As the Ontario government takes additional measures to implement recommendations from the O’Connor commission report to protect drinking water sources, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) has two seats on the 21-member implementation committee announced December 18 by Hon. Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of the Environment.

Allan Gardiner, a member of the OFA Executive Committee and regional director from the Lennox and Addington area, and David Armitage, an OFA senior researcher who has been involved with the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, the OFA Environment Committee, and development of Nutrient Management Legislation and regulations, will represent agriculture’s concerns on the new committee.

There are other names the farm community will recognize on this committee: John Maaskant, a director of Chicken Farmers of Ontario and chair of the Ontario Farm Animal Council; Earl Morwood, executive director of the Ontario Ground Water Association, a past-president of the Lambton County Federation of Agriculture and a former director of the OFA; and Dr. Gord Surgeoner, president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, and a professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph (UG).

Dr. John FitzGibbon, chair of the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition and a director of the School of Rural Planning and Development at UG, is one of 16 members of the new Technical Experts Committee. The two committees were announced by Environment Minister Dombrowsky as the province announced measures aimed at protecting ground water resources in the province.

OFA is grateful Minister Dombrowsky has recognized agriculture and its role in protecting groundwater resources in Ontario, President Ron Bonnett says. With committee members coming from a rural and agricultural background, “we trust science will play a key role in decisions and recommendations put forth by the committees regarding threat evaluation,” he says.

“It will also be critical that time is allowed for the adequate evaluation of economic, environmental and practical farming considerations agriculture’s representatives will bring to these committees,” Bonnett says. The minister’s news release said a government White Paper on the planning aspects of source protection legislation will be released in February, 2004.

Farm Voice on Province’s New Water Committees
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