Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 6 - Evidence - February 10, 2005
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 10, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill C- 7, to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act and the Parks Canada Agency Act, and to make amendments to other acts, met this day at 8:36 a.m. to give consideration to the bill; and to examine and report on emerging issues related to its mandate.
Senator Tommy Banks (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good morning. Before we hear from our witnesses, to whom we give thanks for attending here on such a fine day, we were given notice that we could, if we wish, now deal with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C- 7, on which we heard witnesses and the minister previously. It has the effect of moving the Parks Canada Agency from Heritage to Environment.
Is it agreed, honourable senators, that the committee will now move to clause-by-clause consideration of that bill?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: In that case, senators, we have two options: We can go through it literally clause by clause, or I would entertain a motion to dispense with clause-by-clause consideration and deal with the bill in toto.
Senator Milne: So moved.
The Chairman: It is moved by the Honourable Senator Milne that this committee dispense with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-7, to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act and the Canada Parks Agency Act and to make related amendments to other acts.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Negative? It is carried unanimously.
Is it agreed, honourable senators, that I report this bill at the next sitting of the Senate?
Senator Milne: So moved.
The Chairman: Negative?
The motion is carried, and so will be the bill.
We have the pleasure this morning of hearing, with respect to our study on water issues, from Mr. T. Duncan Ellison, the Executive Director of the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association. Would you and your colleagues, Mr. Ellison, come to the table.
Please introduce them for us before you begin your presentation. It is advantageous to us that you make your presentation complete but brief, in order that there is time for questions, but please do not omit telling us those things you know we should hear.
Mr. Duncan Ellison, Executive Director, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable senators. I am accompanied today by Mr. André Proulx, Past President of the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association. Mr. Proulx is a member of the board of directors and represents the Ontario Waterworks Association. On my left is Ms. Catherine Jefferson, Director of Government Relations, who performs our government relations roles.
I have tried to select items from the extensive 11-page document that you have before you that might be germane to your interests in infrastructure and water quality issues. The CWWA is the national voice of municipal water agencies. The cities of Canada belong to the association and we represent them corporately. There are a number of regionally based professional associations of water and waste-water operators — that is, the employees of CWWA members and other utilities, for example, those who work in the industry.
Although our membership may be relatively small, fewer than 200 utilities across the country, it represents more than 70 per cent of the 25 million Canadians who are served by municipal water systems. There are approximately 5,000 municipalities in the country, no one knows the exact figure, and we believe there are more than 4,000 water and waste-water systems in Canada.
In respect of infrastructure, the issue for CWWA is that it is extensive and aging. Some of the infrastructure dates back more than 100 years. I believe, for example, that the city of Montreal still has sections of wooden water mains and the original brick sewer mains. Infrastructure has gone through a series of material changes, from cast iron pipes, which were produced by those who produced cannons, to steel, some lead, concrete and now plastics. We have an aging infrastructure that is estimated to comprise more than 500,000 kilometres of pipe buried in the ground. Its age would be anywhere from 100 years to 1 year, when the latest subdivision was built. The average age is 40 to 60 years. Some of the construction materials, such as lead, caused problems with water quality, and some do not. Currently, all underground infrastructure is built with pipe materials that are tested for the leaching of contaminants that might cause harm into the drinking water; and they are certified to be safe in that respect.
The CWWA has estimated that the current value of the infrastructure is around $85 billion and its replacement cost would be over $500 billion. We have estimated that $95 billion would be needed over 15 years to expand the infrastructure, renovate it and build waste-water treatment plants, particularly in the coastal cities of Canada where there are none. In the freshwater areas of Canada, most municipalities have quite adequate waste-water treatment, but the coastal municipalities do not.
The issue for us is that major repairs, renovations and rehabilitations are required as well as expansion of the infrastructure. Under the current fee structure that most municipalities follow, the revenue generated is not sufficient to meet these infrastructure needs. As you may have read recently, the City of Ottawa estimated that a 40 per cent increase in rates would be needed over the next five years in order to meet their obligations. The City of Ottawa is one of the higher priced services in the country. You can imagine that other communities, where they are charging 25 cents instead of $1 dollar per cubic metre of water, are facing a capital infrastructure problem.
Pricing is a political issue. Councils always struggle with how to charge for services and how to relate those services to the benefits. Unfortunately, water and waste-water services can be described as being a silent service. Turn on the tap, there is water; you flush the toilet, it is gone. It is out of sight, out of mind and not delivered by truck. It is a huge, silent service that is unappreciated. People complain about paying $1 per cubic metre of fresh water — $30 per month — and yet they think nothing of paying $45 per month for cable or telephone service.
We have an undervalued service and infrastructure that cannot be replaced under the current pricing structure. It is noted that Ontario has recently passed the sustainable municipal infrastructure legislation, which requires municipalities in Ontario to move to full-cost sustainable pricing of their services, and other provinces are following suit.
The infrastructure subsidy programs announced by the federal government are extremely popular with elected officials because it is 30-cent dollars that they are actually spending when they do so. From the professional manager's point of view, there are drawbacks to the program. Capital financial planning in municipalities is a 40- to 60-year cycle. Assets have to be inventoried so that the life cycle and life expectancy are known. There has to be thought given to replacement, maintenance, and rehabilitation programs and the fact that there may be a subsidy program with a life expectancy unknown to you or that may be short. It means that the long-term capital planning program and funding is more difficult.
There are good and bad things about this and I think most professional managers would like to see their water rates set on a fully recoverable basis so that they are independent of interventions from senior levels of government in respect of subsidies.
We note that the federal government has supported the production of the sustainable municipal infrastructure guide — InfraGuide — through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the National Research Council. This is producing a collection of best management practices for municipal infrastructure. It has turned out to be a valuable exercise. On the infrastructure side, we also need research into technology and materials of construction to determine what new things can be done.
In respect of quality issues, Canada has an excellent reputation worldwide for producing Canadian drinking water quality guidelines. This is done by Health Canada in conjunction with all the provinces and territories. Health Canada essentially performs the health risk assessment and produces a guideline as to what is a good drinking water quality parameter, which is then reviewed and approved by the provinces and territories. The difficulty is that in any health risk assessment, there is a level of uncertainty. The guidelines make it explicit that the uncertainty may result in a guideline being given a factor of 10 per cent or 100 per cent of what might be considered the lowest observed effects level so that you are always on the safe side.
Unfortunately, in the mayhem that followed the Walkerton tragedy, many of these guidelines were simply imposed as regulatory standards, and this means that water utilities must deliver water that now may be 100 times safer than the health risk assessment suggested — and this of course has driven the treatment technology issues. Nevertheless, the utilities are happy with the process that takes place on this side.
With waste water, quality standards are more problematic. I will briefly take an aside on this. There is the concept of source-to-tap management, which was developed by the drinking water committee, the federal/provincial one. Basically, it stipulates that to have safe drinking water at the end of the pipe, it is necessary to look at all of the stages, from the source right through to the abstraction, treatment, distribution systems and even into the plumbing systems of houses because older houses have lead plumbing and that can affect the quality.
