EC warns stormwater management under funded

NRU
Nov. 16, 2016

Ontario Environmental Commissioner Dianne Saxe, warned yesterday that most Ontario municipalities do not have adequate funding models to properly manage stormwater. Her report, Urban Stormwater Fees: How to Pay for What We Need, recommends the province require municipalities to recover the full costs of managing stormwater runoff; for example, by charging landowners a separate stormwater fee based on runoff volumes.

Following decades of declining investments, Ontario municipalities are now facing a $6.8-billion deficit to fi x existing stormwater infrastructure and to accommodate future growth. This financial gap could get even bigger as municipalities deal with larger flows and more polluted runoff, as landscapes are paved to meet growth pressures. There may also be additional costs to deal with changes in precipitation, and thus runoff, from climate change. In a survey of municipalities the commissioner found that only about 35 per cent of municipalities currently recover the full costs of stormwater management and 40 per cent do not have asset management plans for their stormwater infrastructure.