December 16, 2019 By email:…

December 16, 2019

By email: waterpolicy@ontario.ca

Shari Sookhoo
Environmental Policy Branch
40 St. Clair Avenue West
10th floor
Toronto, ON M4V 1M2

Dear Ms. Sookhoo:

EXTENDING THE MORATORIUM ON WATER BOTTLING PERMITS

ERO Number 019-0913

Save Our Water, a Centre Wellington residents group, has prepared the following comments regarding the proposal to extend the moratorium on new and expanded water bottling permits until October 1, 2020. We support the rationale provided on the Registry Proposal for a moratorium extension:

“This will give the ministry time to complete its analysis of the water quantity review and to publicly consult on and finalize changes to how we manage water takings before the moratorium ends. This way, we can be confident our programs, policies and science protect vital water resources while keeping Ontario open for business”.

In essence, our concerns are twofold:

Fundamentally, because this industry causes drastic environmental damage and is for the most part unnecessary, we recommend that the Ministry issue no new permits for water taking for commercial bottling purposes.

This is a far bigger water resources management situation than just municipal water sources. The aquifer water under Centre Wellington is up to 500 years old, because that’s how long it took to recharge the aquifer. The province should be looking at a far longer timeframe for protecting all freshwater systems. Any permits to take water for bottling in Ontario should undergo Environmental Assessments. Groundwater protection is a legacy issue.

Water is also for the people. We want Centre Wellington to be ‘open for business’. In 2016 the Ontario government (MMAH) and Wellington County targeted this urban area to double in both population and employment growth in 25 years – creating a huge challenge for water service. If a water bottling PTTW were granted (MECP), this urban area could be subjected to commercial water taking at the edge of town of a volume of water equivalent to one third of the current municipal water production.

Centre Wellington’s ongoing Tier 3 water quantity study has determined that municipal water sources are at ‘Significant Risk’, and therefore all consumptive water uses are classified as ‘Significant Drinking Water Threats’. This use includes extraction for water bottling.

Centre Wellington’s Water Supply Master Plan (Draft Final July 2019) has determined that the average day operational capacity of the municipal water system is 60% of the Permit to Take Water, less than was estimated in 2016. Given necessary redundancy in the system for high use days and well maintenance, there is currently no water available for developments.

Given the urgent situation in this community as well as the accelerated growth target, it makes good sense to keep the control and management of the prime future source water area in public and not private hands.

We support our mayor and council’s unanimous resolution: “Centre Wellington is not a willing host community to any new commercial water bottling operation or the taking of water for that purpose under any circumstances.” (May 22, 2018)

The Ministries can’t have this both ways. The Ontario government cannot target this municipality, dependent on groundwater, to grow and provide employment opportunities, while at the same time consider permitting water extraction that threatens this community’s ability to provide municipal drinking water service.

1. Centre Wellington’s request for a moratorium extension. Save Our Water supports the Township of Centre Wellington’s resolution and request to the Ministry to extend the moratorium further until 2023. If the province-wide moratorium is not extended, this Council has requested that the Province enact a moratorium on water bottling until January 1, 2023 within the Township of Centre Wellington municipal boundaries.

The Township has a valid and documented concern for their water. In July 2019 the municipal Water Supply Master Plan identified that this municipality’s maximum day demand is already equal to its existing firm capacity. This means that this water system cannot fulfill Ministry of Environment design guidelines to meet the water requirements of its approved but not yet constructed developments. There is no surplus water supply available for growth.

From the WSMP Draft Final Report (July 2019), “It is recommended that implementation of the preferred solution commence immediately... This timeline is based on determination of the WSMP that firm capacity of the existing system is approximately equal to the anticipated 2019 maximum day demand.” p. viii

This conclusion was not anticipated prior to the Master Plan investigation. However, an independent study by Hunter and Associates released in November 2018 supports this conclusion.

The exact number of additional new wells and potential locations is unknown at this time. Exploratory drilling and groundwater investigation are necessary immediately. The Township has requested a four-year extension to allow sufficient time to investigate potential well sites and implement source protection zones. The work required to protect this area’s water is still a long process. Incomplete investigation will create a dangerous gap in information necessary for accurately assessing the risk of proposed private large-scale water taking to the Township.

