Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - September 2003
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Environmental News - September 2003

Stricter standards for water testing labs

Effective October 1, 2003, Ontario will be the first province in Canada to make licensing for drinking water testing mandatory. The Drinking Water Testing Services Regulation, created under the Safe Drinking Water Act, became law on June 16, 2003.

The new regulation requires private, municipal or provincial laboratories to fulfill certain needs before they can conduct drinking water testing on samples collected from any water system in the province, including private wells. In addition, for the first time in Ontario’s history, laboratories will be subject to random visits by ministry inspectors.

New guidelines for agricultural odours

Quebec’s Ministry of the Environment has published Guidelines respecting odours caused by manure from agricultural activities. The purpose is to establish a procedure for determining separation distances which will facilitate a harmonious co-existence of uses in agricultural zones.

Winnipeg's wastewater collection and treatment systems evaluated

The Manitoba government has received the final report on the Clean Environment Commission’s review of the City of Winnipeg’s wastewater systems.

Recommendations in the report include: Immediately following last year’s incident at the North Winnipeg Water Pollution Control Centre, the province took action in several areas such as:

John Meunier Products receives contract for Chinese wastewater plant

USFilter John Meunier Products received a $6.6 million (US) contract to provide equipment, processes and services to the Xinxiang Wastewater Treatment Company Ltd. in Xinxiang, Henan Province, China. The China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation purchased the equipment and services for the Xinxiang Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has an average flow of 150,000 m3/d.

John Meunier Products will provide technology for the inlet and outlet pumping stations, headworks, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus removal, clarification, sludge pumping and dewatering, and instrumentation and controls. Services to be provided include design engineering, design liaison meetings in China and Canada, and supervision and training. Commissioning and training is scheduled for November 2003.

Contact: pdecubellis@johnmeunier.com.

Feds consider lower arsenic limit for drinking water

Health Canada is reviewing the acceptable limit for arsenic in drinking water, but officials don’t yet know how much the change will cost. The current maximum guideline is 25 parts per billion; the level could fall to 10 parts per billion or lower. (One part per billion is like a drop of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool.)

Ottawa said it wants to change the guideline since the technology to filter more arsenic out of drinking water has improved.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, consuming 50 parts per billion or more of arsenic over a lifetime may increase the risk of getting cancer. It is reducing the limit from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion by 2006. It will cost about $250 million to make the change in the US.

Health Canada is not yet sure how much this change will cost in Canada. Before it goes ahead, the department plans to consult with provincial governments, who will be responsible for enforcing the new guidelines.

New federal tetrachloroethylene regs

Regulations to reduce releases of tetrachloroethylene to the environment from dry-cleaning facilities have been announced. These reductions will be attained by requiring newer, more efficient dry-cleaning machines; by minimizing spills of tetracholorethylene, and by managing the collection and disposal of residues and wastewater.

The reporting provisions in these Regulations apply to persons who import or recycle tetrachloroethylene for any use and also to persons who sell tetrachloroethylene to dry-cleaners, and to dry-cleaning facilities. The provisions are harmonized as much as possible with the Solvent Degreasing Regulations. Persons with a diverse commercial market will thereby avoid the inconvenience of reporting their tetrachloroethylene quantities separately, under two related federal regulations, to Environment Canada.

Tetrachloroethylene has been detected in some groundwater sources of drinking water, and these regulations will provide for source protection of these drinking water supplies.

Alberta announces its newest mercury collection program

The government of Alberta’s new collection program should help keep mercury from entering the environment by removing mercury switches from vehicles as they are recycled at Alberta scrap yards.

“Switch Out”, a national, awardwinning program dedicated to the safe removal and storage of mercury switches, will work through its Alberta partners to remove approximately 40 kilograms of mercury - or about 8,000 switches - from Alberta's waste stream this year.

Alberta is one of the only provinces, along with Ontario, to adopt this program. Included in the joint provincial/national program is Alberta Environment, which provided $15,000 in funding over the first year. Other Alberta partners include the Alberta Automotive Recyclers & Dismantlers Association, MAXUS Technology Inc. and the Recycling Council of Alberta. National partners include Environment Canada, the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries and the Canadian Steel Producers Association.

For more information about the program, visit www.switchout.ca

Planning for ammonia, chloramines and chlorinated effluents

The Canadian Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) is opposing Environment Canada’s proposal that owners of municipal wastewater collection systems or municipal treatment systems discharging more than 5,000 m3/day and meeting any one of three other criteria should develop and implement pollution prevention and pollution control plans.

