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After the Walkerton water tragedy of May 2000, the Government of Ontario moved quickly to launch Operation Clean Water, describing it as being “the most comprehensive strategy ever undertaken in Ontario to ensure safe drinking water and the protection of public health.”
A rigorous review of engineers’ certificates of approval of all water systems was conducted by government ministries. Older certificates of approval were consolidated, putting “… all past approvals into a single document with comprehensive conditions of approval.” All 645 municipal water systems in Ontario were re-inspected and re-approved, including the two-zone interconnected municipal water system in Horseshoe Valley.
On July 26, 2001, the Zone 1 system was issued a consolidated certificate of approval, 6847-4YYG5H, based on documentation provided by Geospec Engineering. However, some very important older certificates of approval, which should have been included, were missing.
One of these was certificate of approval 7-0593-80-007, issued by the Ministry of the Environment on Nov. 5, 1980, following completion of Zone 1 water infrastructure upgrades, which were built under the superintendence of the Ontario Municipal Board. Zone 1 households paid for these upgrades under the Local Improvement Act, and brought the Zone 1 water system into full compliance with provincial standards.
A second certificate of approval that was not included was 7-1222-89-006. This approval was for an interconnection valve, installed in 1989, joining zones 1 and 2 into a large municipal water system. Over the years, this valve has been employed many times, most recently in December 2022, when the pump supplying Zone 1 water was knocked out of service by lightning.
On Oct. 12, 1982, Zone 1 formally became a municipal water system when Medonte Township passed Bylaw 82-6, now an Oro-Medonte bylaw, and one which remains in effect to this day.
On Oct. 22, 2002, a major water-related event occurred, one which has had long-lasting and dire consequences for the hapless 454 households in Zone 1. On that day, without the required consent of any of the affected households, and indeed without them even being informed, the Zone 1 municipal water system became a non-municipal/private water system.
How is this possible? It happened when the Zone 1 operator provided the Ontario government with incomplete information, categorizing Zone 1 as being non-municipal. Therefore, at the stroke of a pen, a fully functioning and fully assumed municipal water system suddenly and wrongfully vanished.
Will the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Oro-Medonte Township, the private operator, and/or the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit please step forward and explain how a municipal water system vanished that day, without public notice? Who removed the word “municipal” and replaced it with non-municipal/private?
Zone 1 physical works remain in the ground and operational to this day. After the passage of the 1982 assumption bylaw, Medonte and Oro townships both executed agreements providing access to Zone 1 and Zone 2 supply wells, with all wells in both zones being located on private property.
The 1,200 or so residents of Zone 1 are asking, and with very good reason, why they are being forced to spend thousands of dollars to join the Zone 2 system, which they have been joined to since 1989. The public record shows that Zone 1 households paid lot levies, water connection fees, reserves, and also paid for all the upgrades made under the Local Improvement Act.
And, to add insult to injury, since 2001 they have also paid annual water bills that are far in excess of those specified in the 1980 Water Rights Guarantee Agreement, and its 1982 amendment. Enough is enough. When will justice be done?
Larry Herr
Oro-Medonte Township