The quality of the waste water, which is discharged at the other end of this process from toilet back to the source, is very important to the source water quality. There is no coherent set of waste-water quality guidelines in the same sense as there is for the drinking-water quality ones. There are standards established by some of the provinces, or all of the provinces, and we have seen recently the federal government, through the Department of Environment, publish guidelines for ammonia discharges in waste water and requirements for the chlorination or de-chlorination of waste water. Here is an element of concern, since many provinces require waste water to be chlorinated for public health reasons, depending on downstream uses of the rivers, yet it is known that there is an environmental effect of chloramines on fish. There is a conflict there.
A big gap in the regulatory programs that addresses waste-water quality is the issue of how to protect the sewer systems from industrial waste-water discharges — chemicals, heavy metals and things of that nature — which cannot be removed by water-treatment plants essentially intended to deal with human sanitary waste and not to remove the hydrocarbons, the cadmium, the zincs and those things that come out of car washes or may be coming from various industrial processes that discharge into the municipal sewer systems.
Forty per cent of Canadians use groundwater as their source of drinking water, which is generally microbiologically very good. However, if you read yesterday's Ottawa Citizen, there is a note that many of the wells in the Wakefield area have high levels of uranium because they are coming from the Canadian Shield. There is an arsenic problem in Nova Scotia, there are radon problems in other parts of Canada, and this is coming essentially from the geological environment. There are means of treating this but they are expensive.
Global climate change is something that is beginning to affect us in two ways: Extreme weather conditions are surcharging our physical infrastructure, which may have been designed for a 1-in-100-year flood event, except that these are now occurring once every 10 years. Of course, the recent events have been pushing towards the 1-in-1000-year types of events. Hence, we have a physical capacity problem with the engineering because, as the climate changes, it is affecting the means to deal with floods or even droughts, which can affect the way we are drawing water from the environment.
The other effect is that it is causing a slight warming of the surface waters. For example, we are seeing more algal blooms occurring, particularly in the Prairies, but also Lake Ontario, and it is causing operational problems in the treatment plants as to how you manage that. It is manageable. Fortunately for us, the Australians have been facing this for a long time so there is a lot of technology transfer and information transfer that can take place.
In closing, I would like to touch on something that I think is absolutely imperative that we understand, and that is the issue that this sector is essentially regulated by the provinces and territories. You cannot build a water or waste- water treatment plant without the approval of the province or having to meet the standards of construction and operation laid down by the province.
That also extends to things like the training of operators and the quality of the water that is to be produced or discharged. It may even affect the pricing policies because the municipal acts in each of the provinces affect the way municipalities may deal with that subject. There are provincial environmental assessments required, and so forth.
At the same time, there is an overlay of about 20 federal statutes that can also affect the way municipalities behave — everything from the Fisheries Act, which is dealing with the discharge of deleterious substances into the environment, through the Environmental Assessment Act, the Navigable Waters Act and even the Canada Post Act, which sets the rates for bulk mail that can affect the postal rates charged by small communities. They would get a discount if they had 3,000 pieces of mail every time they mailed it, but if that bulk rate goes up then the small community loses that 7- or 8- or 9-cents benefit.
There is a very strong need for the federal and provincial governments to work cooperatively in this. Municipalities in our sector, the water and waste-water sector, have sometimes felt it has been a little bit of meat in the grinder between the political toing and froing that has occurred, particularly on the environmental protection side as Environment Canada and the provinces are working together.
What is happening through CCME, the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment, is a very positive thing. We are now seeing a committee looking at a long-term strategy to manage waste-water effluents. At the same time, however, we are concerned that we are not adequately seeing municipalities as partners in the process. In effect, municipalities are the front line of environmental protection, rather than the target for enforcement. They are the very first ones that are attempting to produce for the citizens of Canada in a public, not-for-profit service, and we seem to forget that. There is no bottom line here. There is no profit to be made by not meeting the guidelines or the standards, which may encourage you to deposit deleterious substances or not meet the drinking water guidelines.
I have taken more than my 10 minutes, but that was the highlight and I would invite any of you to ask any questions. I may well defer to Mr. Proulx or Ms. Jefferson to answer your questions.
The Chairman: It is a broad subject and I am amazed that you have covered it as completely as you seem to have in that time.
[Translation]
Senator Lavigne: Thank you for coming. Earlier, you stated that people willingly paid $45 per month for cable television, but considered the 25 cent per gallon charge for drinking water to be costly. Hydro-Québec maintains that electricity is cheap in Canada, a real bargain compared to electricity charges in the United States and in a number of other countries. Gas is also much cheaper in Canada. Consumers pay $2 per litre for gas in other countries.
When governments collect taxes, these revenues should be used for the purpose for which they were levied. For example, if municipalities levy a water tax, should the revenue then not be used strictly for water and sewer infrastructure repairs, instead of being reallocated to other areas of the municipal budget? If we consider the state of sewers and water mains in Montreal, we see that the system is crumbling right across the city. Nothing, or virtually nothing, is working any more. Every day brings more broken water mains and gallons of drinking water wasted. Instead of spending money on sometimes useless ventures — $500 million is budgeted for a subway line and the final bill comes in at $1.5 billion — should the administration not earmark these funds for essential services? Taxes are levied, ostensibly for one purpose, while the tax revenue is then used for another.
If we continue to claim that Quebecers benefit from cheap water, gas and electricity, what will happen to our salaries? Our salaries will never be high enough to offset real usage costs.
Do you think water supply and distribution systems in Canada should be privatized as is the case in other world countries? Has the experience of privatizing water and sewer systems elsewhere proved to be a profitable undertaking? Do you think this would also be a valid option here in Canada?
Mr. Ellison: That is a highly complex question. Many countries do not have privatized systems in place. Service costs need to be relatively high in order to maintain infrastructure quality. There have been some bad experiences with privatization, in developing countries as well as in wealthy nations such as the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
It is important to draw a distinction. Most countries have not privatized their infrastructures. In France, for example, all infrastructures are municipally owned. However, 70 per cent of services are privately operated.
Virtually the same situation exists in England. The advantage to privatizing a system is gaining the ability to set standards for service quality, performance and budgets.
Perhaps Mr. Proulx would care to say something further since he works in the municipal sector.
Mr. André Proulx, Past President and Member Association Representative, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association: As things now stand in Canada, the operation of approximately 30 per cent of all systems is contracted out. Edmonton, which has a contract with EPCOR Services, is a good example. The Ontario Clean Water Agency oversees most small operations in small Ontario municipalities.
However, as Mr. Ellison pointed out, there have been some problems. Specifically, the City of Hamilton privatized its operations for many years. The infrastructure as such was municipally owned, but owing to problems with the way in which operations were run, the city once again assumed responsibility for infrastructure services.
I believe the problem is related to contracts. When profits can be generated by privatizing operations, the public occasionally has some concerns.
