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Water_Regulations

Feature Article September 25

Feature Article September 25, 2002

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Water regulations trap small resort ownersby Jeff Green The three-member Operation Clean Water Team from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment presided over a sometimes heated workshop with campground and cottage resort owners last Friday in Kaladar.The afternoon workshop was organised by the Land O Lakes Tourist Association (LOLTA) in conjunction with their Annual General Meeting. All the tables at the Kaladar Community Centre were full when I.G. (Gus) Perkons began his presentation on the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA) and regulation 459, which applies to waterworks run by municipal and private enterprises. The agenda for the event set aside time for questions at the end of the presentations, but Gus Perkons found himself on the hot seat almost immediately as the business owners in attendance tried to find out how regulation 459 will affect their business.

One of the attendees summed it up for all of them when he said We are, as a rule, small. We cant afford all these things that municipalities have to deal with. Gus Perkons saw the point, replying, The OWRA makes absolutely no distinction between public, private, municipal, or anything else. A waterworks is a waterworks, and the regulations apply equally.Perkons and White made two points to alleviate some of the concerns. First, many of the business people in attendance at the meeting are not actually subject to the regulation. If there are less than five permanent residents using the waterworks, or if the system is not capable of pumping 50,000 litres of water a day, the regulation does not apply. This exempts any operation that rents cabins, cottages, or campgrounds on a daily or weekly basis, but does not exempt operators who rent for an entire season to a single renter. However, resorts to whom the regulation does apply will be forced to disinfect their water, no matter how good the supply is. In almost all cases this means chlorination, according to Dan White of the Clean Water Team, because chlorine persists in the water throughout the waterworks, whereas other filtration techniques do not. The regulation does state that other filtration systems can be approved, although this requires special approval, and getting it would be time consuming and costly for operators. Regulation 459 also requires testing for 72 different organic and inorganic compounds on a weekly basis. Gus Perkons said this could cost an individual operator about $5,000 a year, although he pointed out that as a group, members of the LOLTA might be able to negotiate a better deal. The testing requires samples be brought into an approved lab, and the nearest approved labs are in Kingston, Belleville, and Ottawa, all significant distances away from many of the businesses represented at the meeting. The regulation also requires that the operator of the waterworks obtain a license, which many of the people in attendance had already taken steps towards obtaining. Alex Siluski, the third member of the Clean Water Team, admitted however, that the ministry has been inefficient in processing the license applications. Finally, the regulation requires that quarterly reports be filed, which include detailed descriptions of the waterworks systems. Gus Perkons told the assembled operators they would be well advised to engage the services of a water systems engineer to prepare their first report, because otherwise youre just going get the report back asking for further information, which you may not know how to get. Understandably, many of the business owners were overwhelmed by the implications of all of this. The cost in money and time for them (many are one or two person operations) is way beyond their capacity. Marg Purtell of OReilly Lake Campground,near Mountain Grove attended the meeting. Marg told the Clean Water Team that she had been testing her water weekly, and had taken the water operators course that the ministry offered last year, but she didnt want to chlorinate her water, or pay $5,000 a year for intensive water testing. Later, Marg Purtell told the News she is going to see this week if her system is indeed capable of the 50,000 litres a day. Both Dan White and Gus Perkons made pains to point out, on several occasions during the afternoon, that a new water act is being prepared for the Ontario legislature. The Ontario Safe Water Act (OSWA) will replace the Ontario Water Resources Act in many cases. It is now at the public consultation stage, and Dan White encouraged the LOLTA to make a submission concerning how the new act will apply to its membership. We are giving you a small hint here. Get your comments in about the OSWA, and get them in as an association. It will carry more weight, he said. After the meeting, Dan White told the News that the Ministry of the Environment is aware of the bind small operators are caught in because they are lumped in with municipalities, and said, thats why there have been so many time extensions in the way Regulation 459 has been implemented, and it might all change when the new act comes into being. Its no secret that all these new water regulations have come about as a result of the Walkerton e-coli disaster. Marg Purtell described how many operators feel, We know that as businesses we have a moral obligation to provide safe water. We drink the water ourselves. But the rules have to be reasonable.

With the participation of the Government of Canada