To Whom it may Concern;…

To Whom it may Concern;

Staff at the City of St. Catharines have reviewed the draft ECA’s for the consolidated storm and sanitary sewer systems along with the draft design guidelines that were provided on the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) posting.

St. Catharines staff is generally supportive of moving to consolidated linear ECA’s for both systems to allow for pre authorized activities and allow routine projects to move ahead quickly.

It is important to note that the proposed changes do not benefit all communities equally. Many of the benefits are related to new development and as such will benefit newer/faster growing communities. On the other side, much of the increase in regulatory burden will disproportionally fall on older communities with older infrastructure (e.g. communities without CSO’s are not required to monitor them etc.). While we recognize the importance of modernizing the approval framework additional time or flexibility may be needed for some communities to meet the proposed requirements.

Some of the new requirements that will require significant resources to implement include:
• Monitoring and reporting of overflows;
• Enhanced maintenance requirements for storm and sanitary systems (including additional documentation and record keeping);
• Additional stormwater treatment going forward;
• Developing a peer-reviewed monitoring plan for the stormwater system;
• Additional reviews of stormwater systems for new developments (previously done by the Upper Tier Municipality under the Transfer of Review Process);
• Additional asset related requirements above and beyond those required for the Asset Management Plan (e.g. subclassification of the wastewater collection system; determining storm outfall catchment areas etc.); and
• Determining the “uncommitted reserve capacity” for all downstream sewers and overflow structures for sewer replacement projects (currently done for new development but not for sewer replacement).

It is worth pointing out that for many small and medium sized municipalities there are a relatively small number of staff who would be working to fulfil these new requirements. Attempting to do them all simultaneously will be a challenge. Phasing in new requirements to the greatest extent possible will ease the transition and result in more successful outcomes.

We have some general comments on the documentations that are noted below and detailed comments which have been included in the line numbered documents attached. We have also included responses to the specific questions the Ministry posed in the EBR posting. We would like to thank you in advance for providing us the opportunity to provide comments and for your consideration of them. We also appreciate the extension to the comment period.

Sanitary Linear ECA

• The definitions of overflows and subclassifications of sewers is overly precise. The subclassification of sewers (e.g. sanitary, combined, partially separated, nominally separated) go beyond what is required for the Asset Management Plan. It is unlikely that many municipalities would have their sewers classified based on these new definitions. Older systems, especially those that have been retrofitted do not always easily fall into one of the sub categories. It should be noted that the new definitions are significantly different than previous Ministry definitions. For example the Ministry has multiple definitions of combined sewers (e.g. F-5 procedures, Design Guidelines, C of A / ECA definitions etc.). To essentially reclassify the entire system on a pipe-by-pipe basis is a major undertaking. It is a concern that this information is needed for the initial applications. If the Ministry absolutely requires this information then it should be phased in over time.
o Can consideration be given for using the overflow definitions as adopted by the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulation (WSER)?
o As the proposed ECA will require all overflows to be monitored, measured, determine loadings and reported on, the classification is less important. Ultimately the annual loadings for all overflows will be known, reported on and then addressed in a priority fashion. This is fully in line with the risk based approach of the new framework.
• Overflow monitoring and reporting
o This is a significant new requirement. If monitoring is required at the outset of the ECA this will be a challenge. Our municipality had approximately 100 sites which would require monitoring; the majority of which are not active.
o We would like to make the Ministry aware that some overflow locations can not be monitored without capital upgrades. For example some overflow points do not have an access maintenance hole, and others had hydraulic challenges (e.g. catchbasin leads discharging into the maintenance holes etc.). While these of course can be addressed they will affect how quickly all sites can be monitored.

Storm Linear ECA

• It appears that some of the monitoring and reporting conditions have been taken from a site context and expanded to be system wide. This is significant increase in the regulatory burden. For example our community has over 500 outfalls and 30 local watercourses. Any monitoring program that would be intended to determine the water quality in these would required significant new resources. In comparison we have only a handful of wet ponds.