[English]
I want to get to the point where there is a fine line of risk for everything you do. The public sector does not like taking risks because the public does not want the risk to be taken, especially on a health issue, and especially on drinking water. Most publics will tell you, and this is from research, ``Do not take the risk.'' I am not saying that the private sector takes the risk, but there is a perception that the private sector will take a risk when it comes to drinking- water quality.
There are two components to drinking-water quality. There is acute risk, which is immediate: Drink it, get sick and die. Walkerton is a good example. There is also chronic risk, which is long-term by-product formation. The long-term risk is never noticed. Acute risk is noticed immediately.
As Mr. Ellison mentioned, there are excellent guidelines on long-term risk by Health Canada; we have excellent relationships with the provinces and the federal government.
Chronic risk on the municipal side is very rarely taken. They will try to produce the best water quality they can with their budgets and meet the guidelines. The private sector, however, may say: ``If 100 parts per billion of whatever parameter is the standard, and you can get it down to 10, why would we get it down to 10? Let us go to 99. As long as we are meeting the quality standards, we are meeting it.''
I am not saying that the private sector does that. I am simply saying that the opportunity is there to do that, to save money, especially if you are performance based. If you meet your standards, you save money, and you get performance-based pay. Very few in the public sector would ever look at that aspect; they just want to do the right job.
I may come across as being pro-public sector. I am very pro the infrastructure being owned by public sector, absolutely, because with long-term infrastructure, 120 years, you have to maintain that infrastructure year after year. Do not take a chance. A 10-year contract for a private sector, or 20-year contract, may sound like a long contract. When it comes to buried infrastructure, it is not long. If you do not maintain it for 20 years and then you are out, you will not notice the effects for another 50.
There is a very subtle difference that you have to be aware of. As Mr. Ellison said, Ontario produced good legislation in the Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. The issue of having legislation that makes it clear that there should be full cost recovery is very important, whether it be from the tax base or the water base, regardless. If you pay for your water, it should go into water. I think that would be an excellent move across Canada. Ontario started it. They have no regulations on it yet, because they are struggling with it, but it is good legislation. I believe Nova Scotia has good legislation in place as well.
Senator Buchanan: Excellent.
Mr. Proulx: I think Quebec is moving strongly in this regard too, ever since Walkerton. It takes years to get this right. On the privatization, I just wanted to let you know that these are the concerns that come through our organization and through our members. Our members are also private-sector members. We should make it very clear that we are not just public sector. We have EPCOR and the Ontario Clean Water Agency, and I work for the private sector.
Mr. Ellison: I can add one point. It is quite interesting, because in most parts of the world, and certainly in Canada, our health system is essentially governmental. If the municipal water service is municipal, and if there is a problem with it that results in health injuries, the provincially run health services sort of accept that. In the United Kingdom, the health services are still essentially public sector, but the water services are private. Some of the health services are now suing the private water companies to recover the added health costs that have occurred because of health incidents. This is quite interesting, because it has changed the dynamic between the two levels of government and the services. I have asked the British water industry what kind of insurance they carry to pay for the cost of health costs that have to be recovered because of their liability. They are carrying huge liabilities, whereas previously municipalities never had to carry that. Of course, Walkerton has changed that because now we have citizens suing the municipality and the government. It is unknown how this would affect us.
Senator Cochrane: These are serious issues. Personally, I no longer take water from the tap because I think of all the things that may be going through the pipes and into my system; I drink bottled water.
Senator Milne: Most of that comes from a tap.
Senator Cochrane: When I go to the supermarket to buy water, I read the labels: — one type is spring water, another is purified water, and there is another type that I cannot remember right now.
Is there any difference? We have heard from witnesses who have told us that bottled water sometimes comes from a tap. How is a consumer to know which type is best for consumption?
Mr. Ellison: No, simply drink the water from the tap. Seriously, my wife and I were recently in Europe and she asked whether she should drink the local water. I said told her that I could smell chlorine and so it was safe to drink. I am not highly concerned about the chronic risk of cancer after 35 years of drinking possibly excessively chlorinated water. I can get cancer from my diet, from second-hand smoke or I may be genetically disposed to it.
Senator Milne: If you want to get rid of the chlorine, just leave an open jug of water in your refrigerator for a few hours.
Mr. Ellison: I understand the problems that Health Canada has had in terms of determining the qualities of these three kinds of water. Bottled water is a $6-billion per year industry in Canada. Municipal water supplies only receive $4 billion. One 350-millilitre bottle of water costs $1. One could fill 52 such bottles from the tap for the cost of one cent.
Senator Cochrane: It is perception.
Mr. Ellison: It is a personal choice, and I understand that. If you are willing to pay $2,000 per cubic metre of water by buying it in bottles, go ahead.
Senator Cochrane: You make it sound worse than it is.
What can we do to change the attitude of people vis-à-vis wasting water? We waste so much water. Many people let the tap run when they are brushing their teeth, for example. We flush the toilet too often. We put too much water down the sink when we do the dishes or clean up. We use the dishwasher too often. What can we do to change people's attitude about the use of water?
Mr. Proulx: That is a good question. Across Canada, not all municipalities are fully metered. Any utility you pay for, you pay for everything you use, such as hydro and gas, which are fully metered. Many municipalities have full metres, and Ottawa is a good example of that. Most large municipalities across Canada have a metered system. However, if people do not have to pay for everything they use, then they will disregard waste — for example, they will sprinkle their lawns for hours and hours and let a lot of the water sprinkle on the pavement in front of their homes. The first thing is to ensure that people pay for every drop they use and then they will be more accountable in their use of the water.
The big problem is that you do not see many ads for drinking water from the municipalities because they do not have it in their budgets. The public would not be pleased to see tax dollars being spent on a utility ad, but they do not care about such ads by Bell Canada, Rogers, Enbridge or any other utility. It is difficult for the public sector to advertise and so it is usually done by inserts in invoicing envelopes or other mail delivery items. If you want to reduce the use, install metres in every home so that you have a full cost recovery system.
Mr. Ellison: I would like to add to that. Canada has been subject to much criticism because we reputedly have the second highest water consumption in the world, on a per capita basis. Thank goodness the Americans are still worse than we are — so we can take some comfort in that.
Most Europeans state that they use 120 litres per person per day. In Paris or Berlin, most people are living in multi- level apartments that are six stories high. They do not have gardens or swimming pools, nor do they wash their own cars because there is no facility for that. The City of Toronto did a study on water consumption in the downtown core, which is very similar to Europe. If you compare the water consumption of fully urbanized downtown-living Canadians with the typical consumption in Europe, it is very similar. We are not that bad — and there may be some other cultural issues as well. Canadians tend to shower each day. We are not sure that that is a universal habit.
Senator Cochrane: We are too clean.
Mr. Ellison: ``Universal'' meaning ``globally,'' so there are factors behind that. We should also consider that use of water is not necessarily bad. The water goes back to the environment; it is not like it is taken out of the environment and never returned. It is a transitory use. It is similar to saying that joggers use more oxygen than non-joggers. That is because they are running and they are panting. Is it a bad thing that they consume more oxygen? We need to think about that.
