Energy Probe Research Foundation’s submission to the Walkerton Inquiry’s Expert Meeting on Guiding Principles for Drinking Water Safety explores the critical role played by legal liability in risk management.
Category Archives: Reports, Studies, and Books on Water and Wastewater
Guiding and Controlling Ontario’s Future Water and Wastewater Service
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This study, prepared for the Walkerton Inquiry, promotes user pay and full cost pricing, independent economic regulation, and strengthened environmental law enforcement.
The Promise of Privatization
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This study, prepared for the Walkerton Inquiry, examines the privatization of water and wastewater utilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It reveals that privatization has brought investment, expertise, innovation, efficiency, and accountability to water and wastewater utilities, improving their performance and their compliance with health and environmental standards.
Water and Wastewater Privatization in England and Wales
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Although new to much of the globe, the water and wastewater privatizations of the last 10 years built on a centuries-old tradition of private ownership and management in several western countries.
A Wastewater Treatment Privatization Case Study: Indianapolis, Indiana
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An examination of the elements contributing to one privatization’s economic, environmental, and labour-relations successes.
Privatizing Water Supply and Sewage Treatment: How Far Should We Go?
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This paper, published in Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, was prepared for Property Rights, Economics & Environment: Water Resources, an international conference organised by the Centre d’Analyse Economique and the International Center for Research on Environmental Issues in 1998. In the paper, Elizabeth Brubaker compares four approaches to the privatization and regulation of water and sewage utilities and explores the environmental implications of each approach.
The Sale of Canadian Water to the United States: A Review of Proposals, Agreements and Policies
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A review of proposals, agreements and policies regarding large scale interbasin exports.
Troubled Waters: Municipal Wastewater Pollution on the Atlantic Coast
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This report, by Martin Nantel, examines the environmental and socioeconomic effects caused by the daily discharge of 1.1 million cubic metres of treated and untreated sewage in the waters of the Atlantic region. The report also addresses governments’ failure to enforce the legislation intended to regulate sewage treatment plants and proposes a solution to alleviate sewage pollution on the East Coast. Continue reading
The Role of Property Rights in Protecting Water Quality
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This paper, published in Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, was prepared for Property Rights and Environment, an international conference organised by Centre d’Analyse Economique in June 1996. In it, Elizabeth Brubaker reviews the ways in which Canadians have used common-law property rights to protect water quality and chronicles governments’ tendencies to replace the common law with regulations that make it more difficult for individuals to protect waters.
Municipal Wastewater Pollution in British Columbia
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This report by Martin Nantel examines the environmental damage caused by the discharge of treated and untreated sewage into B.C. waters, paying special attention to the threats posed to the Fraser River salmon. It also addresses governments’ failure to enforce the legislation intended to regulate sewage treatment plants and recommends a number of measures to alleviate sewage pollution in the province. Continue reading
Sewage Treatment and Disposal in Quebec: Environmental Effects
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Martin Nantel reviews the rules and agreements regulating municipal sewage treatment in Québec and demonstrates how unaccountable governments plagued by conflicts of interest fail to enforce their own laws. The report ends with a series of recommendations that would alleviate sewage pollution in the province. Continue reading
Ontario’s Sewage Treatment Plants and Their Effect on the Environment
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This report looks at the different types of sewage treatment in Ontario, the rules and guidelines purported to regulate treatment plants, the pollution caused by the noncompliant plants, and the environmental, health and social effects of that pollution. It also recommends a number of changes that should be made to stop sewage pollution.
A Review of Literature on Economic Instruments Affecting Water and Wastewater Flows
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In response to Toronto’s proposal to expand its sewage treatment capacity, this paper examines the effects of marginal cost pricing, efficient rate structures, full metering, and privatization on wastewater flows and on the need for system expansion.
Environment Probe’s Response to the R.V. Anderson Water Conservation Study
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A critique of a proposed water conservation strategy for Metro Toronto.
Environment Probe 