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Protection Update: Report from the A.D. Latornell Conservation Symposium
Scott M. MacRitchie, P.Geo.  Conservation
Authorities, provincial ministries, environmental consultants, and
NGOs from across Ontario met at the 11th annual A.D. Latornell Symposium
from November 17th to 19th in Alliston. The Symposium is named after
Arthur Douglas Latornell, a leading conservationist, who promoted
Conservation Authorities across Ontario, and is one of the largest
annual conferences in Ontario on environmental and conservation issues.
Considering the important role, the Conservation Authorities will
have in source protection; several sessions were dedicated to that
subject. Officials from the Ministry of the Environment reported on the status of the technical and implementation considerations of source protection. Since the Technical Experts and Implementation Committees have not yet submitted their reports, there was not much the officials could say. But they did announce that the reports would be available for public review around Christmas time. Steve Holysh, P.Geo., of the Conservation Authorities Moraine Coalition gave a presentation on the science of groundwater management as it relates to source protection. He presented an approach to delineating wellhead protection areas that accounts for travel time through the unsaturated zone called "Surface to Water Advection Travel" or SWAT. Using SWAT, the two-year time of travel (TOT) zone was significantly smaller compared to the standard method of using only the saturated zone. Asked if this means that the wellhead protection areas already delineated in Ontario should be delineated again with consideration of travel time through the unsaturated zone, he answered yes and this was a goal to be reached in time. The Conservation Authorities (CAs) have been busy preparing for the challenges of source protection. A group of CAs partnered with the Ministry of Natural Resources to look at the data requirements for source protection and the availability of that data for rural areas. They also evaluated the accuracy of the available data and what they found was not encouraging. They found that much of the available data from the province was not accurate and not adequate for source protection. When asked how it will be possible to do source protection with existing inadequate data, the presenters replied that it is necessary to do so and that data gaps should be identified in the terms of reference. Another session of interest involved the demonstration of a nutrient modelling program developed by Conservation Ontario and the province for source protection. Operating on the GIS ArcView, the CANWET model is a surface water quality model that can be used to predict nutrient loads in watersheds. CANWET is not really a distributed parameter model. Parameters are assigned to "basins" which appear to be similar to sub watersheds. Although CANWET will be available for free, it requires an older version of ArcView (that will no longer be supported by ESRI) to run. The major announcement by the province at the symposium was that $12.5 million would be made available to CAs to begin source protection planning. Of this amount, $3.26 million is for starting watershed-based water budgets, although the scope and type of water budget has yet to be submitted by the Technical Experts Committee. Many outstanding questions about source protection will likely be addressed by the reports of the Technical Experts and Implementation Committees. While talking to the members of these committees who attended the symposium, one received the impression that their recommendations will be thorough, sweeping, and produce scientifically defensible source protection plans with sustainable funding for implementation. Source protection will also provide great challenges technically and in implementation and in planning. Challenges include using adaptive environmental management, setting priorities and working out implementation plans that are feasible and that can work within the current regulatory framework. Many issues still remain: the reaction of municipalities who were not well represented at this symposium, the potential role of federal government in source protection across the country, and the commitment of provincial government to sustainable funding. It is estimated that at least $20 million a year for three years is needed to get source protection off the ground. |
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