If I were in the middle of the desert or in southern Saskatchewan areas where water is in short supply, I would then be concerned about excessive use. Prince Rupert receives 400 inches of rain per year. If people there want to wash their cars three times per week, let them do it. It is that kind of consideration that is needed. We have to be careful of the way in which we judge the use of water.
Senator Cochrane: What percentage of Canadians has a meter installed in their homes?
Mr. Ellison: I believe it is less than 60 per cent. That is largely because the residential parts of Montreal are not metered, although the commercial parts are metered. The Greater Vancouver Regional District and its 23 constituent municipalities are not metered. Edmonton is 100 per cent metered and Calgary is 95 per cent metered. Calgary cannot get that last 5 per cent metered — because of political problems.
Of course, many smaller municipalities are not metered. The issue is the $350 fee to the consumer to install a meter, after which the price of water would go up, and there is no supply problem for many of these smaller towns. There are adequate supplies, although there have been some wonderful case studies coming from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the benefits of metering. However, it still is a very difficult political decision for the elected councillors.
The Chairman: Those small towns also have the deferred maintenance problem they have to deal with. By not internalizing the cost, they are not solving the problem.
Mr. Ellison: Yes, that is true.
The Chairman: Did you say that the Greater Vancouver Regional District is not metered?
Mr. Ellison: Essentially, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia is not metered.
Mr. Proulx: That is residential; all commercial industry is metered.
Senator Lavigne: Montreal is like that.
Senator Buchanan: How do they pay for that?
Mr. Ellison: It is a flat-fee approach — $300 a year or so.
The Chairman: So the two neighbours next to one another, one who waters his lawn every day and the other one who has a concrete front yard, pay the same amount.
Senator Christensen: Just a supplementary to follow on Senator Cochrane's remarks. You said that you did not think more water use was necessarily bad. You used the analogy of the amount of oxygen a runner uses as compared to yourself — that you probably use less oxygen. The water, in fact, does go back into the environment. However, are not the costs of treating that water an important factor? Another factor is the concern, where it is not fully treated, about getting it back into the environment in an unsafe manner?
Mr. Ellison: Yes — and I must try to answer this extremely carefully. The more water that is used, implicitly the more money that is spent on treatment chemicals on the one side and on energy used to pump the water and process the water. However, 80 per cent of the cost of water is fixed. It does not matter how much water is flowing through the pipes; 80 per cent of the cost of that water is fixed.
The reason for that is that the per capita consumption of water in August can be as much as four times the per capita consumption in January, for various reasons. The infrastructure cost to provide the water for that four-times- higher peak load, and everything that goes along with it, relates to the fixed cost of supplying the water.
Admittedly, on the waste-water side, there is more waste water to be collected and treated, but the amount of contaminants is diluted. One of the difficult things is that for a six-litre flushing toilet — which is used to reduce water demand — the contaminants per six litres are the same as per an 18-litre flush.
The Chairman: There is a higher concentration.
Mr. Ellison: The concentration is higher, so the waste-water treatment plants still have the same amount of contaminant to treat — it is just that it is diluted.
Senator Angus: I had originally wanted to get into the privatization aspects of it, but perhaps you have covered part of it. Taking a broad approach to this, I would like to understand in general terms what the issues are. First of all, it sounds like Walkerton was a blessing in disguise, as tragic as it was; it focused us.
Basically, we are very fortunate; we are lucky to be Canadians, to live here. We take a lot of these wonderful natural things for granted. What you are describing, first of all, is the issue of the aging infrastructure — $500 billion to replace it. That is on the one hand. On the other hand, we have the cost of just continuing the supply at the regular rate that we need as consumers, reasonably. We can barely cover those costs, so it seems the big issue is the upgrading, replacement of the infrastructure, or you are going to have that side spoil the other side.
That is where I see a role for what they are now talking about — public-private partnerships, PPPs. I can see why you have a problem, Mr. Proulx, with contracting out on a term basis; it is here today, gone tomorrow. However, in terms of these PPPs — which are being now looked into carefully because the public really cannot afford any more, whether it is health care, and this is almost part of health care, since it is a basic need that we have — have you considered them to perhaps be the solution for the infrastructure replacement?
I see the other problem — the concurrent or overlapping jurisdictions between the federal-provincial and municipal governments. That, in itself, must create a nightmare, just listening to you. Those poor municipalities are barely able to keep ahead of the day-to-day game, let alone the replacement. I am just wondering what you would say about PPPs for dealing with the long term.
Mr. Ellison: The association has a policy statement on PPPs. It is neutral in the sense that it neither advocates nor opposes them. It says that the managers of water and waste-water infrastructures are acting in the public trust; they are responsible for the management of perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of publicly owned capital — the infrastructure itself. They should always be willing to test themselves in the event that any change is required. The question is this: Is it better able to be done directly by municipal public servants working this way or would it be better to go to contract? In fact, no municipality is 100 per cent publicly operated. One of our members, the Halifax Regional Water Commission, makes a claim that it has never owned a backhoe. It has always had PPPs.
Senator Angus: It is publicly financed, though; correct?
Mr. Ellison: Yes, but it has always used private contractors where it is cheaper to do so. The issue is whoever is doing this, whether the source of capital is municipal bonds, federal or provincial subsidies or private capital, the user of the service ends up paying for it anyway. That is the thing.
Senator Angus: You have made it very clear that we are already paying it; it is just that we need a more structured, fairer, user-pay system for the water resource. I get that.
Mr. Ellison: Yes.
Senator Angus: I am more concerned, and I think you have pointed out, that the real issue is not the day to day; apart from getting the cost structure right, it is the replacement and the upgrading of these things that we cannot see. It is the silent service. I get all that; I can see why it is a terrible problem.
Mr. Ellison: I think as we move through time, as Mr. Proulx mentioned, the City of Hamilton went to a PPP arrangement, which turned out to be not a good experience. On the other hand, the City of Moncton has gone to one that seems to be a good experience. However, the contractual relationship evolved between the one and the other.
About 30 per cent of municipalities do not operate their own infrastructure. They own their infrastructure and, increasingly, they are going to contract management of this as well. As this is evolving, we are beginning to get the benchmarks, the performance indicators and the contractual obligations that you would want, so that we can refine these relationships and allow the transition to occur.
The issue comes back to the fact that the citizens of most municipalities, for some reason, want to know that the water pipe in the ground is owned by the city — even though the gas line or the telephone line that comes into their house is owned by some private venture company. We are not sure how we can change that thought.
Senator Angus: I was not aware really, until listening to your interesting evidence and reading some of this material, the extent to which France and the U.K., for example, have gone private. I was like Senator Cochrane — back in the student days when you would travel over there, if you were lucky enough, as I was, you would not dare drink the water. We were told not to drink the water in our hotels or hostels because we would get sick, and we did. Today, I travel fairly regularly in the U.K. and the tap water is like it is here. There must be some evolution that has taken place that has improved the quality, and one common denominator is this privatization.
