The municipality is not…

The municipality is not opposed to the province’s proposal to outline mandatory and (by default) optional programs for conservation authorities in the Conservation Authorities Act, however, additional information and consideration is required for source water protection as a mandatory program based on the inference that CAs will seek funding for mandatory programs from municipalities.

A bulk of the source water protection program is currently funded by the province. Municipalities are responsible for funding technical work, resulting from new or updated water taking projects (e.g. new or relocated intake or well) and the risk management official/inspector position(s). The municipality encourages the province to and would like to know if the province plans to continue to fund the CA portion of the source protection work.

If the province decides not to fund source water protection:

• How will the CA determine who pays for the SWP portion of their core responsibilities? Will it be based on which municipality has intakes or wells in the source protection area?
• Will source water protection funding be separate from other mandatory programs?
• How will funding be divided where CAs have been combined to create one source protection area? If CA funding is based on land area within the SPA and source water protection is not a separate funding request, a municipality may be faced with funding a CA’s mandatory programs when it does not have lands within their jurisdiction.

There are too many unknowns to be able to appropriately comment on this consultation request. The municipality encourages the province to provide additional information prior to implementing these changes.