Water Stewardship

Background on a Canadian Ground Water Strategy

A Management Approach to the Ground Water Issue, Draft #1

This document was written in 1992 by John A. Gilliland of Environment Canada. In a letter dated September 24, 1992, he stated: "In order to get the ball rolling in developing a 'National' or 'Canadian' (or other) Ground Water Strategy, I have rewritten the DOE Strategy to make it more generally relevant to everyone's concerns, and not so specifically oriented towards DOE." Dr. Gilliland retired from Environment Canada August 31, 1993.

Conclusions

Need for New Approaches

CONCLUSION NO. 1:

Present, reactive, single issue, uncoordinated approaches are completely inadequate to address the widespread problems of ground water contamination and present and impending supply shortages.

New approaches are required, based on integrated, cooperative ground water management emphasizing long term prevention rather than short term crisis response.

CONCLUSION NO. 2:

The new approaches mentioned in CONCLUSION NO. 1 must include a greatly increased component of environmental, social and economic benefit/cost and risk analysis.

Coordination of Federal and Provincial Ground Water Activities

CONCLUSION NO. 3:

The lack of effective, permanent mechanisms for coordinating federal and provincial ground water activities has been a major impediment to taking effective action on the ground water issue. Establishment and maintenance of such mechanisms and institutions is essential if today's critical ground water issues are to be addressed.

CONCLUSION NO. 4:

It would be mutually beneficial for all governments to develop and implement their ground water management plans in cooperation with each other.

Development of Guidelines for Ground Water Management

CONCLUSION NO. 5:

The development of Guidelines and Codes of Practice is such a key part of the establishment of viable ground water management plans that it should be given highest priority.

Technical Capability for Ground Water Contamination Clean-up and Prevention and Development

CONCLUSION NO. 6:

Coordination between specialists in ground water contamination clean- up and prevention and ground water managers needs to be significantly improved.

CONCLUSION NO. 7:

Governments' access to technical expertise in ground water development is inadequate and needs to be significantly improved.

Governments' Access to State-of-the-Art Hydrogeological Knowledge and Expertise

CONCLUSION NO. 8:

There is reason for concern that governments may be in danger of losing access to state-of-the-art hydrogeological expertise. Action can be taken to prevent this happening.

Ground Water Databases

CONCLUSION NO. 9:

Although there is little evidence that the amount of available ground water data is inadequate for governments' ground water management needs, existing data bases are poorly organized and uncoordinated. Cooperative efforts to improve the effectiveness of ground water data bases are required.

Value of Canada's Ground Water Resources

CONCLUSION NO. 10:

Very little information exists concerning the value of ground water to Canadians in either social, environmental or economic terms, which makes it virtually impossible to develop rational ground water management plans. Immediate action to remedy this situation is required.

Value of Other Resources at Risk from Contaminated Ground Water

CONCLUSION NO. 11:

The value of other resources at risk from contaminated ground water is unknown. Information on the value of these resources and the magnitude of the risks is essential in order to develop rational ground water management plans.

Present and Future Demands for Ground Water

CONCLUSION NO. 12:

Information on future demands for ground water is sparse. Much more is required in order to be able to develop ground water management plans.

Socioeconomic Research on Ground Water Issues

CONCLUSION NO. 13:

Governments' knowledge and understanding of the basic socioeconomic dimensions of ground water issues is deficient. Fundamental socioeconomic research into these aspects of ground water management is required.

Public Information and Education on Ground Water Management, Protection and Development

CONCLUSION NO. 14:

Canadians are seriously uninformed about the significance of ground water to many environmental issues. This lack of understanding is a significant hindrance to governments in taking effective action to address ground water issues.

Recommendations

RECOMMENDATION 1.

The goal of governments should be to establish effective, viable ground water management systems and mechanisms in all jurisdictions, with the aim of having them in place in six years.

RECOMMENDATION 2.

Governments should endorse and maintain co-ordinating mechanisms such as the Federal-Provincial Ground Water Working Group. Such groups should be permanent and meet regularly.

RECOMMENDATION 3.

Governments should enter into cost-sharing agreements to jointly develop guidelines, data banks, and other ground water management tools and put in place effective ground water management plans.

RECOMMENDATION 4.

The appropriate federal and provincial departments should jointly develop Guidelines and Strategies relating to ground water and activities which impact on ground water. Funding of the development of specific Guidelines should be cost-shared according to some appropriate formula.

RECOMMENDATION 5.

A review should be undertaken of the adequacy of existing technology transfer mechanisms between research and operational components of governments.