Mr. Ellison: The common denominator is that governments are now becoming more demanding in water quality verification. In the United Kingdom, for example, legislation requires the private water companies to test, monitor and disclose the results of their testing, but the drinking water inspectorate at the environment ministry also does testing. Their legislation says that, in the event that you and I test on the same day and we get different results, my results are the valid one — the government results. We are seeing that increasingly.
Senator Angus: That improves the quality, as you say.
Mr. Ellison: I know that the Government of France has instituted major water-quality monitoring programs in the last 20 years, and I happen to be a Canadian representative on an ISO committee that is chaired by France. Our French chairman has emphasized the changes that have taken place in France over the last 20 years.
Senator Angus: That is positively.
Mr. Ellison: Positively, in the monitoring. The French have developed performance standards, because most of the municipalities have been wondering whether their contracts with Lyonnaise des eaux or Veolia Water Systems have been well performed. Some municipalities have decided to take the service back and others not. However, the Government of France has developed three standards on the measurement of performance of contracted services: service to the public, operation of a water-supply service, and operation of waste-water service.
In fact, on their initiative, there is now an ISO standard being drafted, and Canada is one of 23 countries participating in that exercise. That will come back to Canada as a document we can look at and reference perhaps as one that help some of these contractual relationships.
Municipalities contract with other municipalities to operate their systems. They contract with provincial government agencies to operate their systems and they contract with private partners, as the City of Moncton has done.
Senator Angus: In that regard, what would you do? I also saw the Ottawa Citizen yesterday. I do not live here, but I have people who work in my office who live here. What does the Mayor of Chelsea, or whatever the municipality, do all of a sudden?
Mr. Proulx: Certainly, when you are on your own well, whether at a cottage or in a home in a small municipality, point-of-use devices work very well, which are treatment units at your own home. From a cost point of view, that would be the least expensive. There are different types of filters. It could be very simple, like a Brita filter for drinking water — and you may feel you are okay to shower or bathe in the water, depending on the contaminant — to a full reverse osmosis system, where everything that comes in is treated completed as if it were a full treatment system in a municipality.
Senator Angus: However, you do not go right to the source.
Mr. Proulx: The right way to do it would be the source, but it is difficult to treat groundwater, unlike a lake or a river that flows and sooner or later will go by.
Mr. Ellison: The other issue is that you should in fact check the quality of the water and then look at the drinking water guidelines. The guideline, for example, may say that it is .2 micrograms per litre. However, the uncertainty factor may be as much as 10.
Senator Angus: Would that be of coliforms?
Mr. Ellison: No, of something like uranium.
Senator Angus: Some noxious mineral you mean?
Mr. Ellison: Yes. Most of these are in fact chronic issues. Thirty-five year's exposure to high uranium levels may result in liver cancer, or an extra death. You would then have to say, well, if they have said that .2 is the guideline but there is an uncertainty factor of 10 on this, it means that you could actually have 20 of those. If your level is coming in at .3, it is above the guideline but is well within that uncertainty range. This is where the difficulty is of making that health risk assessment.
In the United States and in Canada, the arsenic level is likely to drop rather profoundly from 25 micrograms per litre down to 5, so it is going down to one fifth of the previous level.
The Chairman: Is that the allowable amount or the amount that is naturally occurring?
Mr. Ellison: No, the amount that is naturally occurring may be 50, but the latest health risk assessment on the effects of arsenic in terms of being a carcinogen suggests that we should reduce our exposure to it. There are many small municipalities — because arsenic is a groundwater problem, not a surface water problem, particularly towns of 500 or 600 people in the Midwest, with high arsenic levels. The reality is you cannot afford to treat all of the water to reduce the arsenic, so the USEPA is in fact allowing municipalities to install point-of-use devices to reduce the arsenic levels in those 20 litres, not the 2,000 litres but the 20 litres that are actually used for drinking purposes.
However, people have asked why they should spend $10,000 or a $1,000 to do that when they will only be in this community for a limited time and only get one tenth of the 30 years exposure. Someone else might say that it does not matter because they have been drinking the water for 40 years already.
Senator Angus: The immunities have been built up.
The Chairman: There is no immunity to arsenic.
Senator Christensen: You were saying that there are 500,000 kilometres of pipe. Does that include the storm sewers as well as regular sewers and water?
Mr. Ellison: Probably. No one knows how much pipe there is in the ground. There are no national statistics collected on this level of infrastructure, so we have done estimates.
Senator Christensen: I was in municipal politics in an earlier life. In replacing the aging system, because in many of our cities this is a major problem, there is so much leakage from both our sewer and water systems and they are just not meeting the needs. What is the history in Europe, where they have had sewer and water systems for a very long time? How have they met that challenge of replacement?
Mr. Ellison: They have not. They are struggling with it as well. When the British systems were privatized under Prime Minister Thatcher, the big jump in water rates, which was politically very challenging, was simply to play catch- up on the infrastructure. The two countries that claim the lowest loss of water and highest level of infrastructure quality are Holland and Germany, but the rest of Europe is in the same desperate strait as we are, if we are in a desperate strait.
Senator Christensen: They are just a couple hundred years behind us, then.
Mr. Ellison: The tradition has been about 0.6 or 1 per cent of the infrastructure is renewed annually, and that was sort of a 100-year cycle. Some municipalities are now moving to 2 per cent, trying to double their rate of replacement, money allowing.
Senator Christensen: As we have looked at the different materials used in both our water and sewer systems over the years, some municipalities still have wood, then we go to the brick and cement, and then cement fibre pipe, and now we are going to plastic. When we are re-installing and putting in the new plastic, what is the estimated life of that particular system?
Mr. Proulx: On your point on Europe being ahead of us, it is only on the drainage side of it. On the drinking water side, we have all installed pipe at the same time, because drinking water came in around the world all around the same time. The treatment plants are all the same age as well, Europe and Canada.
Senator Christensen: The Romans had aqueducts and things.
Mr. Proulx: They were only sewer lines. It was carrying water. It was not pressurized. The European water systems are all the same age and progressing in the same fashion. The research works well between Europe and North America.
On the question on the plastic pipes, it has been in about 30 years. We do not know how long it will last. Reality is that you do not know until you have to replace it. When it first went in, that was the biggest issue. Many municipalities were delaying putting in plastic piping because they were concerned about how long it would last and whether we would find out in 20 years that we were getting something off the plastic that will be of a chronic health concern to us. We really do not know, and nothing has been pointing toward that at all. It has been shown to this date that it has a very long life. They do try to put extra pressure on it to see how long it lasts before it breaks, but it seems to be working well. That is one of the issues. When we look at a 40- to 80-year lifecycle to the infrastructure, how much money should we put in now to replace it in 10 or 15 or 20 years? We do not know how much money to put in because we do not know how the plastic pipe will last.
Senator Christensen: In our climate, in many places you have frost and freezing in the winter, you are looking at an entirely different situation.
