NEWS RELEASE
WELLINGTON WATER WATCHERS
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Forty supporters gather at 7:30 am in the public parking area by St. Mary's Ukraine Church at 115 York Rd. in Guelph to embark on a trip to Queen’s Park.
Today, the MPP of Guelph Mike Schreiner will be introducing a Private Members bill coined the Paris Galt Moraine Conservation Act.
With 8 in 10 residents in the Grand River watershed dependent on wells for their drinking water, and an estimated population increase of 1 million people in the area by 2041, the need to protect groundwater is clear.
The Paris Galt Moraine is an integral part of the backbone of the Grand River watershed and is critical to the health of the Grand River environment for its function in water supply, waste water assimilation and natural heritage systems. It filters and recharges most of the region’s groundwater on less than one third of its land area and it does so at no cost to it's citizens. Failing to properly protect the moraine, and in turn preserve the region’s source of fresh water, will lead to massive investments in infrastructure to provide water for the region.
The Paris Galt Moraine cuts across at several municipalities and a conservation authority, creating a complex patchwork of local policies and regulations. Responsibility for the protection of the Paris Galt moraine largely falls on municipalities or counties through their local planning documents, such as official plans or zoning bylaws and implementation of provincial policies relating to water. And although Wellington Water Watchers is supportive of this this work so far, there are currently no provincial policies that specifically protect moraines and prohibit development on them. We need stronger provincial protection to ensure that growth pressures, drought and climate change do not endanger water supplies in the future.
“Increasingly over the past years, this has region faced water restrictions and it is becoming more evident that the need to protect the features that ensure adequate groundwater into the future are put in place now,” stated Arlene Slocombe, Executive Director of Wellington Water Watchers. “We stand in support for this bill to protect the Paris Galt Moraine.”
This proposed Bill largely applies and builds upon the framework that was developed for the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, which was written and passed by a Progressive Conservative government in 2001.
The purpose of the Conservation Plan will be to provide land use planning direction to provincial ministries, municipalities, landowners, and other stakeholders on how to protect the moraine's ecological and hydrological features for the benefit of present and future generations.
The Plan will be developed in consultation with affected ministries, persons, municipalities, and Indigenous leaders, and will be reviewed every 10 years.
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