CWWA is opposing this initiative on both jurisdictional and technical grounds. Jurisdictional because these effluents are already regulated or regulatable under provincial and territorial statutory instruments and the Environment Canada notice sets up a direct legally enforceable federal initiative that will cause some confusion and cost burdens to those meeting the criteria. Technical because there are many individual components of the notice that require rethinking and rewording.

For example, one of the inclusion criteria is if the discharge contains more than 0.02 mg/L of total residual chlorine at any time in the designated monitoring period. CWWA’s Effluent Committee members point out that this wording implies continuous monitoring and non-repeating spike events can trigger a five-year planning and implementation requirement of significant impact.

CWWA had asked that the comment period be extended for a further period of 60 days (beyond August 5) on the grounds that the owners of the systems (municipal councils) were in summer recess (as was Parliament) and there was little opportunity for the operating staff to brief their system owners.

CWWA has also sent messages to more than 700 municipalities alerting them to these concerns and seeking their input and assistance in challenging the notice.

CWWA does not challenge the need to manage ammonia and chloramines and chlorinated effluent discharges, but believes that Environment Canada, working with and through the provinces and territories, could achieve its goals without setting up a requirement that does not truly reflect specific site considerations, and would not set up a system of reporting similar things to different levels of government.

Contact: www.cwwa.ca.

Alberta commissions a review of its water treatment facilities

A comprehensive review of Alberta’s water treatment facilities is aimed at ensuring that the potential costs of any solutions can be more accurately identified in the provincial water strategy.

The contracts were awarded to an Associated Engineering/Golder Associates/ ATAP Infrastructure Management Ltd. consortium to conduct the assessments of facilities in northern and southern Alberta, and a Stantec/EPCOR consortium to conduct the assessment of facilities in central Alberta.

Municipalities and facilities included in the review will be advised on the specific details and timing of the assessments of their facilities in the next few weeks.

This first phase of the review is expected to cost $750,000 and be completed by the end of December 2003. The second phase will identify possible solutions for areas that may need upgrading to ensure their operations are sustainable at a high level. A copy of the draft Water for Life: Alberta's Strategy for Sustainability is available at www.waterforlife.gov.ab.ca.

ZENON announces new executive positions

Diana Mourato has been named Vice President of International Sales for ZENON Environmental Inc.

Prior to her new position, Dr. Mourato was the company’s Vice President, Municipal Systems Inc., where she and her team are credited with establishing ZENON as a key player in the membrane market.

ZENON also announced that Steve Watzeck has assumed a new role as Vice President of Municipal Systems Inc. Prior to this, Mr. Watzeck was Director, North America, Municipal Systems Inc., responsible for all municipal sales activities. Contact: M. Stadnyckyj, (905) 465-3030

Manitoba takes steps to protect Lake Winnipeg

An initiative to save Lake Winnipeg from increasing phosphorus and nitrogen levels moved ahead recently with the appointment of members to the Lake Winnipeg Stewardship Board.

The first task of the new board will be to establish its operating rules and prioritize a variety of issues affecting the health of Lake Winnipeg including shoreline erosion. The board will also be starting on implementation of a riparian protection action plan which will help address concerns of tillage and grazing by livestock on lands adjacent to streams and rivers.

Manitoba Conservation Minister Steve Ashton said that the establishment of the board was a key commitment under the Lake Winnipeg Action plan announced earlier this year which included establishing a soil-testing awareness program and introducing new sewage and septic field regulations that outline standards for placement of new systems in the proximity of waterways.

Lake Winnipeg provides a 24,000 square-kilometre area for recreation and commercial uses such as fishing, boating and angling.

Lab partnership to enhance safety of Ontario’s drinking water

The Standards Council (SCC) and Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories (CAEAL) have entered into an agreement with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to build a more robust system to protect the safety of drinking water for all Ontarians.

The Walkerton tragedy called into question the safety of Ontario's drinking water. The provincial government established a public inquiry, headed by Ontario appeal court Justice Dennis O'Connor. The inquiry's report made several proposals calling for standards-related improvements, including mandatory accreditation for water testing laboratories.

More than 350 Canadian labs are accredited by the SCC's Program for Accreditation of Laboratories - Canada (PALCAN). In partnership with CAEAL, the SCC has established a rigorous program for the accreditation of environmental testing laboratories. In fact, on the topic of the SCC/ CAEAL program, Justice O'Connor stated that he “was impressed by the thoroughness of the verification process and the capacity to identify areas for improvement at individual laboratories.”

