BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication).The following is in response to 'LETTER: Residents should not have to pay twice for water,' published July 24.
In Ontario, operators of drinking water systems registering with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) must fill out a drinking water system (DWS) categorization questionnaire.
If the DWS serves more than 100 private residents, the system is designated as a large municipal residential DWS or LMR DWS.
On Oct. 22, 2002, the Zone 1 DWS at Horseshoe was designated as a non-municipal residential DWS “based on information provided by the owner.”
Zone 1 residents inquired why their system was not designated as an LMR DWS since it should have been by the definition of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The MECP Barrie district office indicated the system does not supply a municipality — surprising in that the residents of Zone 1 are taxpayers in the municipality of Oro-Medonte.
In Larry Herr’s letter to the editor, he indicates that the ministry launched Operation Clean Water following the Walkerton tragedy. This plan mandated all municipalities create first engineering reports for all water systems, municipal or otherwise. Additionally, all must engage a professional engineer to prepare a report for the ministry.
On July 26, 2001, the ministry issued municipal and private works certificate of approval to the resort, which was copied to the district manager of the ministry’s Barrie district office, the clerk, Township of Oro-Medonte and M. Jakobi of Geospec Engineering in Barrie — interesting in that the only facilities required to do this were municipalities or system owners supplying water to the municipalities.
Furthermore, Jan. 28, 2002, the resort, in a letter to the municipality, reminded them that they supplied the water to the municipality, requesting a water rate increase owing to capital costs incurred as a result of the Ontario Water Resources Act of August 2000.
The township and the resort agreed that water was supplied to the municipality under a contract. All definitions provided by the MECP and various acts, etc., were satisfied. As the number of residences in Zone 1 is 323 (223 over the definition limit of LMR DWS), why was the system designated as a non-municipal DWS on Oct. 22, 2002?
Dave Lord
Barrie