Mr. Proulx: That is a good point. The older infrastructure that was put in from the 1900s to the 1950s had certain standards. Most of them just put the pipe in at a certain level. Yes, we have frost in Canada, and our infrastructure costs more because we are deep. Ottawa is 2.4 metres deep, as a standard, eight feet, to ensure that it goes below the frost level, but probably half of the pipe in Ottawa does not meet that standard. As frost moves, pipes move, crack and break, and that is why we have higher water loss in most municipalities in Canada than in the United States, or certainly Australia, which is three feet deep. They just do it for a load bearing. Our standards changed as we learned along the way. That is the same around the world. Everyone is in the same boat. They put their water mains and sewers too low. Sewers are a different issue, but water mains were certainly too low initially, and now they are bringing them to appropriate standards.
Senator Christensen: What about the cost of plastic? We are looking at plastics and hydrocarbons and the high cost of oil and gas. How is that influencing our infrastructure?
Mr. Proulx: The cost of pipe is not much different than concrete pressure pipe. The benefit of plastic pipe is workability with contractors. It is lighter, and you do not need big equipment to put it in. That is the benefit of it. A few workers can just grab it and start putting it together. There is certainly a savings in that regard. That is why plastic pipe is seen in all water mains, probably up to 400 millimetres, 16 inches in diameter. It does go up to 36 inches in diameter, but it is tough to get a good structural integrity for plastic pipe higher than that. Standards have to be met worldwide before they are accepted, especially on the water quality side of it. Sewers are a bit different. We are not worried about that so much, but for drinking water, plastic pipes have high standards to meet to ensure that nothing can get into the drinking water.
Senator Christensen: What do you see as the next generation of product for water?
Mr. Proulx: I see more point-of-use devices, certainly in the treatment end. There are membranes. Ultraviolet disinfection to reduce by-product formation is really high. Canada is leading the way with these technologies of UV disinfection and membranes. Canada is one of the worldwide leaders on this technology. We have done well in that regard.
Senator Christensen: How do our rates for water in Canada compare to those of other industrialized countries?
Mr. Ellison: It is argued that we pay the second lowest rates in the world. Part of that is because we are not on full- cost recovery, which is perhaps more the situation in some of the European countries.
I have also tried to use the hamburger index. You pay $2.95 for a McDonald's hamburger here, 2.95 pound sterling for hamburger in Britain, and 2.95 euros for hamburgers in France or Spain. The fact that we are paying $1 per cubic metre in bigger cities, and the British are paying 1 pound sterling and the Europeans are paying 1 euro, if you look at those absolutely, yes, we are underpricing, but within our socio-economic context we are probably paying about the going rate. These international comparisons, just converting everything to U.S. dollars, do not take into account the social context, per capita incomes, and things like that.
My wife and I just came back from an ISO meeting in Spain. We were flabbergasted at the cost of living in Spain compared to Canada, so why would our water not be cheaper? We should be proud that it is.
Senator Christensen: What is taking place at the municipal levels in sewer treatment about the concern of drugs getting into our sewage from people taking so many antibiotics and other good things that are supposed to make us live forever?
Mr. Ellison: Two things are happening. The first thing is that Health Canada is really trying to assess the health risk of this. It really is not known, but you have to think that maybe 60 per cent of the drug is metabolized, and the other 40 per cent that passes out is diluted. What you are receiving back is minimal in terms of an approved dosage if you were taking the drug. It may be one billionth of the dosage you would take. Assessing that is one issue.
The other issue is how we treat these things. There is some research going on to see whether treatment technologies perhaps may handle some of these drugs.
The good news is that our problems are minimal compared to what is happening in the Rhine River, where it is said that every litre of water in the river passes through six sets of kidneys before it gets to the North Sea.
Senator Christensen: They say the same about the Thames. We met a girl on the train who worked in the water section of the City of London. She was a biologist, and her job was to test the water. She told us that at least six people drank every glass of water. It was not reassuring.
We are looking at doing a study on water, and it is a huge subject. We are trying to put parameters around this and do a meaningful study. Should we be looking at the security of supply? Should we be looking at transboundary issues? Should we be looking at downstream issues? Should we be looking at global warming issues? Have you any suggestions to us of a nice package that we can get our teeth into and do a good job on?
Mr. Ellison: Yes.
I would like to add something about personal care products and pharmaceuticals. In the assessment of drugs, one of the assessments should be the degree to which it is metabolized by the human body so that in fact it does not become a problem.
Senator Christensen: With age, one metabolizes less.
Mr. Ellison: The dosage and frequency has an effect. Health Canada has to look at drug use. For example, pesticides must biodegrade within three days of their application. We do not do that for drugs, so they are long-lasting. It is difficult not to advocate vulnerability and security of water supply as a topic that should be looked at. Certainly, in the United States and in some European nations, terrorism vis-à-vis water vulnerability is a major concern. That probably merits looking at.
However, the issue the committee should be focusing on is that of infrastructure, maintenance, pricing structure, et cetera. We need to get the valuation and pricing right, and we need citizens to appreciate each litre of water and realize that it is very valuable to humans because they cannot live without it. We can live without food for a number of days but we cannot live without water. We need to consider that kind socio-economic infrastructure. Generally, we do not have the supply problems that they have in the Prairies, which is another issue. Rather, the problems are infrastructure and treatment issues. Have we the best infrastructure and the best treatment systems? What research is needed to enable us to improve the infrastructure?
My paper spoke briefly to the innovation of trench-less technology, which has reduced the cost of rehabilitation of water mains. That is the kind of thing that we need to do to make the most cost-effective use of our resources.
Senator Milne: Most of the questions have been asked but I have a few things to add. First, speaking of bottled water, I know at least one company that takes it straight from the traps of Bolton, Ontario. They used to label it as spring water but I do not know what they label it as now. Bolton now gets its water from Lake Ontario, so those bottles contain municipally treated Lake Ontario water. It is a waste of money.
Second, since the events at Walkerton, Ontario, there have been not only many provincially legislated new regimes in water treatment but also municipally legislated. My husband is in charge of water-quality testing at the Brampton Fall Fair Grounds. It is municipally treated water. He has to have that water treated each week, in addition to whatever testing the municipality is doing, plus they have ultraviolet treatment. In some cases, the province has bent over backwards since Walkerton and that has increased the costs of water treatment throughout Ontario.
I am speaking personally, so I will continue in that vein. Right now, my daughter is visiting from Calgary and my grandchildren are in Calgary drinking Calgary water. Their water is not metered and its source is the snow melt in the mountains. These cities out West are growing exponentially and they have enormous infrastructure costs. It is newer infrastructure, but because their houses are so much farther apart, their costs are greater. There is increasing demand and decreasing supply in many western cities. What do you see down the road, from the point of view of the CWWA, in dealing with this problem, which will have to be dealt with?
Mr. Ellison: The association has a very active conservation committee that looks at all forms of water demand management and the techniques that can be used to control the demand, which may be pricing, or irrigation bans, or the use of six-litre toilets. In fact, the Region of Waterloo has just recently published a study on spray valves on dishwashers. The study recommends that the municipality give away these things because there is an 18-month payback for the investment in doing that.
