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TORONTO, Jan. 22 – Cash-strapped governments across Canada need to encourage private investment in water and wastewater systems if the nation
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TORONTO, Jan. 22 – Cash-strapped governments across Canada need to encourage private investment in water and wastewater systems if the nation wants to better protect public health and the environment, urges a new report from The Fraser Institute, an independent research organization with offices across Canada.
While the exact number of Canadian communities with substandard water and wastewater systems is unknown, problems across the country have been well documented, says the report, Water and Wastewater Treatment in Canada: Tapping into Private-Sector Capital, Expertise, and Efficiencies. Names such as Walkerton, North Battleford and Kashechewan represent the most serious failures of drinking water delivery systems while significant amounts of wastewater on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are discharged into receiving waters with little if any treatment. The report points out that the failure of Canadian water systems is due primarily to the age of the systems, a growing population that exceeds the capacity of the systems, poor management and ill-trained staff, lax regulation, and a lack of capital and operating funds.
“For many years, local governments have refused to raise water prices to sustainable levels, thereby starving their water systems of much needed capital for upgrades,” said Elizabeth Brubaker, Executive Director of Environment Probe and author of the report. “Clearly we can’t count on the status quo to meet the challenges facing our water systems. Governments need to consider the benefits provided by private investment and private expertise.”
Brubaker says the estimated cost for maintaining, refurbishing, and expanding Canada’s water and wastewater infrastructure in the coming decades could be as much as $90 billion, an investment the public sector has been unable or unwilling to provide.
By encouraging private investment, public funds would be freed for other purposes. Financial risks would be transferred from the public to the private sector, and private capital has historically been used more efficiently than public capital.
Although Canada has limited experience with privately funded water infrastructure, there is clear evidence of success. Moncton, New Brunswick saw immediate benefits from private involvement when it contracted USF Canada to finance, design, build, and operate a state-of-the-art water filtration plant in 1998. That plant was built for at least 25 per cent less than the city had planned to spend.
In the wake of the deficiencies in the public utility commission that operated the Walkerton systems when tainted water killed seven people and sickened 2,300, Walkerton and the surrounding municipality of Brockton recently conc