2. The Ministry’s Tier 3 study identifies a large area surrounding the urban area also at ‘Significant Risk’. The Provincial Tier 3’s Risk Assessment has identified a ‘Significant Water Quantity Risk” level to a large Vulnerable Area of Centre Wellington and even extending beyond the township, where any reduction in recharge has the potential to impact the municipal wells. This level was established without considering Nestlé’s proposal to extract 1.6 million litres of water a day.

Given the ‘Significant’ risk level, all consumptive water uses and reductions in groundwater recharge within this area are considered ‘Significant Water Quantity Threats’. This use includes water extracted for the purpose of commercial water bottling.

Now that the risk level to this municipal water supply system is identified, the Ministry and the Township must determine how to manage that risk. The next process is to define the specific threats to water security and to develop water quantity policies to manage those threats. This is the step the Township is now undertaking, and the Ministry has funded this next process.

3. Population and employment growth in a community dependent on groundwater.
The province and Wellington County in 2016 mandated Centre Wellington’s urban area to double in population by 2041. Few places in Ontario face the same growth pressure. This growth target includes employment growth. Servicing a fast-growing population while actively seeking new industry is an enormous challenge for any community. How might we effectively encourage provincially-mandated employment growth within our municipality when our water availability is in question? Who gets preference – a water bottler using outside labour to pump and truck local water out of the area or a business locating in the Township and offering jobs? A craft brewery or a food processing industry would be discouraged to settle in the same municipality. The policy review must consider the integrity of this community and others where permits for water extraction for bottling are sought.

3. Groundwater quantity is not the only factor in water infrastructure development. Centre Wellington has a long history of difficulties in finding suitable sites for municipal wells, and as this municipality grows this becomes increasingly difficult. An essential factor when considering permits is the interference of large-scale private water taking with the municipality’s ability to develop its required drinking water infrastructure.

The Centre Wellington Water Supply Master Plan and the four-volume report by Hunter and Associates, together provide the most comprehensive investigation of this municipality’s water system to date. This water system already faces a series of issues with existing wells, with both well capacity and water quality. To add to this, both reports identify a significant challenge to the efficient future development of the Township’s infrastructure with the proposed extraction. Both reports agree: municipal-scale water extraction at the Middlebrook well in Centre Wellington will obstruct the development of the township’s water infrastructure system that is needed for this municipality to grow and prosper.

To meet growth targets, at least four new wells will have to be developed in the next two decades and two of them required immediately. These will add to the current eight wells in the neighbouring communities of Elora and Fergus that make up the urban area of Centre Wellington. The Water Supply Master Plan concludes that water taking at Middlebrook as proposed, in conjunction with new municipal wells in recommended locations, will draw down water at two already existing wells to the point that these wells will be inoperable. (Matrix letter to WSMP, April 2019, Water Supply Master Plan Technical Memorandum 3)

Further, pumping at Middlebrook with any scenario of wells will reduce municipal pumping by 560 m3/day, requiring an additional municipal well to make up the difference. (Matrix letter to WSMP, April 2019, Water Supply Master Plan Technical Memorandum 3)

Engineering reports on decades of operational experience conclude that Centre Wellington’s water system requires a 2 km separation between wells to prevent mutual well interference. This separation requirement restricts where new wells can be located. The proposed extraction at Middlebrook, 2.3 km from the edge of town, effectively eliminates from the equation the entire west side of Elora as a possible site for any new municipal well. According to the Tier 3 study, this is an area of high hydraulic conductivity and is the recommended area for future water sources. At stake here is the prime area for future water for this community.

Hunter concludes, “The issuance of a future private Permit to Take Water for the Middlebrook Artesian Well at 7334 Middlebrook Road will sterilize the prime deep aquifer water quantity and quality area immediately west of Elora for municipal water production.” (Hunter and Associates, “Potable Water Sources 2018 to 2041 and Beyond”)

4. Quality must be considered as well as quantity. Water quality assessment is outside the scope of Tier 3 water budgets, which currently assume that all groundwater is potable. This is not the case. In Centre Wellington, water quality issues restrict sites for new wells. Township production and monitoring wells in some areas demonstrate issues such as elevated levels of natural hardness, arsenic, sulphate, iron, and at one well a level of Total Dissolved Solids nearly four times the provincial drinking water guidelines. This well should be restricted to non-potable water uses.

