In this National Post op-ed, Elizabeth Brubaker reviews Abbotsford, B.C.’s, proposed Stave Lake water project. If it earns voters’ approval in a referendum, it will be Canada’s largest privately financed undertaking in the water sector to date. Continue reading
Tag Archives: water
Using private funding and expertise to bring Canadians high quality water services — at low cost, too
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In her annual letter to supporters, Elizabeth Brubaker writes that Canada’s water is under threat. It’s threatened by the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Council of Canadians, who have teamed up to oppose private financing and operations of water systems. Their approach is wrong-headed and dangerous. Continue reading
Performance-Based Contracting
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This article in Municipal World discusses Elizabeth Brubaker’s report, A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Alternative Financing and Delivery of Water and Wastewater Services. It focusses on performance-based contracts, which can encourage innovation and create financial incentives for water utility operators to perform well. Continue reading
Procurement alliances will be key to securing water work, C.D. Howe Institute report finds
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In its third article about Elizabeth Brubaker’s report, A Bridge Over Troubled Waters, the Daily Commercial News reviews ways to control the costs of water and wastewater projects. Municipalities can tap into private management and engineering experience, negotiate financing and operating contracts with incentives to keep costs down, and reform water pricing to encourage consumers to reduce their water use and avoid the need for new infrastructure. Continue reading
The Privatization of City Services
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BNN’s “Headline” features a discussion of the privatization of city services, including water and sewage. Environment Probe’s Elizabeth Brubaker, CUPE’s Paul Moist, and Ontario Waste Management Association’s Rob Cook debate the merits of privatization. Continue reading
Technical input lacking on tenders: OSWCA
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In this article, the Daily Commercial News explores better ways of financing and carrying out water and sewage system work. It stresses the importance of full-cost pricing and competitive, results-oriented bidding processes that encourage ingenuity. The article extensively cites Elizabeth Brubaker’s report, A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Alternative Financing and Delivery of Water and Wastewater Services. Continue reading
Poorly performing Cdn water systems endangering public health, environment
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Eric Laganis writes in EcoLog about Elizabeth Brubaker’s report, A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Alternative Financing and Delivery of Water and Wastewater Services. He reviews the problems facing Canada’s drinking water and wastewater systems and the solutions proposed in the report. Continue reading
Saving every last drop of city’s water
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As the City of Toronto looks to plug its $774 million budget hole, it has kick-started a comprehensive service review. Writing in the Toronto Star, Elizabeth Brubaker and Benjamin Dachis propose that the service review consider the large potential savings from contracting out the water and sewage services that the city currently provides. Continue reading
A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Alternative Financing and Delivery of Water and Wastewater Services
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In this Commentary, published by the C.D. Howe Institute, Elizabeth Brubaker writes that drinking water and sewage systems across Canada threaten public health and the environment. Municipalities lack the resources to correct utility failings. Private water and wastewater services providers are well positioned to help municipalities with needed capital and expertise. Engaged through competitive contracting and governed by performance-based contracts, private providers have incentives to find efficiencies and perform well. Continue reading
Winnipeg Signs 30-Year “Alliance” With Veolia
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Public Works Financing reports on Winnipeg’s 30-year contract with Veolia Water, under which the firm will advise the city on capital improvements to and operations of its sewage treatment facilities. The article notes Elizabeth Brubaker’s concerns about sewage treatment staff and management remaining under city control. Continue reading
New report, same old problems
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Ontario’s latest drinking water report is out, and the news isn’t good. The report, like its predecessors, reveals wide-spread problems at drinking water systems across the province. Continue reading
Drinking water still not safe: study
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In a new study, drinking water expert Steve Hrudey warns that many Canadian water systems remain unsafe. More than a decade after the Walkerton tragedy, Hrudey reports, Canada remains “vulnerable to future water-quality failures, most likely in smaller systems. The problem is not that numerical water safety criteria are inadequately stringent; the documented failures have been caused by an inability to operate water systems effectively, pointing to inadequate competence.” Continue reading
Incentives Matter
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EPRF’s presentation to the Walkerton Inquiry’s Public Hearing on Guiding Principles focuses on the need to eliminate conflicts of interest and to internalize costs.
The real agenda in Walkerton
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Ontario Premier Mike Harris survived his appearance yesterday before the Walkerton inquiry. More than survived: He triumphed. Facing an orchestrated ambush by smirking union lawyers, hired activists and placard-carrying demonstrators, Mr. Harris rose so far above the low politically motivated smears of his prosecutors that many citizens of Ontario must now be wondering about the validity of the Harris caricature they have been fed for most of the past year.
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.
A bad water selloff may leave us all wet
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If the privatization of water and sewage in Ontario is anything like the British experience, Ontario residents are in for a rocky ride. The end destination will be better water quality and sounder infrastructure. But getting there will be both painful and costly to consumers. Ontario can learn from Britain’s mistakes.
Straight Flush
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"What farmers facing environmental restrictions have suspected about provincial urban sewages systems is true: they are massive environmental polluters of sewage and other compounds. Because it would cost so much to upgrade facilities in cities and towns, the situation often gets a blind eye."
It took just a few minutes. A manure irrigation gun, left unattended, pumping at full throttle. A faulty connection. Before anyone knew what had happened, several thousand litres of liquid hog manure were flowing down the slope towards the small trout creek.
The Walkerton Tragedy
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Last May, a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria contaminated the water system in Walkerton, Ontario. A testing lab informed the Public Utilities Commission of the contamination, but, inexplicably, the PUC withheld the information from both the public and the government for the following five days. Not until the medical officer of health, alarmed by the soaring cases of bloody diarrhea in the town, conducted independent tests did the PUC confess its dirty secret. The information came too late: The contaminated water killed six people and sickened 2,000.
River pollution: A lawsuit runs through it
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On the surface, a recent B.C. court case seemed to deny a legal right to clean water. But in fact, since the 19th century, common law has given the users of water downstream from a polluter a clear right to seek redress through the courts.
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.
Environment Probe 