Thank you for the…

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Discussion Paper relating to draft amendments to Ontario Regulation 63/16 - Registrations under Part II.2 of the Act - Water Taking (“EASR Regulation”) to allow a greater number of low risk short-term water taking activities to register on the Environmental Activity and Sector Registry instead of obtaining a Permit to Take Water or Environmental Compliance Approval.

I live in Centre Wellington which has been ‘ground zero’ for conflict about commercial water bottling for several years. I observed much of this conflict from my vantage as a member of the Community Liaison Group for the Tier 3 Risk Assessment and related studies. That open and transparent process went a long way to facilitate learning by both sides about risk; the outcomes in terms of policy recommendations that went forward to the Lake Erie Source Protection Committee were better for it; and the community’s water sustainability safer than it otherwise might have been.

I note that the Discussion Paper never mentions the word 'bottling' specifically. I appreciate that regulatory processes must be broadly encompassing to some extent and are not tailored necessarily to specific circumstances that single out particular activities. That said, the down-stream risks from albeit short-term pump tests for purposes of testing for needs of water bottling industry are qualitatively different than other activities for which the EASR may be entirely appropriate. Neither are pump tests immune from causing short-term effects that are not well understood

In the particular case of Centre Wellington, short-term pump tests are required to produce data that can and should be used to further improve the Tier 3 models developed to assess both short- and long-term risks. They should go ahead for that reason, and in the same spirit as the open, transparent stakeholder engagement that characterized the Tier 3 studies.

It is also not unreasonable to expect the Ford government to make good on promises to ease the burden of red tape, where warranted, for business and other interests. However, due care needs to be taken to not trade away longer-term societal and environmental values, and incur those costs, for short-term expediency. Although the Discussion Paper makes reference to adherence to measures to guard against risk, and conduct tests by ‘Qualified Persons’, under an EASR process, I believe the situation with pump tests specifically for water bottling is such that it demands a higher, evidence-based standard of care than could be achieved if the main goal is cost-cutting.

Regardless of whether or not pump tests for proposed bottling purposes move from the PTTW process to the EASR process, they to meet a high standard of scientific rigour as part of a transparent and more fulsome risk assessment by independent 3rd party analysts. Especially when pump tests concern information to protect the greater public interest, they should be done to high experimental standards; undertaken as transparent, stakeholder-engaged process (at a minimum, to the standard of Tier 3 and Water Supply Master Plan studies): and facilitated by third party independent analysts familiar with “doing science” with people to whom the results matter. This would require, at the outset, that proposals for such pump tests be a matter of public record, peer-reviewed, and undertaken to stringent standards of stakeholder-engaged, structured decision making.