This will be a major issue for the future for many cities, for two reasons: First, it may be that the water source is being stretched; and second, the City of Toronto is in a conservation mode because, by spending $75 million to subsidize toilet exchange, they can avoid over $200 million of infrastructure expansion, such as bigger pipes. Obviously, if you can get per capita consumption down by 15 per cent, then you can serve 15 per cent more people without changing the pipes. That will be an issue, and that may be a feature for this committee. I talked about cost- effective infrastructure and treatment programs, which we need.
The other thing we will have to think about is drinking our own waste. In any arid regions of the United States, we are seeing that reclaimed water — treated waste water — is becoming the source for our drinking water supplies. Certainly, the capability exists to do that. Many cities are discharging water of higher quality into a river of lesser quality. They should be able to pipe that water directly into the inlet pipes at the drinking water treatment plant on the basis that it is cleaner than the river is. The City of Saskatoon at one time said to me that they would like their effluent pipe to become the drinking water influent pipe because it would save money.
That is a difficult thing to sell, all round. Let us look at this: In Windhoek, Namibia, 20 per cent of its drinking water source is the waste water. Singapore now has a ``manufactured'' water plant that currently supplies 2 per cent of Singapore's water needs from waste water — and within the next 10 years, it will go to 20 per cent.
The technology exists. The Disaster Assistance Relief Team, DART, that went to Sri Lanka can take any water and make it crystal clear for drinking purposes; we have the technology.
Mr. Proulx: In North America, it is used a lot but not for drinking water. Because irrigation is such a big use of the water supply, the grey water could easily be used for irrigation if a piping system were installed. It is used extensively in California. In that scenario, it is not going directly into the drinking water supply. It is going into the food chain, but you make sure you treat it. It is used for golf courses and for many farming aspects. It is beneficial, in that many nutrients go back into the soil under such a system.
Mr. Ellison: All of the wastewater in Moose Jaw is used for irrigation.
Senator Buchanan: What about ocean water?
Mr. Ellison: Fortunately, we do not need to do anything with it, but countries like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates routinely desalinate water using reverse osmosis and microfiltration systems from Zenon in Canada.
Mr. Proulx: It is very expensive energy, though. That is the only reason; it is so high in cost to desalinate, because of the molecule side. Bacteria are a lot bigger, so it is easier to remove bacteria than it is to desalinate.
Senator Milne: Speaking of removing metals and such from water, if you have a cottage on the Canadian Shield, where your drinking water from a well does not go through limestone, you are getting uranium. There is just no doubt about it.
It would be valuable to this committee, if you have any facts or figures or rating on your 200 members, rating them on the source of their water, on the two types of treatment of water — from source to tap and then tap to source again — and on disposal water and volume that they deal with. If you have any sort of rating of your members, we would appreciate getting that for the use of the committee.
Mr. Ellison: We do not have that but we can certainly ask for it. There are some nationally available statistics, I think, from Environment Canada. They have what is called the MUD database, which is a survey done every two years of all municipalities above 1,500 population that speaks to those things. You could inquire of Environment Canada to have some information on what they have collected.
Senator Milne: I know the City of Toronto treats all of its sewage, but what stage of treatment and what percentage of its sewage goes through that treatment? The City of Montreal used to pour it directly into the river, but now I understand they do treat some of it. Of course, our port cities still put it out in the ocean.
Ms. Catherine Jefferson, Director of Government Relations, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association: As Mr. Ellison indicated, there is the MUD database through Environment Canada that can help with that kind of information. There are a few others sources as well, so I am sure we can get some information together that would help you with that.
Senator Christensen: Are any of the territories members?
Mr. Ellison: Yes, all of them.
The Chairman: If we are going to get information from Environment Canada, we should probably not ask you to do that for us.
Senator Adams: I am from Rankin Inlet, in Nunavut. We have only two communities with a water sewage system in Nunavut — one in Rankin Inlet and one in Iqaluit. At the beginning, when those plastic pipes — PVC — came out in Canada, I was an electrician and hooked quite a few heat devices on to those pipes. We found out that the pipe was not flexible. The equipment picked it up and bent it and broke some of the heating stuff. We changed it once we found that out.
My concerns are mostly about the systems we have in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. Our pipes have to be run in the loop system and we cannot stop it. As soon as it stops maybe two or three hours, the whole thing freezes. The people in the community like to have running water.
A lot of the local people cannot drink the tap water because it has too much chlorination. They do not like tap water to make tea. The elders only make tea with ice from the lake. In the summertime, people take pails and go to the river for water to make tea, and it is okay.
In 24 of the communities, they have fibreglass or plastic tanks for the water system, and they have been there for a long time. I never really questioned it. After those tanks have been there for so many years, I wonder if the water is still safe in them for people to use. Would there be chemicals leaking from the fibreglass or plastic after a long time? I do not know if anybody has tested these kinds of systems or not.
A lot of Inuit are concerned about the safety of their water. We have so much cancer in the community. They wonder what is causing it — people are concerned about it in the community. Maybe it is a sickness that has nothing to do with the water; we do not know.
Public Works used to look after everything in the community at one time. When hamlets formed — it came out very good. I am one of those who started off with the hamlet in Rankin Inlet in 1970. Before that, it was just a little community council and we could not get any budget or anything from the government to try to run the community. That was very typical at one time.
Around 1965 or 1968, we used to run bath houses because we had no running water. People did not have bathrooms in the community in the old days, and now it has changed. You have a water pump system in every house.
In the meantime, people have now gotten into privatization, and we have to pay for the water. There is supposed to be clean water in the Arctic, but we are still concerned about the water system in the community, about what is best thing to do. Some people who live close to the lake, and some who live out maybe three or four miles, fill up the water truck. If there is a storm, they have to wait for a snowplough to get to the lake. It is not like the city, where your water stops if the power goes off. Up there, it is a little different.
I do not know if you have an answer or not. We do not worry too much, but I am concerned about those water tanks and the water pressure system in the community.
Mr. Ellison: I think there are some answers for this. They may be costly and they may involve changing one's social expectations.
For example, I have often wondered why in Arctic communities or remote communities we still use water as a means of dealing with toilets. The Swedes have gone a long way with electric toilets, and reliable electricity is relatively easy to generate in the North, I think. You use the toilet, you push a button and heat burns and evaporates the waste. Once a month, you just empty a tray with some little grey cinders on it. That may be better than trying to use 6 or 10 litres of water every time to flush it and then have to treat it.
It seems sad to me that sometimes we have tried to move Toronto to the remote area and use the conventional technology instead of looking for non-conventional technologies that may provide the same level of service. I know that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has done a lot of research on on-site treatment of waste and recycling. There are some houses now, through the Nunavut and Northwest Territories housing departments, that are recycling all of this.
