A Three Project Partnership on Climate Change and Water in Eastern Ontario

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A Three Project Partnership on Climate Change and
Water in Eastern Ontario Un partenariat de trois
projets sur le changement climatique et leau
dans lEst de lOntario presented by présenté
par Philippe Crabbé CURA Director Philippe
Crabbé Directeur de l ARUC
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Municipalities Institutional Capacity to Adapt to
Climate Change and its Associated Impacts on
Freshwater An Eastern Ontario Case-study
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Table of Contents

• 1. What is CURA/ARUC?
• 2. Adaptation and Mitigation at
• the Municipal Level
• 3. Municipal Adaptation Needs
• 4. Municipal Manufactured Infrastructure
• 5. Anecdotal evidence of municipal
• and Conservation Authoritiesconcern
  about
• climate change

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Table of Contents

• 6. Barriers to Adaptation
• 7. Barrier Removal
• 8. Emergency
• 9. Preparedness
• 10. Liability
• 11. Risk Management and Planning
• 12. Health

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1. What is CURA/ARUC?

• Community University Research Alliance (CURA)
• Association de recherche université communauté
  (ARUC)
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
  (SSHRC) program
• NOT Science and Engineering or Health program

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1.1 Motivation for CURA

• Globalization offers new challenges better
  addressed by communities at the local level
• Communities understand better than bureaucracies
  or higher jurisdictional levels their needs and
  the factors which affect their circumstances
  (Subsidiarity Principle)

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1.1 Motivation for CURA

• Expertise available in communities
• Epistemic Communities non-university communities
  recognized for their expertise in areas pertinent
  to public policy
• Community problems are multidisciplinary
• Importance of differentiated research networks

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1.2 Eastern Ontario

• Climate change is a global challenge but
  adaptation needs to be local

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1.3 Communities

• Local communities defined by geographical
  proximity
• Include business and governments
• Community sustainable development initiatives,
  such as climate change initiatives, led by
  municipalities

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1.4 Local Communities of Eastern Ontario

• University of Ottawa (U of O) approached about
  10
• years ago by the Economic Development
• Corporation of the United-Counties of Stormont,
  
• Dundas and Glengarry (S, D G) and by a local
• environmental engineering firm M.S. Thompson to
• Assist in the establishment of a
• research/community environmental research
• institute focused upon large rivers including
  the St.
• Lawrence.

• University of Ottawa (U of O) approached about 10
  years ago by the Economic Development Corporation
  of the United-Counties of Stormont, Dundas and
  Glengarry (S, D G) and by a local environmental
  engineering firm M.S. Thompson to
• Assist in the establishment of a
  research/community environmental research
  institute focused upon large rivers including the
  St. Lawrence.

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1.5 St.Lawrence River Institute of Environmental
Sciences (SLRIES)

• U of O did assist and SLRIES came about.
• SLRIES is a community-based research institute.

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1.6 CURA is a partnership

• The research alliance is conceived as a
  partnership among equals
• between a bottom-up local community process and
• a top-down university process more concerned
  about the universality, consistency and
  transferability of knowledge across community
  boundaries (very similar to government)

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Partnership means

• Joint definition of
• theme of the project based on
• its mutual importance to the partners and
• complementarity with their mutual strengths
• program of activities
• participatory arrangements and
• Recruitment of new partners during the period of
  the project

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1.7 Initial CURA Partners

• SLRIES
• FCM

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FCM

• clearly has expertise in climate change
  mitigation at the local level e.g. Partners for
  Climate Protection (PCP) and Local Action Plan
  (LAP)
• suggested the theme of adaptation to us and
• invited us to join FCM in a comparative study of
  impacts and adaptation across the country called
  Municipal Risk Project Adapting to Climate
  Change

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Map of 6 FCM projects
Norman Wells
La Baie
Northwest Territories
Prince Edward Island
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Québec
Ontario
Charlottetown
Hinton
Eastern Ontario
Swift Current
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SLRIES

• suggested CURA focuses on groundwater and on
  tributaries in Eastern Ontario rather than on the
  St. Lawrence, on which U of O had experience
• there would then be complementarity with an
  ongoing Eastern Ontario Water Resources
  Management Study (EOWRMS) which did not consider
  climate change.