Questions posed by the Ministry

The following questions were posed by the Ministry in the Question and Answer Document posted on the EBR.

Q: The ministry is seeking feedback from municipalities and interested parties on how much time will be necessary to transition to a Consolidated Linear Infrastructure Permissions Approach.

A: If the Ministry only requires information that is required for the Asset Management Plan for the initial applications and no additional requirements once the ECA is in place then starting in 2022 would be ambitious but achievable. If the Ministry requires additional information or actions (e.g. all CSO monitoring to be in place at the onset) this will require at least two years after the ECA templates are finalized. This is to understand the ultimate requirements and phase in an new expenses over at least two additional years (it would be challenging to implement prior to 2024 at the earliest).

Q: The ministry is proposing a 5 year renewal cycle for all Consolidated Linear Infrastructure ECAs. The ministry is seeking feedback from municipalities on the timing of the proposed renewal cycle as part of this consultation.

A: Yes this seems reasonable and matches the existing process for Municipal Drinking Water Licences. Consideration could be given to having some of the new requirements in place by the end of the first licence period (prior to applying for the second licence). This would allow for a much faster transition to the new licences.

Q: The approval would include many of the same conditions and requirements; however, they would now apply to the entire system, instead of individual works.
• The new templates would also include conditions related to pre-authorization of alterations and additions with predictable environmental impacts carried out by municipalities or persons prescribed by regulations.
• The templates outline the critical components and set out the conditions related to operations, performance requirements, monitoring, reporting and conditions which authorize specified future alterations to the system.
• The ministry seeks your comments and feedback on the proposed templates.

A: Please see detailed comments in the attached templates.

Q: A complete application would be required from each municipality to obtain a Consolidated Linear Infrastructure ECA. As part of the consultation process, the ministry is seeking feedback from municipalities on the application process, draft ECA templates, and proposed Design Criteria, including the amount of time that will be needed to make a smooth transition to the new approvals approach.

A: As indicated above this is easier if additional information above and beyond what is required for the Asset Management Plans is not required at the onset. In some places these new requirements are explicitly phased in. For example in the Stormwater ECA it is very clear that municipalities have three years after receiving the approval to inventory the storm sewer catchments (Section 9.0). However, if other new conditions need to be met on day 1 of the ECA this will be a problem. For example currently overflows are not monitored (just modelled) so the event based reporting is not currently possible and would take significant time and resources to implement.

Q: Although municipalities will need to submit maps of the collection system as part of their application, this type of information is already required through other legislation, such as Ontario Regulation 588/17: Asset Management Planning for Municipal Infrastructure. The ministry anticipates that the existing documentation can be used for the application for a Consolidated Linear Infrastructure ECA but would like to hear feedback from municipalities as part of this consultation.

A: Some of the proposed requirements are above and beyond what the Asset Management Plan requires (Reg. 588). The new definitions for subclassifications of sewers (e.g. sanitary, combined, etc.) are particularly problematic. Since these definitions are new and don’t match up with previous definitions it is unlikely many communities currently have these inventoried in this manner. Through the Asset Management Plan most (if not all) municipalities would have the total number of assets in the wastewater collection system (i.e. total number of manholes, length of sewers etc.) which could be used for the initial application (the asset management plan requirements for core assets need to be in place in the summer of 2021).

For reference here is a definition of combined sewers from a more recent ECA (Note: these are not recommended – just included to show the difference in scope of other Ministry definitions [emphasis added]):
• "Combined Sewer System" means collection system that contains Combined Sewers and includes Combined Sewer Overflows structures if any, and also includes Partially Separated Sewer Systems in which roof leaders or foundation drains still contribute stormwater inflow to the sewer system conveying sanitary flows.
• "Partially Separated Sewer Systems" means wastewater collection systems that originally had Combined Sewers and where either only a portion of a system was retrofitted to separate sewers, or in which roof leaders or foundation drains still contribute stormwater inflow to the separated sewer conveying sanitary sewage, and/or a new development area serviced by separate sewers was added to an area serviced by Combined Sewers.

Again thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important initiative.

Respectfully,