Further, high-concentration industrial TCE (trichloroethylene) contamination restricts where future wells can be sited. It also restricts increased pumping at a dominant municipal well. Increased pumping of the existing municipal well field could enhance the contaminant movement further into the bedrock aquifers. The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario has correctly identified that source protection committees have no tools at their disposal to protect drinking water from historical contamination. (ECO 2018 Report Vol. 2, Section 1.5.4) This fact makes it difficult for municipalities who bear the onus of providing safe drinking water to their residents. The contamination situation was outside the scope of both the Tier 3 study and the Water Supply Master Plan.

We would like it recognized in water permit assessments that not all of the water that is deemed available in a Tier 3 study is going to be usable.

5. Prioritizing groundwater uses. We support water management that recognizes a “hierarchy of use” whereby some uses of the water, such as for essential human needs and ecosystem protection, take precedence over others. Municipal drinking water must be a primary concern that takes priority above commercial water bottling – an industry that is not only fundamentally harmful to the environment but is for the most part unrequired.

The removal from watersheds of vast amounts of water in tanker trucks causes significant environmental damage. Much of this water is transported to municipalities where millions of dollars have already been spent providing an excellent, safe alternative to bottled water. The energy required to make the plastic bottles, process the water, clean, fill, seal and label the bottles and transport them to market is up to 2,000 times the energy required to produce the equivalent volume of tap water. (P. H. Gleick and H. S. Cooley, ‘Energy Implications of Bottled Water,’ Environmental Research Letters 4 (Jan. - Mar. 2009)

Carbon emissions, climate change and a planet choking in plastic are all associated with this industry.

The Ministry’s 2016 moratorium press release states that approximately 34 percent of plastic bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills. We know that a large percent of bottles make their way into rivers, lakes and oceans. The Ministry’s press release also states that plastic bottles may take up to 1,000 years to decompose. It is now recognized globally that single-use plastic is one of the greatest threats to our oceans, the environment and the well-being of future generations on the planet. If it had been acknowledged in the 1980s how environmentally damaging single-use plastic would become, it is doubtful this industry would have been permitted to exist. The European Union, in their recent plastics ban announcement, quoted a cost attributed to plastic pollution in Europe. This is estimated at 22 billion euros by 2030.

We appeal to the Ministry to create a policy that will prioritize public water uses, putting the needs of municipalities, local economies, farm businesses, ecosystems and respect for the environment above the needs of increasing profits for multinational corporations.

7. Consideration of long-term needs. Our communities will be home to our children and grandchildren. Therefore, we recommend that policies for water management be planned for long-term effectiveness and this is especially important for communities relying on local groundwater supplies. Centre Wellington’s Tier 3 study evaluates water sources for the municipality only until 2031 or earlier. When complete, this will be a mere ten-year assessment horizon – half a generation. We urge the Ministry to consider long-term planning horizons for water management. In other areas of renewable resources management, such as forestry, much longer future assessments are mandated. Stewardship of public water resources for future generations is the statutory responsibility of the elected provincial government.

8. Protecting vital water resources while keeping Ontario “Open for Business”. The proposal states that extending the moratorium would allow the ministry to develop policies to protect vital water resources while keeping Ontario Open for Business.

• “Open for Business” has to mean environmentally sound businesses. This cannot mean businesses that contribute to climate change and pollution and extract and truck away groundwater in vast quantities while very little is ever returned to the local watershed from which it was taken.

• “Open for Business” has to mean allowing municipalities to grow and prosper, attracting new industry, industry that is not simply extraction, but which pays local taxes, creates employment, supports the local economy and brings prosperity to communities. In the case of Centre Wellington, property taxes will be minimal on the small Middlebrook well site with only a pump house. There may be one part-time employee. Meanwhile, a municipality with water concerns offers no incentive for businesses to invest in that municipality.

