Newsletter - July 1999
Groundwater studies helping municipalities help themselves
The provincial government is encouraging municipalities to undertake groundwater
management studies to ensure the long-term use and protection of groundwater resources.
The studies focus on ways of conserving these valuable resources, protecting them from
contamination and thereby avoiding the need for costly pollution cleanups.
Several million dollars were set aside for groundwater and other studies as part of the
$200 million Provincial Water Protection Fund that Environment Minister Norm Sterling
announced in August 1997.
The ministry promotes the completion of proactive groundwater management studies as a
means of reducing or deferring costly capital infrastructure. Municipalities are also
encouraged to work with their adjacent municipalities, conservation authorities and public
utility commissions to submit a joint application.
Some examples of studies you may wish to conduct are:
- Groundwater resource assessment to identify and assess key groundwater areas
(generally to a maximum of 80 percent of the study budget).
- Contamination assessment to identify and assess the sources of contamination
to the aquifers that supply the municipality with water for drinking and other uses.
- Current groundwater use to analyse the current use of groundwater in the
municipality and the watershed.
- Economic evaluation to conduct an evaluation (cost effectiveness analysis) of
protection alternatives.
- Groundwater management and protection measures to develop and incorporate
measures into an overall management plan e.g. land use, watershed stewardship,
contingency, administrative and operational protection and monitoring that will ensure
the continued long-term protection and management of municipal groundwater for drinking
water and other uses.
The information and solutions produced from the studies will provide municipalities
with the tools to actively protect their groundwater resources in both the short and long
term.
Two examples, in eastern Ontario, of ongoing regional groundwater studies are those
being conducted by the United Counties of Prescott and Russell and the United Counties of
Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.
The studies will examine the relative health of groundwater resources, find the most
environmentally sound, cost-effective ways of providing safe drinking water to their
residents and ensure groundwater is wisely managed for present and future generations.
Carl Dube of NHPM Project Managers is co-ordinating the Prescott and Russell study and
John Meek of Raisin River Conservation Authority, (613) 938-3611, the Stormont, Glengarry
and Dundas study.
To qualify for funding, studies must be completed and invoices processed by March 2001.
The funding formula is a sliding scale based on population. Where the municipal population
is 1,000 or less, 90 percent of the study cost will be funded. Assistance declines to 10
percent for municipalities with populations of 100,000 or more.
A Groundwater Management Study Guide and application form can be downloaded from the
Ministry of the Environment website at www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/fund/index.htm. Further
information is available from: Barbara Anderson, MOE, Tel: (416) 314-7046 or Fax: (416)
314-0461.
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