Ontario: Bottled water fees too low say critics

Posted April 4, 2007 in [Water]

Toronto Star

Environmentalists: Proposed levy of $3.71 per million litres won't promote conservation

Kerry Gillespie, Catherine Porter, The Toronto Star - Charging water bottlers, canning companies and other heavy commercial water users $3.71 per million litres isn't enough to force them to conserve the precious resource, environmentalists say.

"It's not going to have a huge impact in terms of actually resulting in water conservation," Canadian Environmental Law Association's executive director Ramani Nadarajah said, adding the United Kingdom charges $250 for a million litres of water.

The figure - floated in a provincial discussion paper released yesterday alongside new provincial water protection legislation - is open to debate and could change during the public process.

But it can't be increased to the point where the province raises more money than it needs to cover related costs, said Theresa McClenaghan, a policy adviser in the environment minister's office.

Because the province doesn't actually own Ontario's water - it simply manages it for everyone - it can't charge a royalty, she said.

The proposed fee, to take effect in 2009, would cover a portion of the costs of programs to manage water for the environmental, social and economic benefit of Ontarians. Once it's fully phased in, it is expected to provide $18 million a year.

Opposition parties said the announcement about charging heavy users of water - years from now - was just the latest hastily put together Liberal announcement designed to make them look good before the provincial election in October.

In the 2003 election, the Liberals promised to "stop allowing companies to raid our precious water supplies," and now they are scrambling to get something in place before the next election campaign, critics charged.

Every year the beverage and canning industries, and producers of other products like ready-mix cement, take more than 500 billion litres of water out of Ontario's lakes, springs and rivers. That's enough water to fill 200,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

It's time for those industries to start paying for water, said Environment Minister Laurel Broten.

"We believe that the businesses that benefit from using the province's water resources should contribute their fair share toward the costs of managing it," Broten said in the Legislature when she introduced legislation to safeguard and sustain Ontario's water.

The act gives the province the power, for the first time, to levy a charge on commercial water users and puts into place an agreement with Quebec and eight U.S. states to better protect water in the Great Lakes.

Not everyone agrees.

"The government is sending the wrong message - that bottled water is here to stay," said Susan Howatt, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians.

For example, the Ontario government signed a permit with Aquafarms - a local bottled water company - to take 11.9 billion litres of water over 10 years. Under the proposed fee, they would owe $44,149.

For now, the province is targeting users with the highest consumption. In the future - there's no schedule of when - the province will charge medium- and low-level users, such as golf courses, mining operations and nuclear power plants.

Water for residential and agricultural practices won't be affected.