Was President Eisenhower the godfather of the Ontario Ministry of Environment?

By Tom Davey

Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1953, Vincent Massey, then the Canadian Governor General, invited Ontario Premier, Leslie Frost and his wife to a small, informal dinner at Government House in honour of US President Eisenhower. A chance remark at this small gathering was to profoundly affect water resource management in Ontario. The evening was recounted in a Toronto Star series The Tory Years, written by Jack Cahill. Premier Frost recalled it was also Mrs. Eisenhower's birthday and the small group sang "Happy Birthday Mamie".

President Eisenhower took the Premier by the shoulder and told him: "You really should remember this, that really pure water is one of your greatest assets. But when you've got a lot of it, you don't think about it. We have ruined ours in the States with our growth of population so that the great beautiful rivers that flow into the Atlantic and down through the Mississippi Valley and so on are contaminated. You have a great country with great possibilities so don't let them ruin your water."

That night Premier Frost conceived the idea of the Ontario Water Resources Commission (OWRC)." However, such an organization had also long been the dream of Dr. Albert Berry who had already been working tirelessly behind the scenes to improve public health and environmental facilities.

At a meeting on November 15, 1955, consideration was given to the provision of sewerage systems in conjunction with water supply systems. Dr. Berry remarked that the cost of a sewage treatment system might be so high that the possibility of a waterworks system might not be favoured by many municipalities. However, he said, the two could not be disassociated. He suggested it would be the responsibility of the Committee to make sure that adequate sewerage facilities were installed by municipalities obtaining new water supplies.

Dr. Berry was to build the OWRC into one of the most effective environmental government bodies in the world, and a firm foundation for the subsequent Ontario Ministry of Environment. His leadership as Chief Engineer was internationally recognized by Americans who voted him President of the AWWA and the WEF. In Rome, Europeans too, were impressed.

I was privileged to participate in a five-day meeting in Rome, sponsored by the World Health Organization, the EU and the Italian government. During the discussions, I outlined the scale of environmental infrastructure undertaken and completed under Dr. Berry's leadership. Academics and other specialists from the USA, Australia, England, the EU and what was then the Soviet Bloc, all were vastly impressed by the OWRC's environmental construction record in the two decades following the formation of the Commission which later evolved into the Ontario Ministry of Environment. Unquestionably, he was the driving force behind this record.

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International Workshop at the Instituto Superiore di Sanita, Rome, November 1982. The convenors, WHO, EU and the Italian government, invited scientists and specialists from Europe, Asia, North America, Australia and the former Soviet Bloc to present papers and discuss various scenarios and options over a five-day period. This group was impressed by the sheer scale of water and wastewater infrastructure initiated by the OWRC over a 25-year period. Using private sector consulting engineers and suppliers, working with senior engineers and chemists from the OWRC, the scale and speed of the construction of both water and wastewater treatment plants was unprecedented. The author is second from left.