March 27, 2009

GREAT LAKES ST. LAWRENCE CITIES INITIATIVE

City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, with its extensive waterfront is among the member municipalities of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.

Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative aims to reduce water consumption

SAUL CHERNOS

correspondent

TORONTO

Despite hard economic times, infrastructure is turning into gold in and around the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, thanks to a municipal campaign to reduce water consumption.

The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative (GLSLCI) has 62 member municipalities from the river’s mouth to the innermost reaches of Lake Superior, and 33 local governments – not all of them GLSLCI members – are either planning or working towards water consumption levels that would, by 2015, be 15 per cent below the volume used in 2000.

Projects range from the installation of rain barrels and low-flow plumbing devices to leak detection and the revitalization of aging infrastructure, and much of this is work-intensive, according to Sarah Rang, GLSLCI’s acting deputy director.

“Leak detection and repair is not only a good job creator, which is helpful in these economic times, but often the easiest way to get the best benefits in terms of water reduction and use. It can buy you five or ten per cent more water.”

Much of the work being done is related to infrastructure and thus eligible for government funding.

“Municipalities on both sides of the border have been very active in calling on the economic stimulus packages to include green infrastructure measures,” Rang said. Funding covers measures such as energy efficiency and modernization of sewage and wastewater treatment plants and other facilities.

“Infrastructure funding programs and the environmental implications of these will be profound for the construction industry,” Rang said. “Each municipality has a list of projects they have submitted to the Building Canada Fund, one of the larger federal funds, so we’re expecting a significant increase.”

Among the communities at the forefront of water conservation activity is the City of Toronto, which has a long list of projects. Rang describes the city’s wet weather flow plan (masterplan), a 25-year effort to improve the watershed and the quality of beach areas, as highly construction-focused.

“We’re in year three, and it’s pretty comprehensive in terms of reducing basement flooding, disconnecting combined sewers and doing innovative stormwater management,” Rang said.

“Toronto has combined sewers where we put stormwater and sewage in one pipe,” she added, describing plans to reduce the flow going into the wastewater treatment plant and minimizing chances of sewage going directly into the lake.

“We can do many innovative, quick and simple things to reduce the flow of stormwater and slow it down and use the landscape to clean it up.”

The Region of Durham is working with a large subdivision developer to install low-flow plumbing fixtures and undertake other water and energy conservation measures as part of a trial. “They’re using real-time monitoring and metering to measure performance,” Rang said. “They’re finding that water savings are significant and continue over time.”

The City of Thunder Bay is planning to use ultraviolet disinfection to improve the performance of its wastewater treatment plant.

Several municipalities are looking at systems that recover methane, a by-product of sewage treatment. “Methane is quite a potent greenhouse gas,” Rang explained.

While methane-recovery projects most directly influence air quality, they also significantly help improve water quality, Rang said. “What you put into the air falls back onto the water. They’re all related.”

Frank Zechner, executive director of the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association, says the 15 per cent target is a worthwhile campaign and the measures being taken, particularly fixing leaks, make sense.

“You could achieve most if not all of that 15 per cent just through leak measurement and reduction programs,” Zechner said. “It makes very little sense to replace water treatment plants with larger ones when a municipality has a significant leakage issue. They should look at reducing leakage first.”

A decision to go after leaks is a money-saver because it spares municipalities the considerable expense of new or upgraded treatment plants, Zechner said.

He added that a user-pay model can help drive down water consumption by putting a price tag on waste. “We already do that with telephone services, electricity and natural gas, so why are we so slow to go to full-cost market pricing for water?”

The GLSLCI was founded in 2003 by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who was quickly joined by Toronto Mayor David Miller and other municipal leaders. The organization grew substantially in 2005 when it merged with the International Association of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Mayors.

GLSLCI executive director David Ullrich said the mandate from the outset was to get a seat at the decision-making tables for mayors.

Municipalities are on the front lines when it comes to water issues, yet decisions about the resource were predominantly made at the federal, state and provincial level, Ullrich said.

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