Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada), June 20, 2007

PROVINCE ISN'T DOING ENOUGH TO PROTECT WATER: NDP LEADER

[Rachel's introduction: A New Democratic Party (NDP) leader calls for precautionary policies to protect Canada's water.]

By Rob O'flanagan

Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton was in Guelph yesterday talking about water resources.

Water is a finite resource that must be carefully conserved, says provincial NDP Leader Howard Hampton, who stood near the rippling Speed River in Guelph yesterday and assumed the stance of guardian of the province's precious H2O.

Flanked by Guelph's federal New Democrat candidate Tom King and Wellington Water Watchers' activist James Gordon, Hampton said the Liberal government is not observing a "precautionary principle" to protect and sustain water, allowing it to be bottled and sold by private companies, and potentially exported to the United States.

Strong regulations are needed to protect the vulnerable resource, he said. Hampton said a major population surge projected for Guelph will put water resources under increasing pressure.

Allowing a major international company like Nestle to drain off local water is a mistake, Hampton said. Nestle Waters Canada has a major water bottling operation in Aberfoyle.

Global warming, Hampton added, will have a significant impact on the quantity and quality of our water. Hampton said that before the 2003 election, McGuinty asserted taking water for commercial purposes should be limited.

The government recently brought in the Safeguarding and Sustaining Ontario's Water Act, intended to strengthen the management, protection and conservation of Ontario's water resources.

But Hampton said the legislation is toothless.

"While the rhetoric of the legislation is all high sounding and has all of the right buzz words in it, when you actually look at the legal standards in the legislation and the legal requirements in the legislation, they are very lax," he said.

There is nothing in the legislation to prevent a large private company from taking large quantities of water from local aquifers or from transferring water out of the Great Lakes, he said.

The issue is relevant to Guelph, he said, because Nestle recently applied to renew its permit to take nearly 3.6 million litres of water out of wells in Aberfoyle daily for the next five years.

"This all comes to roost here in Guelph because you have a very large transnational corporation, Nestle, which wants to get a permit to take very large amounts of water from one of the local aquifers," Hampton said.

"Many of the people who are sounding the warning about global warning are saying that part of global warming is you cannot take your water supplies for granted," he added. "In the longer term, areas in southern Ontario may have less water than we have traditionally had, and we may go through periods of very serious drought."

King called water a "precious resource." Letting a company pump water is "just plain nuts," he said, urging consumers to stop buying bottled water.

King and James Gordon agreed water coming out of Guelph's taps is of excellent quality, and said there is no need to purchase bottled water.

"I think the days of bottled water has come and gone," Gordon said, adding the public has put its trust in the government to protect and preserve our water supply, but the government does not have firm strategies in place to do so.

roflanagan@guelphmercury.com

Copyright 2007