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EOWRMS

• included the United-Counties of Prescott and
  Russell on top of the United-Counties of
  Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, and the City of
  Ottawa
• EOWRMS geographical area covered the South-Nation
  watershed (this explains the inclusion of the
  City of Ottawa) and the Raisin River Region.

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Preparing for the Future Préparation de lavenir
Understanding the Present Compréhension du présent
CURA
EOWRMS
Municipal capacity building
FCM
Sharing Municipal Experience with Climate
Change Partager lexpérience municipale sur le
changement climatique
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1.8 Geographical extent of CURA project

• Same as EOWRMS for best coordination of efforts

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U of O Research component

• Ongoing
• Water resources (mainly groundwater and
  South-Nation)
• Infrastructure-
• related Institutional Changes required
• for Adaptation to climate change

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1.9 Four Types of Infrastructure

• Manufactured (e.g. culvert)
• Natural (e.g. watershed)
• Human (e. g. well-being, health, expertise)
• Social (institutions)

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1.10 Deliverables

• 1) Blueprint for climate change impact
  assessment on water resources and related
  institutions
• 2) Application and critical analysis in Eastern
  Ontario
• 3) Legacy Sustainable partnership between the
  University and the various existing and future
  partners

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Blueprint

• in terms of institutional adjustments required to
  
• Increase municipal capacity to
• Manage the physical relationships between
  existing and anticipated cumulative stress on
  water supply/demand
• Transferable to other local communities through
  FCM
• Climate change considered as a cumulative stress
  on top of demographic and land-use stress

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Population 2001 (about 180,000)

• S, D G 106,000
• P R 74,000

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14 Agricultural/Rural Municipalities

• S, D G
• Township of North Stormont
• Township of South Stormont
• Township of North Dundas
• Township of South Dundas
• Township of North Glengarry
• Township of South Glengarry
• P R
• City of Clarence-Rockland
• Municipality of the Nation
• Town of Hawkesbury
• Township of Alfred and Plantagenet
• Township of Champlain
• Township of East Hawkesbury
• Township of Russell
• Village of Casselman

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POPULATION CHANGE IN EASTERN ONTARIO 1971-1996
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CHANGE IN FARM LAND AREA 1971-1996
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Regional Water Demand
Agriculture
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Municipal
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Private Domestic
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Existing Infrastructure

• Domestic Wastewater Treatment

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Purpose of Adaptation Avoidance of financial
losses

• At the national level, climate change is a
  multibillion risk
• Cost of climate municipal inaction
• In the absence of preventative and adaptive
  measures, substantial financial losses for
  municipalities resulting from climate change are
  distinctly possible if not probable.
• Remember the ice storm which costed 5 billion
  dollars to Canada.

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The risks are twofold

• Economic/financial risk to municipalities from
• Directly the damages from Climate Change and
  from reactive remediation and
• Indirectly through disruptions in Canada, the US
  and abroad
• (electricity distribution, environmental
  immigration , etc.)
• Exposure to the costs of greenhouse gas emissions
  abatement in any regime to mitigate climate change

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Possible Events/ Évènements possibles

• Extreme events such as
• Évènements extrêmes tels que

• Floods and droughts
• Inondations et sécheresse

• Ice storms
• Tempêtes de glace

• Landslides
• Glissements
• de terrain

• Tornadoes
• Tornades

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Quality of Life and Municipal Adaptation

