interested in collaborating on the issue.
The NCC is working with Ottawa and Gatineau on a plan to implement sustainability plans for the Ottawa River designed in 2003.
And Source Water Protection Ontario director Ian Smith says he just hired someone to “follow up” on a meeting that included several levels of government.
The last meeting about source water protection attended by the Ontario, Quebec and municipal governments together was in March 2008.
Doucet’s motion has been referred to city staff which will complete a report about the issue. They plan to present the report at the planning and environment Committee meeting on April 28.