It may be costly, because it is different technology. It may require a higher level of maintenance than simply having the city do it for you; but then there may be ways of doing that. I know that some of our First Nation communities in northern Saskatchewan have developed innovative ways of operating through what they call circuit rider programs, where they have specialized people travel into the community and members of the community assume responsibilities for doing things. If you were to have on-site recycling and reuse of water, you would need specialists within the community that would help the owner of the building, or the resident, to do that. It would not be a case of saying, well, you should be changing this filter every three weeks — they would come in and do it for them.
Wakefield, for example, is now speaking about mandatory inspections of septic tanks and mandatory pumping instead of just leaving it up to the homeowner, who notoriously will not do anything about it. Therefore, we may need to think about innovative technologies and social practices, and just as we have a dog catcher we would have a drinking-water filter changer employed by the municipality and you pay for it.
The technology is there, and we see this. Look around the world and you find that southern Australia now has mandatory rainwater harvesting systems on houses, but not a good solution in the Arctic, I agree. The Caribbean has been doing this for years and yet we have scoffed at it. Why?
Senator Angus: Because we had so much.
Mr. Ellison: Yes, but there are lessons to be learned.
Senator Christensen: We used to do it. We always had big rain barrels for washing clothes, washing your hair and washing the dishes. We always got our drinking water from a little pump, but we always had these big rain barrels for grey water use.
Senator Adams: In relation to the electric toilets, in some communities in the North they do not have enough of them and they can only be used on a limited basis each day. In some houses, there are problems of overflowing. Also, there are chemicals associated with them and there is concern about the evaporation rates. We have looked at this issue and there are problems, especially in large families where two generations occupy one household. One friend of mine, who does not have a water and sewer system hook-up yet, is on a water fill-up system and gets 500 gallons at a time because he has to fill up twice a day with 14 kids in his house.
Mr. Ellison: Environment Canada has the Wastewater Technology Centre in Burlington, which is doing research on waste-water treatment technologies, and they have done a lot of work on small systems that may be appropriate.
Senator Adams: You mentioned Sweden. We looked at some of their ideas, with the vacuum systems and the sewer systems. Some people who are living in the northern communities now are asking the government to start developing new systems for the future. The situation up North is not the same as in the South. The presence of permafrost makes it costly to build water and sewage systems in our communities.
The Chairman: Senators, I have a couple of quick questions. I would ask, before we stop, if we come up with some other questions later I hope you would agree that we can send you some and hope for a reply when it is possible.
Mr. Ellison: Yes.
The Chairman: Mr. Proulx referred to a double piping system. One of the difficulties, it seems to us, is that right now, with your average municipal water system, we are treating all of the water to the highest standard, including the water that we use for flushing toilets and washing cars and doing our lawns, and that really is a paragon of inefficiency, is it not?
Mr. Proulx: It may come across that way but, as Mr. Ellison pointed out, it is very difficult to get across that with respect to the cost of water, 80 per cent is fixed, and the reason it is fixed is because of the infrastructure. The cost of repair and replacement and maintenance on the infrastructure is where the 80 per cent comes in, which is most of that money. Most of it, believe it or not, is in the buried pipe. If you are going to add another system of buried pipes there is a huge cost component.
This has been looked at over and over again, the cost of actually treating the water to drinking water standards when only maybe 5 per cent is used for consumption, which is what it comes down to. You are only drinking 5 per cent of the water that is treated. We can argue about using water for showers and how that impacts you, as well. However, just from the drinking point, only 5 per cent is used for consumption.
Hence, you are treating all this drinking water so why not dual pipe it and only have 5 per cent treated to that standard and the other just treated to a minor extent, to make sure it does not corrode the pipes. We can use it for fire protection, lawn watering, everything else. However, because of the 80 per cent cost you probably added 50 per cent of overall cost and yet you are only increasing treatment, so that is the reason.
The Chairman: That is true, provided you have the water.
Mr. Proulx: Exactly, you are absolutely right.
The Chairman: In the West, with the problem Senator Milne referred to, we do not have water. I was not thinking of parallel mains. I was thinking of in my house having a means by which the water that I use for my shower is kept someplace and then used to flush my toilets. I was thinking to internal, closer to the point of use.
Mr. Ellison: I should add that the association has joined forces with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and we have now persuaded the Canadian Standards Association to develop a standard for non-potable water systems that would respond exactly to that situation. Currently, the plumbing code does not allow this. Whether you could collect rainwater or shower water, put it into a separate system and use it to flush toilets — the concept is well known — it is just not legal in Canada, so we have to start doing that.
Health Canada are doing some work on lesser quality standards, vis-à-vis non-potable water for toilet flushing. You still would want it to meet certain quality standards. It is being looked at and we could perhaps make a presentation at some time to you on that. There are some municipalities — Vernon, British Columbia — that are already distributing treated wastewater for external uses in the house, so there are two pipes going in, but this is only on new subdivisions.
Several other countries, like in a Namibia and Australia, are redistributing treated waste waters for those uses. One hundred per cent of the waste water in Orange County, Florida, is distributed for irrigation purposes, including to the orange groves, but also to 1,700 or 1,800 houses that are connected to the system.
The concept is well understood. It is a bit of a question of economics and it is also a question of public perception.
The Chairman: Obviously, it is easier to do it in a new subdivision than an old one.
I have one final question because I know this is going to come up. Specifically, with the cities of Halifax and Victoria, which have a disproportionate cost if they are going to go beyond primary or secondary treatment levels in their effluent going out into the ocean, does the federal government have a role there? How is that going to be addressed? It is a perceived problem and it is becoming a real problem.
Mr. Ellison: I think the decision has to be based on science, if it can. That really means that you have to do an aquatic environmental impact assessment. Is the discharge of the untreated wastewater in this circumstance causing a problem? If it is, then I think you have to fix it. We do know from some of the maritime coastal communities that there are problems with the fishery industry from that and that that is being done.
The Chairman: You also cannot swim in it.
Mr. Ellison: Yes, that is true. Is there a role for the federal government? Through the Fisheries Act, there may be a role of protecting the fishery. Is there a funding role to it?
Senator Buchanan: Oh, yes.
Mr. Ellison: Well, the issue is, with the City of Calgary —
Senator Buchanan: Back in 1986 or 1987, there was $100 million. The province was to pay $30 million, and the feds $70 million. That money is all gone, and now they have just signed another agreement for $400 million. The project is now under way, but there is a lot of federal money in there.
Mr. Ellison: On the other hand, our the people serving on our board of directors come from cities across the country. How would Winnipeg feel if Victoria got a free waste-water treatment plant when their citizens have had to pay for this? This is an equity issue. We understand that there are small communities that cannot generate the capital to pay for this cost, but that comes down to the infrastructure funding problem and the equity issue. It is a very delicate subject, I agree.
Senator Buchanan: There is more than Halifax. The coastal communities are all in the same boat.
The Chairman: We must, sadly, stop. This has been very informative to us. The information you have given us has been very useful. I suspect that we may want to hear from you again, and I hope you would agree to that. We will likely send you some questions and ask for more information. Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.