Fracking occurred near Green Gables in Cavendish, P.E.I. in 2007. Photo credit: Chensiyuan
Council of Canadians vice-chair Leo Broderick presented to the Prince Edward Island Environmental Advisory Committee yesterday in Summerside where it was gathering input for the province’s proposed Water Act.
The Journal Pioneer reports, “Formal presentations were made by the City of Summerside, which talked about a number of issues specific to it as the second largest municipality on the Island, and the Council of Canadians, The Cooper Institute and the CWL, who all spoke to the need importance of a Water Act, the need to take time to do it right and generally, their opposition to lifting the provincial moratorium on deep water wells for agriculture.”
The Council of Canadians is calling on the the government of Prince Edward Island to continue with the moratorium on deep well irrigation and to legislate a complete ban on all deep well irrigation in the province. Broderick has warned, “Our ground water is not an infinite resource and we will suffer from long-term ground water depletion. Eventually our water table will respond causing serious environmental damage and affecting individual and municipal water supplies. The government should begin to transform PEI agriculture into a sustainable food production system putting small-scale farms at the center of the transformation.”
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow was in Charlottetown last month for a public forum. The Journal Pioneer reported at that time, “The Council is holding the public forum in advance of the province’s hearings on a new water act for P.E.I. in order to allow Islanders the opportunity to discuss the many serious issues affecting groundwater now and in the future. …The forum will address water as a human right, the global water crisis, the P.E.I. Water Act, corporate interests in P.E.I.’s groundwater, the impact of high capacity deep water wells on P.E.I.’s groundwater, and climate change.”
Today’s article adds, “There are still several public consultation meetings scheduled by the committee over the next couple of months. It hopes to have a draft version of the Water Act completed and for a second round of public consultations to begin by the spring of 2016 and is targeting that fall’s sitting of the legislature for that document to be enacted.”
Further reading
Council of Canadians calls for ban on deep well irrigation in PEI (January 2014 blog)
Broderick says corporate power threatens PEI’s drinking water (April 2015 blog)
Council of Canadians calls on the P.E.I. government to ban fracking (December 2013 blog)
PEI needs to protect its public water from CETA (December 2010 blog)
PEI could be a leader in fight against bottled water (April 2009 blog)