Qualité de la vie et adaptation
municipale

Do nothing scenario/Ne rien faire
-
Adaptation
Many options Beaucoup doptions
Few options Peu doptions
Pro-active/ Ancticipative
?
Reaction/Réaction
?
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2. Adaptation and Mitigation at the
Municipal/County Level

• adaptation and mitigation decisions must be taken
  jointly (reread Kane-Shogren)
• adaptation decisions need to be coordinated
  spatially as they are interdependent

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3. Municipal/County Adaptation Needs
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3.1 Municipal/County Adaptation Policy Synthesis

• Reduction of average and extreme impacts (e. g.
  West Nile virus, ice storm)
• Infrastructure initiatives (hardware)
• New procedures (software)
• New institutional arrangements (orgware)
• Adoption of current measures which will reduce
  the cost of future adaptation
• Residual risk-sharing (e. g. insurance)
• Removal of barriers to effective adaptation
• Build up social resilience (capacity to cope with
  possibly unexpected change)

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3.2 Ability to adapt

• Depends upon
• Strength and diversity of community economy
• Nature of its economic assets including its
  social capital (community spirit)
• Ability of community members to manage change
• Effectiveness of institutions in strategic
  planning and implementation for expected change
• Social resilience may be the best asset of
  alli.e. the ability to cope with unexpected
  change
• Requires senior government assistance for both
  expertise, consistency and money for long-run
  adaptation

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Each Community must determine its Adaptation Needs
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Seven Stage System (I. Burton)

• 1) hazard mapping i.e. identify on a map the
  areas which are the most
• vulnerable to climate change (e.g. to
  drought)
• 2) flood control
• 3) land use controls and enforcement, zoning
  regulations, building codes, including building
  
• densities and height limits, and
  infrastructure standards
• 4) retrofitting existing structures
• 5) capacity building (strengthening orgware)
• 6) increase early warning systems to improve
  preparedness (software)
• 7) public education and information e. g.
  through social marketing

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Municipalities/Counties must understand

• which sectors and companies within their
  jurisdiction are exposed to the greatest risks
• what measures are being taken to reduce them (say
  by Domtar)
• and how effective these are likely to be

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Adaptation and Mitigation
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Municipalities/Counties should ensure that they
have sufficient expertise to deal with all
aspects of climate change relevant to their
community
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2) Insist that senior staff undertake a thorough
assessment of the municipality/county s current
and probable risk exposures
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3) Insist that senior staff have thoroughly
examined the opportunities which climate change
may also present

• for new and expanded business activity and /or
  cost reduction from business

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4) Require that the municipality/county
benchmarks itself against best practices
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5) Develop, announce and implement an explicit
strategy on climate change

• that is integrated into the municipalitys
  overall strategy

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6) The first thing municipalities/counties ought
to do is to establish an inventory of their
emissions

• 50 of GHG emissions originate in municipalities
  territory
• FCM has a program to assist municipalities in
  doing this (PCP)

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7) Establish realistic targets for emission
reductions

• practicality and affordability of early
  mitigation measures

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8) Explore for new

• less carbon intensive suppliers,
• collaboration with NGOs,
• carbon mitigation technologies investment
  opportunities (e.g. ethanol)

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9) Develop and follow best practice standards

• for disclosing climate change exposure to
• constituents and to the province

• for disclosing climate change exposure to
  constituents and to the province

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10) Create formal levels of accountability

• to monitor and report on the municipalitys
  progress in addressing climate driven
  business-risks and opportunities and
• ensure that cost-saving adaptation actions are
  taken promptly.

