April 18, 2012

Atlantic mayors ask federal government to share costs of wastewater construction

HALIFAX

Atlantic mayors are calling on the federal government to commit to a fully-funded, cost-shared funding plan to implement its new national wastewater regulations.

“The current cost estimate of more than $20 billion over 30 years required to meet the new federal wastewater regulations is conservative and increasingly out-of-date,” said Summerside, Prince Edward Island mayor Basil Stewart, chair of the Atlantic Mayors’ Congress (AMC), in a press release.

“The federal government must update its national cost estimates as it finalizes the new regulations, and explain how its funding plan will protect both the environment and our municipal property tax payers.”

Mayors from Atlantic Canada’s largest municipalities were recently in Halifax as part of their bi-annual AMC meeting to discuss pressing issues facing their communities, including the new federal wastewater regulations.

Over the next 30 years, the new federal regulations will require communities to rebuild or replace one out of every four wastewater treatment systems across the country, says the AMC. Among the municipalities requiring the most significant upgrades to their wastewater treatment systems are Halifax, Moncton and St. John’s.

The AMC says Canadian municipalities cannot meet the nation’s infrastructure needs on their own. The federal government has started working with municipalities over the last few years to invest in Canada’s aging infrastructure. The current federal infrastructure programs end in 2014 and the government is working with various stakeholders to shape its replacement.

“The federal government has taken an important step in the right direction by promising to work with all orders of government to develop a new, long-term infrastructure plan, and that plan must include a cost-shared funding strategy to implement the new regulations,” said Halifax mayor Peter Kelly.

Thirty mayors from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador meet twice a year to discuss common issues. Through the AMC, mayors develop a unified voice from an Atlantic Canada perspective in bringing forward issues to the federal and provincial governments.

DCN NEWS SERVICES

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