Environmentalists are welcoming an agreement that sets Canada's first national treatment standards for waste water from cities and towns.
But they warn that it will allow some municipalities to keep pouring insufficiently treated sewage into rivers and oceans for at least a decade.
"We're very worried that the strategy and the forthcoming regulation will allow polluters to continue to pollute for one to two decades when the U.S. and Europe have come up to these standards a long time ago," said David Lane of the Vancouver-based Buck Suzuki Foundation, which focuses on ocean and fisheries protection.
Earlier this week, provincial, territorial and federal environment ministers announced after a meeting in Whitehorse that they had signed a deal after five years of negotiation.
"This is something that we have deemed to be a priority for a number of years," Yukon Environment Minister Elaine Taylor said Tuesday. "We're very pleased to see some movement on this matter."
The agreement affects 3,500 municipal waste-water systems across the country -- from Canada's largest cities to its remotest Arctic hamlets -- that drain directly into water bodies. It sets minimum standards for dissolved nutrients, suspended solids and residual chlorine.
It also requires communities to regularly monitor their waste water and make the results public at least yearly.
The total cost of upgrades and monitoring is estimated to be between $10 billion and $13 billion over 30 years, although the ministers didn't identify any new source of funding.
"There's always ongoing issues pertaining to funding commitments," said Taylor.
Quebec did not sign the agreement.
"We're pleased the council of ministers has finally endorsed a common strategy across Canada," Lane said Wednesday. "Up until now, it's been completely inconsistent."
Treatment standards vary widely across Canada.
A 1999 Environment Canada study found that the sewage of 63 per cent of British Columbians had at least secondary treatment, which means solids and most environmentally harmful chemicals had been removed. But nearly half the population of Atlantic Canada was releasing untreated sewage into rivers, lakes and oceans.
Lane said the new standards will bring all sewage treatment up to secondary levels. That's roughly the same as in the United States and Europe.
However, he pointed out the agreement gives even the most high-risk treatment facilities that are substandard up to 10 years to upgrade. Medium-risk facilities have up to 20 years and low-risk facilities have 30 years.
Vancouver's Iona treatment outfall, for example, won't have to upgrade for another two decades, said Lane.
"We believe that is (B.C.'s) most significant pollution source and should be forced to upgrade in the next 10 years."
The long timelines are needed because of the cost, said Environment Canada spokeswoman Paula Franchellini.
"We spread out the investment over time so it's affordable and feasible," she said.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has also pointed out that spending on waste-water facilities could crowd out other projects.
Nobody from the federation was available Wednesday to comment. But a January 2008 paper outlines the financial challenges communities would face.
"Focusing a significant portion of currently available funding on meeting new standards for waste water would mean diverting funding away from other urgent and immediate needs," it said.
The federation, which supports national standards, has urged the ministers to create a new pool of money for both upgrades and monitoring.
