ONTARIO—An information session webinar on the province’s role as part of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement in the Waukesha, Wisconsin water diversion proposal was held last week, bringing together 22 participants from across the Great Lakes, including three from Manitoulin Island.
“Ontario has a long history of working with the Great Lakes Regional Body (which works under the Agreement), but also a long history with this type of diversion proposal,” one of the provincial facilitators from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), stated, giving an overview of the Agreement, which was signed on December 13, 2005 by the Great Lakes premiers (Ontario and Quebec) and governors, explaining that the Agreement came into full force on March 8, 2015.
The public consultation meeting dealt with the proposed Waukesha diversion, which seeks to divert an annual average of 38.2 million litres/day from Lake Michigan (with a plan to return 100 percent of the volume of water diverted back to Lake Michigan, as set out in the Agreement standards).
The MNRF told the webinar participants to review the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources technical review, found on the city’s website, which outlines how the city claims it has met each of the standards.
The webinar was then open for questions, with the first coming from the City of Oshawa which asked if Waukesha has the infrastructure to support the proposed diversion and whether this is a problem. They also asked if this is the first of what could be many applications, should it be approved.
The MNRF responded that there will be more applications for diversions, but that they will go through the same process for each one. The facilitators also explained that Ontario will provide a technical review by March 22 to the Regional Body, which everyone can see, but there is no plan to hold a public session in Ontario.
A person representing Freshwater Future said she was concerned that if the stakeholders do not strictly adhere to the criteria that this could potentially open diversions up to other applicants who also do not adhere. She said the applications should not go forward because Waukesha has not said why the city needs so much water or whether it has examined alternatives, noting that the outlying towns included in the proposal have not even stated they need water, but were included anyway.
“Is this the first application of this kind?” another participant asked.
“Under this agreement, yes,” the MNRF responded.
A spokesperson from the Canadian Environmental Law Association added, “because this is the first, I think it’s worthwhile to revisit some of the intent to ensure they’re setting a good precedent going forward. What is the reaction from other states?” The MNRF representatives said there is no discussion among the jurisdictions about what each are contemplating, but noted that Michigan posed a series of question to the City of Waukesha, which were answered and the questions and answers can be viewed online at www.wauekshadiversion.org.
The group Environmental Defence pointed to an independent report which says Waukesha can already meet its drinking water needs. The report, the MNRF stated, was not part of the application and is not being looked at as part of the review and suggested the group share that with the Regional Body as part of their comments, encouraging everyone to bring their comments forward to www.waukeshadiversion.org by March 22. Click on the ‘comments’ tab. Any comments forwarded to the MNRF will be sent on to the Waukesha proposal’s comments section.