RECOMMENDATION 6.

Governments should enter into formal agreements for joint research on ground water topics of mutual interest.

RECOMMENDATION 7.

Governments should cooperate in endorsing the establishment of one or more Chairs in Ground Water at Canadian universities and/or a viable ground water program at one university in each of five Regions. Governments should assist candidate Universities in seeking industrial sponsors.

RECOMMENDATION 8.

Governments should increase funding for the support of extra-mural ground water research.

RECOMMENDATION 9.

Governments should initiate immediately studies to establish the social, economic and environmental value of ground water to Canadians.

RECOMMENDATION 10.

In conjunction with the studies recommended in 9, above, governments should initiate studies of the indirect social, economic and environmental costs of ground water contamination.

RECOMMENDATION 11.

Governments should initiate programs to determine future demands for ground water.

RECOMMENDATION 12.

Governments should cooperate in developing nationally compatible, efficient ground water data banks.

RECOMMENDATION 13.

Governments should review the adequacy of their own internal expertise and knowledge in the area of the socioeconomic aspects of ground water resources and also the extent to which any deficiencies identified could be remedied through arrangements with universities and the private sector.

RECOMMENDATION 14.

Governments, in their ongoing public water information programs, should place more emphasis on ground water because of its "visibility" problem compared with other water resources issues.

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE PROBLEMS

Ground Water Contamination — The Scope of the Problem
Ground Water Development Issues

POLICY AND STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

Grand Strategy
Sustainable Development and Ground Water Management

INSTRUMENTS

Application of Economic Instruments
Development and Implementation of National Guidelines,
Objectives, Standards
Ground Water Inventories and Data Bases
Carrying Out Environmental Assessments and Emergency Planning

(a) Environmental Assessments
(b) Emergency Planning

Developing Improved Awareness of Ground Water

ACTORS

The Respective Roles of the Federal and Provincial Governments
Role of Federal Departments
Role of the Provinces
Role of Municipalities
Role of Industry

(a) The Well Drilling Industry
(b) Manufacturing, Mining, Oil and Agricultural Industries
(c) Service Industries — Consultants, Equipment Developers

Role of the Universities
Role of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)

(a) Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) and other Advocacy Groups
(b) Standards Setting Organizations

CONCLUSIONS

Need for New Approaches
Coordination of Federal and Provincial Ground Water Activities
Development of Guidelines for Ground Water Management
Technical Capability for Ground Water Contamination
Clean-Up and Prevention and Development
Governments' Access to Up-to-Date Ground Water Knowledge and Expertise
Ground Water Data-Bases
Value of Canada's Ground Water Resources
Value of Other Resources at Risk from Contaminated Ground Water
Present and Future Demands for Ground Water
Socioeconomic Research on Ground Water Issues
Public Information and Education on Ground Water
Management, Protection and Development

RECOMMENDATIONS

REFERENCES

Introduction

The basic purpose of this document is to provide the background and rationale for the strategies recommended for adoption by all governments in Canada — federal, provincial and municipal — in developing and implementing ground water management strategies and programs. In this document, "ground water management" is taken to include both traditional ground water supply and ground water contamination.

Contemporary thinking about the environment and about environmental issues, such as the concepts of "sustainable development", "integrated management" and "the ecosystem approach" dictate that no single environmental issue — such as ground water contamination — can be addressed in isolation. Ground water contamination cannot be addressed separately from the larger issue of ground water management; ground water concerns cannot be dealt with outside the context of the hydrologic cycle as a whole; the hydrologic cycle cannot be considered separately from the other physical, chemical and biological systems which together comprise the ecosystem in which we live.

Similarly, jurisdictional issues — such as what is "federal" and what is "provincial" — have become much less relevant as we have begun to realize that the consequences of any action taken by any segment, group or even individual members of society manifest themselves across all sectors and do not respect political boundaries. Thus, the use of (federally regulated) agricultural chemicals does not just affect the agricultural community; the impacts may be felt, (through contamination of provincially-managed ground water) in the areas of human health, wildlife conservation, regional economic development, and so on. Federal regulations concerning fish habitat may have enormous impacts on the forestry and mining industries which are largely under the jurisdiction of the provinces. Federal promotion of energy — saving technologies such as ground source heat pumps may significantly affect municipal water supplies — a provincial responsibility.

The need to deal with environmental problems in all their dimensions is daunting; indeed, it may never be possible to address such concerns in a truly global way. Within the present structure of governments and government departments, it would be counterproductive to attempt to devise strategies which are too comprehensive in scope.

