Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - November 2004
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Ontario’s new Clean Water Centre – another Mirabel?

Attend any real estate seminar and the mantra you are most likely to hear is: “Location, Location, Location”, something the Ontario government seems to have forgotten. Recently, it announced the establishment of a new agency in Walkerton to focus on improving training for water system operators. This agency will receive $5 million in funding annually to: The Walkerton Clean Water Centre will build on the work of the former Clean Water Legacy Trust and Clean Water Centre of Excellence. These agencies have been disbanded and their mandates merged to form the single training-focused agency. Five members of the former agencies are part of the new agency.

Until the mid 1990s, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment ran its own operator training facility in Brampton, which was conveniently located close to several major highways, Pearson International Airport and a large number of hotels. Traveling to Walkerton, which is not centrally located and is a long way from the nearest airport or any 400 series highways, could pose problems for a large percentage of Ontario’s water treatment plant operators.

It is unfortunate that the Ontario government did not read recent newspaper articles and learn from the mistakes made with Mirabel Airport.

Opened in 1975, at a cost of $500 million, Montreal’s Mirabel International Airport was the largest airport in the world in its day, servicing all international flights from 23 airlines. At the time it was some 27 times larger than Dorval, Montreal’s other airport, which was regulated to only handling domestic flights and flights to the United States.

When first proposed, Mirabel Airport was expected to handle some four million passengers a year with expectations that expansions might be necessary to handle 40 million passengers within 50 years. These expectations proved to be hugely over-optimistic. In fact, it was recently announced that Mirabel Airport will be closed to all passenger traffic and only handle air freight.

So what went wrong? Since it opened, there has been widespread debate as to the reasons for the airport’s under-use. For example, Mirabel’s planners did not foresee the introduction of wide-body planes, such as the Boeing 747, with their much longer ranges. This meant that for trans- Atlantic flights, refueling stopovers at Montreal were no longer necessary.

But many believe the main factor in its failure to attract business is Mirabel’s poor location. It is located some 60 kilometers north of downtown Montreal and 50 kilometers away from Dorval Airport (now Pierre Trudeau Airport). A planned expressway expected to link Mirabel to Downtown was never built. This means that it often takes an hour to make the trip by car or bus.

Will the new Clean Water Centre become another Mirabel Airport fiasco?

With mandatory certification for water plant operators now a reality, maybe not. But certainly the long drive to and from Walkerton will be a thorn in the side of the thousands of Ontario’s water treatment plant operators for years to come. They will be wasting valuable time traveling, which would be better spent in the classroom.

Locating the new Clean Water Centre in Walkerton may be seen by many as a political attempt to compensate a town, which was hit hard by a horrific tainted water tragedy. However, choosing a convenient location should have been the top priority for this vital program rather than making it part of any localized economic revitalization plan.

Mirabel’s planners ignored the real estate mantra of “location, location, location”, which ultimately has cost Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars. Will we now also have to pay for the cost of inconveniently locating the Clean Water Centre in Walkerton, which, while being very picturesque, is far off the beaten path?

By Steve Davey, Publisher of
Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine.

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