OTTAWA — The Harper government is proceeding with plans to crack down on nearly 150 billion litres of raw sewage dumped every year into Canadian waterways — considered to be a threat to both human and environmental health.

"By ending the practice of dumping raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and oceans, we will improve the health of communities living along waterways, protect our marine life, including our commercial shellfish fisheries, and ensure Canada's water is protected for future generations," said Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Environment Minister Peter Kent.

"This will help make our beaches and recreational waterways safer and will help reduce the burden on our drinking water treatment systems. As a developed, G-8 nation, we need these regulations to end these third-world practices."

Following his appointment as federal environment minister in January 2011, Kent was told by bureaucrats in briefing notes that untreated sewage from municipal systems was one of the largest sources of pollution in Canadian waters, with negative effects observed over 20 years on drinking water, swimming areas, fish and wildlife populations and commercial fishing industries.

At the time, Environment Canada told Kent it was "targeting" the spring of 2011 to finalize the regulations, first introduced in draft form in March 2010. But the government has repeatedly pushed back the adoption of a final plan ever since, explaining that it needed more time to get the details right and ensure that municipalities are able to meet baseline standards.

The government also was warned by the provinces and territories that taxpayers could wind up paying the multi-billion dollar bill for the new regulations.

"Communities do not currently have the resources to meet all requirements and without this flexibility, further financial challenges are created," wrote former New Brunswick minister of local government Chris Collins in a letter sent on behalf of all of his provincial and territorial counterparts to Kent's predecessor, Jim Prentice, on Sept 20, 2010. "These communities will not be able to sustain themselves."

Environment Canada estimated in previously released briefing notes from 2006 that cities would need up to $20 billion over two decades to bring municipal wastewater systems up to standard to address threats to environmental and human health.

But the federal government has indicated it would give cities with systems considered to be at high risk about 10 years to meet the regulations, while others at lower levels of risk would have 20 or 30 years to bring their system up to the new standard to help them spread out the costs.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Denis Lebel has said he is continuing to work with municipalities on delivering a long-term funding plan to help them maintain and upgrade aging roads, bridges, water systems and other local infrastructure.

John Morgan, mayor of the Cape Breton regional municipality in Nova Scotia, said all cities agree with that goal, acknowledging that his own region is still dumping raw sewage into the Atlantic Ocean.

"It is not an acceptable circumstance in this day and age to be putting untreated or even improperly treated materials into the oceans," said Morgan. "We need to deal with that situation and we need to deal with it properly."

Without new sources of funding, he calculated that the cost of required upgrades would be equivalent to a 67 per cent property tax increase for the average homeowner in his region. But he suggested that the provincial government also had a role to play in ensuring that federal equalization payments for local services are transferred to municipalities.

"If there's no funding that accompanies it, it is also a mandated tax increase for many municipalities across the country," he said.

The federal government also has noted that a collection of infrastructure funding programs have offered billions of dollars to help cities upgrade infrastructure in recent years, but municipal officials have pointed out that the water-related infrastructure investments have been tied to previous standards.

Kent also was told that the new standards would allow Canada to catch up to other jurisdictions such as the European Union and the United States, which has required secondary treatment of wastewater since the 1970s. In the case of the latter, the minister's briefing notes said the new regulations would "enhance co-ordination between Canada and the U.S. with respect to transboundary water quality."

mdesouza@postmedia.com

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