PROGRESS IN WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NEW BRUNSWICK

With thanks to Paul Campbell and Kenton Kinney, the following column provides a description of the direction that the province is taking.

New Brunswick water policies, generally speaking are in good shape. This. after a lengthy period of water monitoring, implementation and enforcement of water regulations pertaining to the water environment. The objective. for some years now, has been to regulate and manage the province's water in domestic terms and in industrial terms in compliance with Canada-wide standards. Water officials in the province's of environmental agency are satisfied that the efforts of recent years have produced such a compliance.

Potable water regulations are in force in New Brunswick. Although these requirements are relatively new, full-scale testing of all domestic and commercial wells is now being achieved as they are brought into production. Through the use of GIS systems, complete and comprehensive well records are now a practical and convenient component of water management in the province. Well production is appropriately regulated through a uniform provincial permitting and well log system.

Good progress in promotion of clean water has been made in the area of sewage treatment, both in strict attention to on-site sewage treatment and disposal standards, as well as in the introduction of central collection and treatment systems. Attention to details in this area has had the expected results. It has worked to eliminate water problems before they happen. New Brunswick's active promotion of a watch on underground petroleum tanks and agricultural runoff and the introduction of standards and controls as needed is working to reduce the types of groundwater and surface water environmental crises that have sometimes occurred in years gone by. Accidents, of course, can still happen, but in the province's experience, vigilance works toward accident prevention.

Government restructuring appears to be working to bring together the formerly separate activities of land use planning and environmental protection of the province's shorelines. The environment protection authority and the land use planning authority are now housed within the same department.

This should be especially encouraging to land use planners and community leaders who are concerned about the interface of land use planning and coastal area protection:

New Brunswick's GIS mapping of the coastal area has opened the way to effective water resource management on a broad scale. Coastal mapping is a tool that greatly enhances the province's environmental protection work in cooperation with New Brunswick's district planning commissions. The province and the commissions are now moving toward the next step - a cooperative program of coastal lands policy development. Provincial staff have already been mandated to approach the preparation of a coastal lands policy on both Crown and freehold lands.

One of the first actions that mill be necessary in coastal area planning will be to amend New Brunswick's planning legislation to enable coastal lands regulations. The initial discussions on coastal area planning leaned toward a blanket policy and regulations on coastal areas throughout the province being developed and imposed by the provincial government. All municipal entities would then have been subject to the central provisions for beaches, dunes, shorelines and wetlands (and the like). Later discussions focused on the amendment of the Community Planning Act to give local governments the ability to establish coastal area land use provisions within their jurisdictional territory.

It appears now that these local governments will be specifically empowered to set and enforce protective coastal area rules and shoreline buffer areas in the same manner they are now able to implement community plans and bylaws. Those several municipalities that are not members of (not associated with) a district planning commission will have similar enablement. It should be noted, however, that in the majority of district planning commissions, municipalities are members. In coastal areas where there is no municipal government., the District Planning Commission will serve as the implementation agency for protective coastal area rules and shoreline buffer areas set by the province. New Brunswick has twelve district planning commissions.

In conclusion, New Brunswick is very confident about its active leadership in water resource management and about the abilities of the district planning commissions and municipalities to carry out their responsibilities. The province is committed to continued improvement and protection of the environment.

Atlantic Planners Institute

This page and all contents are produced by the Atlantic Planners Institute, an affiliate of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

This document was last modified on November 15, 2000.