Protecting watershed security through better municipal practices

Like many organizations, the Ontario Headwaters Institute (OHI) is concerned about the Province’s response to the housing crisis, including changes to Ontario’s development protocols, environmental safeguards and legal rights.

We believe that these changes threaten regional watershed security, which we define as a healthy and resilient watershed that ensures regional ecological integrity, social wellbeing and economic vitality.

Threats include diminished and fragmented natural heritage, increased flow from additional hardened surfaces, pollution (including from road salt) and impacts from climate change that include increased temperature and alterations to both the hydrologic cycle and the chemical composition of precipitation.

Fortunately, the recently-amended Provincial Planning Statement (the PPS) has retained the requirement of planning authorities to “protect, improve, or restore the quality and quantity of water by…using the watershed as the ecologically meaningful scale for integrated and long-term planning, which can be a foundation for considering cumulative impacts of development”.

It also requires them to minimize the potential negative impacts of planning on water, including cross-jurisdictional and cross-watershed impacts.

To help municipalities better deliver on these and other water-based directives in the PPS, the OHI has developed a Municipal Charter for Watershed Security.

The Charter contains eight suggested actions that provide a practical and flexible template based on local priorities and resources, including: 

• Adopting a council motion to integrate land use and watershed planning;
• Committing to a whole watershed approach, seeking normal flows of clean water entering the municipality from areas upstream as well as to assure the same for communities downstream; 
• Using aquatic and terrestrial studies to identify and protect key ecological features and functions; 
• Directing early efforts in key municipal departments to integrate their responsibilities for land use and watershed planning, while addressing climate change and the need to protect biodiversity; 
• Establishing watershed and/or sub-watershed targets, including restoration targets where needed, for areas in natural heritage, wetlands, streamside vegetation and urban canopies; 
• Ensuring before and after terrestrial and aquatic monitoring of significant developments, including infrastructure projects, as identified in a municipal protocol; 
• Using watershed reports and applying adaptive management to redress poor conditions in the watershed; and, 
• Encouraging sound stewardship practices on all land in the municipality.

Municipalities can implement these actions by using the expertise of their own staff, that of conservation authorities, other agencies or organizations and/or and consultants. 

Whatever path is chosen, we also recommend that municipalities inform their efforts with extensive community engagement.

We believe that a municipal charter for watershed security can help any municipality address the climate, biodiversity and housing crises while protecting watershed security. 

You can find information on the Charter and a link to make a donation to us at www.ontarioheadwaters.ca.

And if you think your watershed would benefit from the adoption of a municipal charter for watershed security, please reach out to us via [email protected].

Andrew Mccammon is the executive director of the Ontario Headwaters Institute