Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 10:40 AM
To: NSEL-WRMS-Water Resources Management Strategy (waterstrategy@gov.ns.ca)

Cc: Councillor Bill Karsten (karsteb@halifax.ca); Councillor Andrew Younger (youngea@halifax.ca); Councillor Gloria McCluskey (Regional Plan Advisory Committee-RPAC; Dartmouth Lakes Advisory Board-DLAB) (mcclusg@halifax.ca); Tony Blouin PhD (Manager-Environmental Performance-Water-SEMO-HRM) (blouint@halifax.ca); Paul Morgan (morganp@region.halifax.ns.ca); Susan Corser MCIP (Regional Plan-HRM) (corsers@halifax.ca); Maureen Ryan MCIP (ryanm@halifax.ca); John Sheppard PEng (Manager-Environmental Services-Halifax Water-HRM) (sheppaj@halifax.ca); Peter Duncan PEng (Manager of Infrastructure and Asset Management-HRM) (duncanp@halifax.ca); Paul Dunphy MCIP (Director-Community Development-HRM) (dunphyp@halifax.ca); NSEL-Water Line (delwater@gov.ns.ca); 'Councillor Harry McInroy (mcinroh@halifax.ca)'; Councillor Jackie Barkhouse (Dt. 8, HRM) (barkhoj@halifax.ca); 'Councillor Jim Smith (smithj@halifax.ca)'; Melody Campbell (LA-Municipal Clerks Office-HRM) (campbem@halifax.ca)

Subject:- 4th submission: Stormwater treatment

 

(All underlined words in our emails can be clicked upon in order to immediately launch the relevant web pages.)

 

We respectfully request your department mandate the requirement of total stormwater treatment in major new developments; for example, in urban/suburban developments exceeding in 20 hectares overall.

 

Stormwater treatment implies methodologies capable of removing 80-95% of all `stressors’ that typically accrue after an area is occupied by the end users.

 

Especially, such treatment methodologies should be capable of removing stressors smaller than 20 microns as well!

 

Similar requirements are mandatory in some enlightened jurisdictions in the USA and we possess multiple scores of published papers as well as the intermediate results of such innovative treatment methodologies.

 

We are unaware of such stormwater treatment anywhere in Nova Scotia although we had made numerous submissions to your department dating back to the Minister’s Task Force on Clean Water in 1991!

 

This is mostly the responsibility of your department and not of municipal units although many of your senior professional staff had always `passed-the-buck’ to municipalities during our past discussions, to state in simple English.

 

Examples of failures in HRM:--

 

A recent significant failure was evident at RUSSELL LAKE, Dartmouth although HRM’s Planning Staff along with an `academic representative’ of a Dartmouth Planning Committee (inappropriately) claimed that there would be stormwater treatment during the legal public hearing held by HRM’s Harbour East Community Council on May 25, 2005.

 

When issues rise after-the-fact, HRM always shifts the total responsibility to your department.

 

See also a recent staff report d/February 13, 2008 to the HRM Regional Council where they were professional enough to admit that `channelized stormwater’ is typically disposed off into freshwater courses without any treatment.

 

 

 

 

Shalom Murti Mandaville Post-Grad Dip., Professional Lake Manage.

Chair & Scientific Director

Soil & Water Conservation Society of Metro Halifax- SWCSMH, a multi-discipline scientific/technical stakeholder group

 

…………… and Public Art in Nova Scotia

 

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