From: Friends of the Salmon…

From: Friends of the Salmon River, Tamworth, ON
Philippe Couton. philippecouton1@gmail.com

The Friends of the Salmon River have carefully read the proposed set of policy and regulatory changes titled "Modernizing environmental compliance practices of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks." Our main reaction at this stage of this process is serious concern about the plan to transfer to municipal governments and local agencies the enforcement of "lower risk" incidents such as odour and noise problems. While we understand the reasoning to let the ministry focus on major incidents, there is also a long history of offloading enforcement and programs to local authorities without additional resources to carry out those responsibilities. We urge the ministry to ensure that these resources are in place. Especially since noise and odour problems can often be very significant issues for local residents (and not just from bread baking and coffee roasting, two examples mentioned in the documents. Odour from Intensive Livestock Operations can be a serious issue, and may disrupt the tourism business in communities.) If this change is implemented, we and other local groups will closely monitor how these new regulations are applied in our communities.