The agreement, which was signed July 25, 2003, formalizes the relationship between the three parties regarding the delivery of laboratory accreditation services in Ontario - part of the new Safe Drinking Water Act. The Act, passed in December 2002, makes accreditation mandatory in order for labs to receive licensing.

The Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories is a not-for-profit association of public and private sector laboratories. A principal objective of the association is to promote and maintain a high level of assurance in analytical test data. To this end, CAEAL manages proficiency testing and site assessment programs that are tailored to meet the specific needs of environmental testing laboratories.

The Standards Council of Canada is a Crown corporation that promotes efficient and effective voluntary standardization in Canada. The SCC is involved in coordinating Canada's participation in the development of international standards and, as Canada's national standardization body, oversees the efforts of the National Standard System.

Contact: rwilson@caeal.ca, mpantusa@scc.ca.

Gay Lea Foods fined for illegal waste deposit

Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited has been fined $40,000 - plus victim fine surcharge - after pleading guilty to depositing wastewater treatment sludge on an unapproved site. The company operates a dairy food processing plant in Teeswater, Ontario. Waste biosolids resulting from the operation of the company's on-site wastewater treatment plant are generally trucked to a storage facility before they are applied on land.

The Court heard that, with very little storage room left, the company spread approximately 700,000 litres of biosolids - including milk residue, detergents and rinse water - on a nearby field between August 25 and September 6, 2001. The field was not approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to receive the waste.

Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited pleaded guilty to one charge under section 40 of the Environmental Protection Act for depositing waste upon land that was not approved as a waste disposal site.

No more free delivery


George Powell
Canadian legislators may pass increasingly stricter laws to keep our drinking water safe. But it is quite another thing for them to actually deliver water that is cleaner and safer to drink. Mainly this is because many Canadian waterdelivery systems are aging. In Toronto alone, many miles of watermains are more than 80 years old, some made of cast iron, and now nearing the end of their expected life cycle, having served the communities well.

At a recent conference of Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) in Winnipeg, George Powell, P.Eng., emphasized the urgency of the matter before 2,000 municipal and elected officials and private-sector participants. He said, “The public outcry in the aftermath of Walkerton, in Ontario, and North Battleford, Saskatchewan, has forced legislators to pass some of the most stringent water quality legislation in the world. Now we need to make sure we can implement the legislation.”

A senior vice president at CH2M HILL Canada, he talked to delegates about Bill 175 - the new Ontario legislation. He said the bill was designed to move municipalities toward accounting practices that show the annual depreciation of capital assets, while establishing a dedicated fund for the eventual replacement of those assets. The Bill, when implemented, would help municipalities to achieve sustainable full-cost recovery of their water and wastewater services.

“Simply put,” he stressed, “there is no free water delivery. In coming decades, the average large Canadian utility will have to spend about three times as much revenue on asset replacement as it does now. In fact, the estimated gap between what is spent now and what will be required in the foreseeable future is about $4-billion in Ontario alone, and perhaps as much as $14-billion nationwide.”

Mr. Powell said Bill 175 is designed to serve as the catalyst to close the gap in Ontario, driving cities to reinvest in civic infrastructure and to manage municipal assets for the benefit of all.

“Asset management is good business practice and one of the founding blocks of a progressive utility’s strategic thinking”, he stressed.

Contact: www.ch2mhillcanada.com.

Ontario taking strong action to reduce illegal tire stockpiles

Ontarios's MOE has ordered the owners of nine used tire sites to remove illegally stored tires from their sites. In addition, the ministry's Environmental SWAT Team is beginning an inspection blitz of other used tire sites in the province.

The ministry has also issued an order against the owners of the Otterwood tire site in Norwich Township to expeditiously remove all tires from the site. The ministry estimates that there are about 350,000 used tires on this site, making it the largest illegal tire stockpile in the province. Local health authorities have indicated the need to clean up this site because of concerns about the possible spread of West Nile virus.

There are eight other tire sites with illegal tire stockpiles that the Ministry of the Environment has ordered to clean up. The ministry has set aside $1 million that will be used in the cleanup of the Otterwood site should the owners of the site not comply with the order. It will determine further action on the other eight sites as it moves forward and new information becomes available. The MOE will seek cost recovery through orders to recover costs from the owners of sites cleaned up by the province.

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