• “Open for Business” has to include farm businesses. Wellington County has the highest number of milk-producing farms in Ontario (OMAFRA 2017). Such a county should not be supplying bottled water to the rest of Canada, at the cost of putting farm businesses at risk. Tier 3 water budgets focus on municipal water supplies, not rural needs. Farmers rely on wells, and although most of these do not currently tap into the deep aquifer, they will need to in the future. Farmers plan ahead for much longer than a five-year water permit time period. We need procedures in place within the next year that will consider the long-term effects of water takings on the sustainability of farm operations and provide farm communities optimal water security.

9. Establishing principles of conservation. Residents of Centre Wellington have made huge strides in water conservation, with per capita water use declining roughly 2% per year. Further, Centre Wellington’s Water Supply Master Plan Interim Report concludes that compared to other municipalities, Centre Wellington’s low metered per capita water use indicates that citizens’ conservation initiatives in this community have reduced water use to the extent that there is minimal expectation they can reduce water use any further. This municipality posts permanent watering restrictions.

The Township is currently undertaking water main repairs, and states that water conservation is one of its primary goals for achieving more capacity in the water system for the future. Conservation objectives going forward will depend on increased efficiencies within the municipal water system. Meanwhile, Township residents with their taxes are absorbing the costs required for the municipality to conserve and free up water for the future.

According to Centre Wellington’s Tier 3 study, water captured by the municipal wells is up to 500 years old or older. This water is recharged locally. It is a near finite amount. Given Centre Wellington’s conservation ethics and initiatives to use water wisely, this community is justifiably offended by the proposed water taking. This community is offended by an industry that requires 2 litres of water to produce 1 litre of bottled water. We expect the province to similarly respect groundwater and maintain principles of conservation.

10. Uncertainties of climate change and urbanization. Globally, efforts to implement climate change policies and strategies are continually evolving to address climate change’s alteration of economies, societies, ecosystems, and particularly the management of water. Uncertainties about the dual threats of climate change and increasing urbanization to our aquifers will not be resolved in an additional nine months.

Although considered a water-rich province, from 1998 to 2002 and again in 2007 Ontario experienced some of the worst droughts in its history. Locally, Ontario’s drought summers of 2012 and 2016 were the driest since 1960 and 1978, while the summer of 2018 west of Elora was even drier than the previous drought summers. At least two farm wells on the Middlebrook Road went dry which had not been the experience before. The increased incidence and duration of droughts, increased intensity of rainfall and associated water runoff, and more extreme and localized weather patterns require a mechanism for the Ministry to respond to changes in water availability and aquifer recharge that exceed historical occurrences.

At the same time, the increased spread of urban areas and the use of asphalt divert more rain to storm water and rivers rather than to aquifers. It is unknown what long term effects urbanization will have on our hydrogeology. Will our aquifers replenish at the same rate they have historically? Will we be closer to understanding the impacts of climate change and increasing urbanization on our deep-water aquifers at the end of the moratorium extension? The answers are unknown. We appeal to the Ministry to follow precautionary principles, while acknowledging the existential threat to future generations’ water security.

11. Groundwater as part of freshwater systems. Groundwater does not exist solely as a quantity of water supply to meet human needs. Watersheds need protection. Under the interim application process for water bottlers the Ministry takes into account impacts of water uses in local sections of the watershed, but ignores the cumulative effects of all threats to the watershed as a whole. For the Grand River watershed these threats are accumulating.

The groundwater underneath us moves and interacts with our flowing surface waters. We urge the Ministry to develop a water management process that anticipates the effects of multiple pressures on Ontario’s fragile watersheds, and considers groundwater as part of freshwater systems, integrated with rivers, lakes and wetlands, all with complex and intricate ecological purposes.
This includes all wetlands, not simply wetlands designated as ‘provincially significant’. The Grand River watershed has already lost 70 – 80% of its wetlands. The MNRF’s Wetland Conservation Strategy for Ontario outlines the urgent necessity to protect and restore “all” wetlands. According to the Mapping of a Natural Heritage System in the County of Wellington (2018), all wetlands in the county are considered valuable to a natural heritage system and support a number of different functions. These functions include providing habitat, controlling flooding and erosion, attenuating nutrients and providing educational, recreational and research opportunities.
Although not yet assessed for ‘provincially significant’ status, Centre Wellington’s Tier 3 predicts that future water taking will impact groundwater to surface water discharge to the extensive Salem South and Irvine Creek Wetland Complexes by 12 to 14%. These wetlands are ideal habitat for the endangered Jefferson salamander.

