This proposal is totally…

This proposal is totally frightening!

The fourth proposal ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6928 acts like Walkerton never happened. The Clean Water Act, which grew out of the e.coli outbreak which sickened 2300 Walkerton residents and killed 7, relies on a multi-barrier approach to prevent such a tragedy ever recurring. ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6928 will change that by removing Ministry oversight of so-called "low risk" stormwater management works such as privately owned multi-residential units discharging to combined sewers or the natural environment.

As long as the builder/developer hires a Licensed Engineering Practitioner (LEP) to assess whether stormwater runoff might affect drinking water quality, they can self-register on the Environmental Activity and Sector Registry EASR and get straight to work building new commercial, institutional, light industrial and multi-residential developments.
Of course, if the LEP makes a mistake in designing their stormwater management system, or more likely, fails to consider that climate change could bring larger or more frequent storms than ever experienced in the past, the untreated runoff will flow directly into our lakes and rivers.

Our changing climate makes it more important than ever that Ministry staff oversee stormwater management projects. Now is not the time to let potentially polluting stormwater management systems slip through the cracks.