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Municipalities are responsible for

• many manufactured and natural infrastructures and
• for infrastructure related liability
• for essential and emergency services (fire,
  medical).
• The following is based upon R. Needham,  The
  Informed Opinion of Municipal Officials
  Infrastructure Administration, Planning and
  Managment in Eastern Ontario , FCM, unpubl. 2001
  and C. Andrew, L. Juillet, D. Leech, Local
  Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change, CURA unpubl.
  report, 2001

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4.County and Municipal Manufactured Infrastructure

• Roads
• Including transferred provincial roads
• County roads are built for interregional traffic
• Municipal roads are built for lighter
  intraregional traffic
• Bridges and culverts
• Landfill sites for solid waste
• Water treatment facilities
• Wastewater treatment facilities including lagoons
• Drains

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County and Municipal Manufactured Infrastructure

• Multipurpose paths, trails and sidewalks
• GIS
• Emergency Plan Infrastructure
• Sports and recreation facilities including
  playing fields, trails, community centres and
  arenas
• Airports
• Marinas and docks
• Dams and weirs for flood control

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County and municipal Natural Infrastructure

• Forests
• River banks
• Etc.

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Large capital investment in manufactured
infrastructure with operating costs currently
exceeding revenues

• 1 new km of road costs about 300,000 with
  estimated life of 15 years
• 1 new bridge (wider than 6 meters and higher than
  3 meters)
• about 500,000 1,000,000
• 1 new light, boxed culvert, about 500,000 with
  estimated life of 30 years

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Large capital investment with operating costs
currently exceeding revenues

• Average budget for public works is about
  2,000,000 or about 6,000 per road km for both
  capital and maintenance.
• Load limits on bridges are being revised downward
  despite mandatory provincial inspection
• Environmental regulations (including for
  municipal water systems) create hidden
  infrastructure costs
• Provincial funding applications deadlines for
  infrastructure programs (e.g. SuperBuild, ONSTAR)
  are too short

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Subdivision lots and plans

• Approved years ago
• Are small-scale
• Cant afford new water, sewage and road costs

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County and Municipal Revenue

• Counties have no direct source of revenue they
  are funded through levies
• Municipalities derive their revenues from
  property taxes, transfer payments from senior
  governments and user fees.

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Infrastructure Planning

• No long-term life-cycle planning just matches 3
  year political cycle for Council

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What is Impact of climate change on these
infrastructures and their estimated life?

• Nobody knows (FCM has a project with NRC on this)
• Public works budget could easily be devastated by
  a one year climate event.

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5. Anecdotal evidence re Concern about climate
change

• Neither municipalities nor Conservation
  Authorities mentioned climate change as a
  research priority even though they are aware of
  its occurrence and of the need to adapt to it
• Neither ranked universities as an important
  source of information

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Concern about Climate Change

• Municipalities, more than Conservation
  Authorities, tended to believe in technological
  fixes
• Very few interviewees felt that their ability to
  make a living would be affected by climate change
• Municipalities assigned a lower level to the
  likely impact of climate change on watersheds
  than Conservation Authorities while climate
  models consistently indicate lower average water
  availability

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Concern about environmental health

• Municipalities are more concerned about
  environmental health than Conservation Authorities

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Information Supply and Demand

• At the community level, scientific information
  needs to be spread out to a larger audience,
  which
• demands specific information in order to
  contribute to participatory integrated assessment
  of regional climate change.
• Therefore, information supply from experts must
  be matched to demand from the community in
  order to develop a shared understanding of the
  problem or social learning
• In turn, through feedback, community
  participation in adaptation may help create
  awareness of climate change in routine day to day
  decision-making.

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CURA Information Supply and Demand

• Councilors and municipal staff made clear that
  they require the financial implications of
  neglecting climate change.
• A financial risk assessment component needed to
  be added to the CURA initiative if climate change
  was to appear as a contingency on their municipal
  planning and management agenda.