We urge that all Permit to Take Water applications for commercial water bottling purposes require a full Environmental Assessment.

12. Concerns with the interim guidelines for water permits. Many aspects of the interim application requirements – increased public transparency and reporting, as well as requiring additional studies – are worthy of support. New issues and concerns, however, have arisen regarding the new guidelines.

These concerns are as follows:

• The most significant concern is relying solely on the applicant’s assessment of potential impacts to ecosystems. The uncertain state of knowledge about ecosystems makes it difficult to judge critical thresholds. Allowing a 10% reduction in stream flow could exceed such a threshold. Potential ecosystem impacts from any single water taking could be diffuse, extend far beyond the extraction site and vary from place to place, particularly in a fractured bedrock environment. As a practical matter it is simply not possible for the applicant to measure impacts of water taking on ecosystems! The applicant’s assessment must be considered a limited investigation. Similarly, the Tier 3 study is not a detailed ecological risk assessment. Pump tests are likewise a limited tool looking at 30 days of impact in the close vicinity. Potential impacts require dedicated provincial oversight.

• Science for the application has now been downloaded from the Ministry to the applicant. Although this will save tax dollars, we have concern that proponent-driven science reports are likely not impartial or unbiased studies. What is missing is the peer review process to provide a balanced assessment of the science.

• Consultation with First Nations has been downloaded from the Ministry to the applicant. This puts an impossible burden on cash-strapped First Nations to have the relevant information and expertise with which to consult, while the applicant has full-time highly paid legal professionals. This is blatantly unfair. More importantly, the Ministry agrees that it still has a legal duty to consult with First Nations. How is the Ministry now fulfilling this obligation? The Province should engage with First Nations in everything they do with the landscape but particularly with water.

• Consultation with municipalities has also been downloaded from the Ministry to the applicant. A proponent-municipality consultation allows for the proponent to lobby for negotiations with the municipality. This is not a disinterested consultation – it places undue pressure on elected local councilors and on staff. We want a consultation process appropriately balanced between local government with stakeholder citizens and the Ministry.

• Climate change considerations are not stringent enough. During periods of serious drought such that a watershed experiences several months with only a quarter of the expected rainfall, the 20% mandatory decrease in water taking by water bottlers is an inadequate reduction. Given a highly uncertain future, we urge the Ministry to anticipate a wider range of climate and weather possibilities for which precautionary principles must be developed.

13. Permits are a political as well as a scientific decision. We urge that policy be created that will not look at water permit decisions simply by assuming a water bottler has an inherent right to take water unless it is proven that it will cause negative impacts to ecosystems, farms or municipal or private water supplies. After nine more months there are still going to be many uncertainties surrounding groundwater, and still much to learn about complex ecosystems. The issue, then, is whether or not our elected government is deciding to risk the health of our aquifers for the benefit of one corporation’s shareholders. This is not a scientific question. It is purely a political one and one on which our politicians need to be held accountable.

“Water is unique as a local service. It is, of course essential to human life and to the functioning of communities, (and) the consequences of a failure in the water system (are) most seriously felt by those who depend on it locally. Municipal ownership, and the ensuing responsibilities, should provide a high degree of public accountability in relation to the local water system.”

Reflecting on the preceding statement by Justice Dennis O’Connor, 2002, Report of the Walkerton Inquiry, all levels of government must be held accountable to safeguard a municipality’s water security. Municipalities are the ground troops with this issue and they need Provincial support.

14. Opportunity for groundwater conservation for the future. The moratorium is ultimately a unique opportunity for the Ministry to make the appropriate changes essential to safeguarding our water security well into the future. We want the Ministry to take this moratorium to create a water management process that sets a gold standard in water protection and conservation.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this submission.

Save Our Water