Nevertheless, in today's social climate it is mandatory for governments to take as broad an approach as possible while keeping within the bounds of what is bureaucratically feasible.

The scope of this strategy has therefore been defined as follows:

• In terms of subject matter, it focuses on ground water, and in particular on ground water management.
• In terms of jurisdiction, it encompasses a cooperative, intergovernmental, interdepartmental approach.
• In terms of societal concerns, it addresses environmental, social and economic issues.

At the same time, the ground water strategy attempts to be consistent with overall government policy directions and strategies in other areas, e.g., sustainable development, surface water, wildlife, wetlands conservation, economic development, etc. Undoubtedly, it will fail to do so in some areas, if only because legislation and policies are themselves inconsistent in many respects. This situation will no doubt be remedied in the course of time but it will be a long process. Governments, however, cannot afford to wait any longer before implementing urgently needed ground water strategies.

Acknowledgements

The need for governments to "do something" about tackling the "ground water issue" has been recognized for many years and many individuals have attempted to come to grips with the problem. This report is deeply indebted to those pioneers who wrestled with the issue at great length.

Many people have participated in the preparation of the present report by contributing ideas, comments, criticisms and advice. These contributions have been invaluable and are gratefully acknowledged.

The Problems

1. Ground Water Contamination — The Scope of the Problem

Ground water contamination concerns are emerging as one of the major environmental and health issues of the 1990s. Over 25% of Canadians depend directly on ground water for their water supplies.[1] Because of this, and because all ground water discharges ultimately into surface waters; wetlands, streams, rivers and lakes, the issue is broader than one of ground water resources alone. Ground water is an integral component of issues such as acid rain, waste disposal, the management of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, wetlands management and others. Incidents of ground water contamination are increasing. This is a result of inappropriate site selection and use of materials and inadequate waste management practices by the industrial, municipal, agricultural and domestic sectors. The problem has been and is being compounded by past and present ignorance of the consequence of these practices. Preventive measures to forestall infiltration of toxic chemicals and other contaminants into the ground have been neglected. Ground water is the major link to humans for a variety of hazardous wastes from such sources as abandoned industrial sites, toxic chemical and radioactive waste disposal sites, leaking underground storage tanks, spills and other accidents, the application of agricultural chemicals, etc.

Little has been done in Canada to document the real world impacts of ground water contamination in objective terms. There are probably two main reasons why such analyses have not been attempted:

1. ground water is very much the "hidden resource"; the public cannot "see" the results of contaminated ground water in the same way they can see dead fish on a beach or smell the effluent from a paper mill even though the impacts of contaminated ground water may affect them just as badly or worse in the long run; and
2. the full impacts of ground water contamination may take decades or even longer to become apparent. Indeed, nothing at all may happen for many years after a ground water contamination "incident" occurs.

A leaking underground storage tank may not affect a neighbouring water supply for years after the tank starts to leak, but when it does, it may be too late to do anything about it. Heavy metal leachates from mine tailings may not reach a salmon stream for a decade, but when they do that stream is written off for salmon spawning for a very long time, if not forever.

It is, therefore, difficult to assess, at any given instant in time, just what the total impact of a contaminated aquifer is and will be, and to establish a realistic social and/or economic cost for that contamination, or conversely to place an economic value on preventing further contamination. Nevertheless, experience in Canada and in other countries, particularly the U.S., suggests that both the economic and social damages done by contaminated ground water and the costs of cleaning it up are enormous. A sampling of the dollar figures applying to ground water related concerns in various regions of Canada illustrates the magnitude of the issue. For example:

• Present estimates are that it will cost the Canadian economy 2.5 billion dollars to clean up known contaminated sites in Canada. It will cost the federal government 125 million dollars over the next five years to clean up federally owned and orphan sites alone.[2]
• The cost of cleaning up the Gloucester special waste site immediately adjacent to Ottawa International Airport will be at least 6 million dollars.[3]
• The cost of developing the proposed concept for disposing of high level nuclear wastes has been 400 million dollars since 1978. If a repository is actually built, it will cost 8 billion dollars (in 1989 dollars).[4]
• Between October 1987 and September 1988, 840 million dollars worth of pesticides of all types were sold for use in Canada.[5] The quantities of these pesticides and their metabolites reaching ground water and their impacts are not known except in a very few cases.
• In 1988, 53 municipalities in New Brunswick were supplied by ground water. If the ground water supplying these communities were to become contaminated, it would cost 18.2 million dollars to provide an alternative water supply.[6]
• Provincial gross domestic product at market prices for P.E.I. for 1989 was 1.9 billion dollars (provisional figures).[7] P.E.I. is 88 per cent dependent on ground water for all water uses.
• It will cost at least 100 million dollars to clean up the contamination in the ground at Pacific Place in Vancouver. Total costs for ground water clean-up in the Fraser River are estimated to be between 220 million and 530 million dollars.[8]
• There are about twenty abandoned mine sites and twenty abandoned DEW- line sites in the N.W.T., all of which may contain toxic materials threatening the environment. To clean up and/or contain the wastes at these sites will cost several hundred million dollars.[9]