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Burden of liability insurance

• May increase under climate change
• Municipal council may hesitate to take additional
  insurance coverage
• Commercial insurance companies may not take on
  the new risk

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Self-insurance will be required

• Creation of a  disaster fund 
• Co-insurance and other risk-sharing arrangements
  among municipalities

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New infrastructure standards

• May be required

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6. Barriers to Adaptation

• Culture of management by crises
• Culture of oral communication
• Conflict between political and administrative
  priorities
• Conflicts between upper tier and lower tier
  government
• Inertia towards change and innovation

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Barriers

• Lack of regional infrastructure database
• Lack of clear jurisdictional responsibility over
  water resource infrastructure
• Lack of overall expertise and reliance on outside
  consultants
• Lack of climate change information and expertise
  at all levels
• Lack of knowledge of specific impacts from
  climate change on infrastructures
• Lack of infrastructure design standards for big
  climate events related to municipal-communal
  wells and sewage lagoons
• Lack of trust in science for prediction under
  climate change

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Barriers

• Inadequate provincial funding for infrastructure
  and obsolete cost-sharing agreements
• Concern about infrastructure service standards,
  due diligence and liability
• infrastructure age and structural condition
• Conflicts between past infrastructure siting and
  current development pressures
• Engineering consultant culture
• Lack of information about alternatives

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Barriers

• Lack of respect for municipal plan and associated
  bylaws
• Lack of compliance in environmental regulation
• Lack of jurisdiction over agricultural practices
  despite knowledge of relationships with water
  quality and quantity
• Lack of knowledge about infrastructure
  performance related to solid waste disposal and
  the operation of pits and quarries
• Lack of knowledge about old abandoned
  infrastructures such as landfill sites and wells

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7. Barrier removal (Admininistration)

• Revise the Ontario Municipal Act
• Support the work of Eastern Ontario Wardens
  Association
• More active role for the Federal Government in
  municipal infrastructure programs
• Identify new sources of municipal revenue (e.g.
  gasoline tax)
• Revise existing infrastructure programs such as
  SuperBuild and ONSTAR and their application
  procedures

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Barrier removal (Planning)

• Amend Ontario Planning Act allowing for new and
  innovative planning tools
• Develop a Provincial Policy Statement under the
  Ontario Planning Act dealing with climate change
  impacts and their consideration in Municipal
  Official Plans
• Develop Upper Tier offical plans and key regional
  planning functions e.g. for water resources,
  roads and waste management

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Barrier removal (Planning)

• Develop policy statements for comprehensive
  well-head protection, attach them to official
  plans and develop appropriate by-laws
• Develop policy statements for landfill management
  plans (e.g. leachate migration)
• Develop a regional GIS system for infrastructure
• Linked to Road Inventory Management System,
  Municipal Bridges Appraisal System, and the
  Municipal Culverts Appraisal System

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Barrier removal (Planning)

• Facilitation of nutrient management planning,
  environmental significant areas protection and
  siting for new developments
• Development of watershed plans by Conservation
  Authorities and associated programs such as flood
  plan management and septic tank system monitoring
  and assessment
• Define and develop risk management processes that
  are sensitive to the needs of rural Ontario
  municipalities
• Enhance the enforcement role of municipalities

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Barrier removal (Planning)

• Develop stronger working relation with the Health
  Unit and the Medical Officer of Health
• Develop a regional  State of the Environment
  Report  that includes indicators related to
  community and environmental health, and have an
  emphasis on the regions water resources
• Develop educational messages and strategies
  specifically for rural municipal politicians and
  for staff members

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Barrier removal (Management)

• Develop and maintain a comprehensive set or
  emergency preparedness Plans for the United
  Counties and local municipalities
• Develop a water metering system for appropriate
  municipal consumers
• Develop and maintain a cooperative regional
  system for the purchase and use of material and
  equipment needed for infrastructure servicing
• Support lobbying efforts of the Eastern Ontario
  Good Roads Association
• Develop a forum with mobilization potential for
  infrastructure stakeholders, including the
  general public and public interests.

