Cathy McGregor, BC's Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, spoke out boldly at the British Columbia Water & Waste Association meeting in Victoria. She said that in 1996, in its first public status report on the quality of BC waters, her ministry reported on 124 bodies of water throughout the province that were analyzed on the basis of expected water quality problems.

"While water quality in 55 of the water bodies was in the good or excellent categories, 60 rated only as fair and 11 were identified as borderline or poor ­ and that's eleven too many. Apart from that, who in British Columbia wants their water supply to be in only "fair" condition?" she demanded.

She was critical of water quality management which focussed on the control of "end-of-pipe" industrial pollution from obvious, identifiable pollution sources. Waste permits were, and continue to be, issued to allow a specified amount of discharge from factories and sewage outfalls to flow into receiving waters and to be diluted to levels that are hoped to be harmless, she noted.

Frank Belfry, outgoing BCW&WA president, and Cathy McGregor, Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks. Photo - Penny Davey

"While this is one way of helping to protect water quality, we can't afford to let it be our only approach. It's too reactive and piecemeal. It's limited by what the technology of the day can offer. And it does not encompass all the causes of water pollution.

"We now recognize the need to shift away from this reactive, end-of-pipe style of regulation towards broader, proactive, ecosystem-based approaches, where airsheds and watersheds become management units for planning and decision-making, and where interactions among the parts of ecosystems, including environmental, economic and social connections, are considered.

"We know today that we must emphasize pollution prevention ahead of after-the-fact pollution control if we are serious about avoiding the economic and social costs of poor water quality. The cumulative impacts and carrying capacity of the receiving environment are critical factors," she stressed.

She said we must accelerate our efforts to deal with pollution from non-point sources such as farmer's fields, active or discontinued logging, septic tanks, home gardens and city streets.

"Non point-source water pollution is largely unregulated because of the inherent difficulty of trying to control so many sources of pollution over a dispersed area. The finger cannot be pointed at anybody in particular because we're all responsible," she stressed.

"Time and time again, fish have served as barometers of the health of the environment as a whole, and a critical measure of our ability to manage water wisely.

"For that reason, fish health and fisheries values have been, and will continue to be at the centre of our environmental and resource management strategies ­ whether we are dealing with pulp mill pollution, power production, forest practices, mining, agriculture, or the impacts of urban growth," she said.

The minister said that stormwater runoff was the cause of some of the most horrendous fish habitat impacts ­ both chronic and catastrophic ­ in our urban areas.

"In the Greater Vancouver Regional District, for example, there are an estimated 1,750 stormwater outfalls, and over half of them discharge directly into fish-bearing waters. Ordinary citizens contribute to polluted runoff in many ways, often without even realizing it, while industrial and commercial businesses contribute through a multiplicity of accidental spills and leaks and through the use of potentially toxic compounds."

She acknowledged that many industries were required, by their waste management permits, to collect, monitor, or treat stormwater, but uncontrolled runoff from some industries remains a significant problem, as often these wastes end up in our rivers, lakes or the ocean.

"Upgrading of municipal sewage treatment is a continuing priority even as we move from an end-of-pipe focus toward a far broader program of pollution prevention. There are still too many municipal discharges appearing on the twice-yearly non-compliance list," she noted.

She pointed out the mounting concern over sewage discharges from boats ­ recreational as well as commercial ­ as more and more people take to the water around the Gulf Islands. This trend also affects the quality of freshwater in many of our interior lakes. However, the regulation that prohibits boats from dumping sewage into sensitive waters is administered by the federal government ­ and at present only three interior lakes, and no marine areas, are protected in BC.

"We have asked Transport Canada to protect an additional 50 bodies of water in British Columbia. The expanded list will include many of the popular recreational boating harbours in the Strait of Georgia, as well as key lakes from the Lower Mainland through to the Kootenays.

"The common denominator of our strategy is stewardship. Everyone benefits from abundant supplies of clean water ­ and everyone has a part to play in the solutions."