If we want clean water, we must pay for it
(The Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario
August 13, 2001)

As the pipes crumble and leak, Toronto is faced with an expensive water and sewer problem. The latest attempt to find an affordable way to fix it surfaced this month in the form of a controversial proposal to establish an independent commission to own and operate the city’s water and wastewater infrastructure. This follows a Toronto council decision last year to phase out flat-rate water bills in favour of metered water that brings bills into line with actual use. Even when fully metered, Toronto water users won’t be paying enough to maintain the system optimally.

Toronto is wrestling uncomfortably with a situation that is ignored at tits residents’ peril. As recent headlines from Walkerton and North Battleford attest, Toronto is not alone. Much of the country has relied too long on our abundant sources of fresh water, which were used and disposed of wastefully and in tremendous volumes. It doesn’t make environmental sense and it doesn’t make economic sense.

Even as we opened the taps and left the room, we ignored the condition of the equipment that treats and pipes that deliver the water. For three decades, Canadians made minimal investment in new treatment facilities, technologies and management. Some communities are still using systems that predate Confederation.

The result is that many Canadians now face a crisis in their water and sewage systems.

Walkerton, where seven residents died last year and thousands were made ill, was only the most tragic manifestation of a nation-wide problem of inadequate drinking water. In North Battleford, Sask. hundreds fell ill from drinking water contaminated with cryptosporidium. North Battleford wasn’t equipped with the special filtration system needed to eliminate this chlorine-resistant microbe. And although their water sources make the presence of cryptosporidium unlikely, neither Vancouver nor Winnipeg, two big cities that rely on primitive water treatment systems, would protect residents from that same contamination.

From sea to sea, Canadian municipalities impose boil water advisories each year. In St. John’s and nearly one-third of the communities of Newfoundland, in Charlottetown and dozens of British Columbia towns, and more than 200 locations last year in Quebec, that quintessentially Canadian resource – clean water – has been found tainted or even toxic.

Elsewhere; the stove-top pots aren’t boiling yet, but the plants and pipes that deliver clean water and treat sewage are deteriorating while local councils fret: Where will we find the massive investment capital needed to upgrade our systems?

It ‘s a real worry. The costs of essential repairs and expansion in this decade are estimated by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy at $38 billion to $49 billion. For many municipalities financially battered by downloading, the cost of responding has been intimidating, if not paralyzing.

This financial reality was set out five years ago by the Round Table, which even then charted the severe deterioration of infrastructure due to under funding since the 1970s.

The Round Table report confirmed that Canada has the lowest consumer prices in the world for water. Most Canadian municipalities subsidized 50 per cent of consumers’ cost of water and wastewater services. Nearly two-thirds of Canadian homes did not have a water meter and were simply charged a flat rate regardless of usage. The report predicted “the health of the country’s water resources will suffer” if new financial arrangements were not adopted quickly.

That was five years ago and the results of inaction are seen today in the contamination incidents and the clamour of municipal and provincial officials for federal financial assistance. But the answer may lie closer to home.

It is time to recognize that clean water is a much more valuable commodity than previously appreciated and that we should price it accordingly.

Two positives will flow from this turnabout in attitude. First, full-cost pricing will provide revenues to help maintain the water infrastructure. Second, full-cost pricing will discourage people and businesses from wasting water. Canadians now drink about 200 million litres of water per day and go through another 19 billion litres daily for other purposes – the second-highest per capita users in the world.

Full-cost water will mean higher prices. But these are real prices that we have been avoiding. What we’ve saved in water and sewer rates, we’ve been paying in deterioration of a basic municipal service – clean water – and in ill health and worse.

Competence and cost are the challenges. It is essential to acknowledge that the cash flow demands of Canada’s water infrastructure are so high that many municipalities will have to invite the participation of the private sector.

Government regulation and private sector entrepreneurship could together meet these challenges, and restore our water systems to an even, clean flow.

“From sea to sea to sea, Canadian municipalities impose boil-water advisories each year.”

David J. McGuinty is President and CEO of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

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