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8. Emergency Plan

• Plan for S,D G and for each individual
  municipality except South Glengarry and for PR
• For natural hazards i.e. ice and major snow
  storms, spring floods and landslides
• Reactive device

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Emergency (definition)

• Situations or the threat of impending situations
  abnormally affecting property and health, safety
  and welfare of a community
• Distinct from fire, police and land ambulance
  services
• Can be caused by natural disasters (landslide) or
  human activity (forest fire)

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9. Preparedness

• Do not confuse existence of an emergency plan
  with preparedness
• plans are too disparate, too old , too complex
  and lack consistency. Need for a template.
• Not tested in terms of specific groups,
  functions, or types of disaster.
• The infrastructure supporting these plans is not
  in place and has not been tested.
• Lack of regional consistency no regional
  perspective, no regional organizational capacity.
  (e.g. 911, rural property address system, GIS
  based referencing for all properties and key
  locations, production and maintenance of
  in-county and out of county directory of
  supplies, service needed to cope with disasters)

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10. Liability

• Municipalities are terrified about the liability
  issue
• Need to make a link between impacts and
  infrastructure and liability if municipalities
  does not prepare and follow plans and policies
• In court, questions asked are
• Were you prepared?
• Were you informed?
• Did you have a plan?
• Did you follow your plan?
• If not, why not?
• If you cant answer, municipality will have to
  rely on insurance coverage to pay the fine

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Liability

• Links to climate change addressed largely at the
  infrastructure design stage washed out culverts,
  extra stress on road surfaces, collapse of road
  shoulders
• Design must cope with more water and traffic.
• No money to do this
• Are there liability questions related to better
  design?

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11. Risk Management and Planning

• No will or capacity to manage risks
• Ice storm is a good example unpreparedness (no
  plan) but led to emergency plan development
  involving both municipalities and provincial
  agencies
• Ontario Emergency Plan Act (1983 and 1990 amended
  in 2,000) gives local municipalities the power to
  develop these plans and counties, the power to
  create regionally oriented coordination of
  municipal plans
• Because of traditional Ontario politics, download
  of responsibilities by provincial governnent and
  new financial reality, management by crisis

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Risk Management and Planning

• An official plan is policy and not a law
• Risk management figures only in the plan but the
  plan is static plans are sensitive to hazard
  land, landslide zones,to identifiable brownfield
  sites. The plan is in need of constant
  reevaluation given new information e.g. about
  water resources, climate change.
• Politicians do not want to spend money on things
  they dont know whether they are going to happen.
  This includes risk management.
• More than 90 of landfill sites do not have
  management plans bad siting decisons are being
  made, leachate migration in waterways are
  happening at an alarming rate. ¾ of our landfills
  are in floodplains no info on private landfill
  sites (receive more than 1/2 our garbage of
  unknown origin and toxicitiy)

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Risk Management

• Public safety
• Legal liability of not providing adequate service
• Roadway service standards
• How quickly roads must be plowed after snowstorms
• How quickly drains are to be repaired
• Incorporated in a by-law

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12. Health

• Link needed between human health, environment and
  water resources since Walkerton
• Deals with public health risk
• Family health, communicable diseases, chronic
  diseases and infectious diseases
• Under te Health Promotion Protection Act,
  Environmental Protection Act, Building Code,
  Mandatory Health Programs and Services Guidelines
• Powers can range from implementing Public Beach
  Management Protocol related to water quality,
  testing municipal and residential water and
  wastewater systems, voluntary review of land use
  applications and permits to draw water.
• Capacity to send health-related messages to
  community.

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Health Impacts of

• Thermal stress
• Extreme weather events (storm, flood, drought)
• Infectious diseases (West Nile virus, hantaan
  virus, Lyme disease)
• Air quality (smog and allergies)
• Water and food-borne diseases

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Needed adaptability of the health system

• to be able to identify symptoms as related to a
  typically foreign disease and follow-up with
  treatment

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Conclusion

• Adaptation and mitigation must be managed jointly
• Early adaptation may save money and offer
  business opportunities
• There are many barriers to adaptation, some
  related to lack of resources
• Barrier removal may be related to liability