In all these examples, ground water plays a major role, either by being a resource at risk itself or by acting as a major pathway by which other resources (e.g., surface water, wildlife) will be placed at risk.

By way of comparison:

• The Canadian share of the cost of the Great Lakes clean- up since 1972 has been about 2.8 billion dollars.[10]
• Between 1948 and 1990, the two senior levels of government in Canada have spent in excess of 2 billion dollars on major flood disasters and structural flood control projects. Since the inception of the federal- provincial Flood Damage Reduction Program in 1976, federal-provincial expenditures on and commitments to non structural measures (mapping, studies, forecasting) exceed 50 million dollars.[11]

These comparisons are, of course, very general and are presented primarily to demonstrate that ground water contamination, in simple dollar terms alone, is comparable in magnitude and severity to other major water management issues which governments have addressed in the past and are addressing now.

Ground water contamination is a problem that occurs nationwide, although different regions of Canada tend to have different kinds of problems.

It is a problem that threatens human health and the environment and has a major impact on the economic viability of large segments of Canadian industry.

Regardless of who is legally responsible for cleaning up specific cases of ground water contamination, it is Canadian society as a whole which ultimately pays the price. This cost may manifest itself as increased health care costs, loss of environmental values, increased taxes, higher prices for goods and raw materials (including water) or investment opportunities forgone because the money has gone to cleaning up the results of past mistakes.

The clean-up costs we face at present are the result of past mistaken practices resulting from a completely inadequate valuation of the real worth of Canada's ground water and other subsurface resources. Waste disposal has been very much a case of "out of sight, out of mind". Implicit in this approach is the arbitrary assignment of a value of zero to those resources which may be contaminated by the "disposed of" wastes. These grossly undervalued resources include not only the ground water itself but also those surface waters into which the contaminated ground water discharges and, indeed, the whole ecosystem of which the ground water is a component.

It is not a problem that can be easily resolved. An incident occurring today, such as a spill, may have no apparent effect until decades later, by which time it is often too late to take effective remedial action. Often, remedial technologies do not even exist. Contaminated ground water under a leaking chemical dump may have very little effect on ground water users but it may have an enormous impact on users of surface water if the contaminated ground water reaches their source of supply (as has happened in the Great Lakes basin).

So far efforts to clean up ground water contamination in both Canada and (particularly) the U.S. have for the most part been ineffective despite enormous expenditures of money and a strict and sometimes draconian legislative and regulatory approach.[12]

In Canada, attempts to deal with ground water contamination have been hamstrung by a) the huge costs involved in clean-up, b) uncertainty as to what general approaches to adopt and c) probably most importantly, a lack of motivation to establish appropriate legislative, economic and other management instruments to manage efficiently a resource which has been tacitly assumed to have little economic or social value.

Even though the primary constitutional responsibility for ground water (and indeed water resources in general) lies with the provinces, nevertheless, as indicated above, the inter-relationships between the various parts of the hydrologic cycle and ecosystems mean that almost anything done by one level of government has the potential to affect matters which are the constitutional responsibility of another. The Canadian public appears to believe that all governments should be playing a part in addressing the problems of ground water contamination.

The estimated costs of cleaning up ground water contamination and the significance of ground water to the economy given on pages 6 to 7 are only a sampling of the total costs that could be incurred if every actual or potential case of ground water contamination were to be cleaned up or avoided. This total would be, at the very least, several billion dollars.

This cost, if incurred, would impose an enormous burden on both national and regional economies with critical implications for Canada's international competitiveness, its capability to attract foreign investment, its citizens' quality of life and so on. There are also growing doubts as to whether existing technology is capable of cleaning up many contaminated sites.[12]

Therefore, it would seem to be only elementary common- sense to ask whether or not all such expenditures are really necessary. In other words, what are the net benefits of preventing future ground water contamination? What are the net benefits of cleaning up (or not cleaning up) existing ground water contamination? Because of the staggering dollar costs, it is surprising that so little has been done to address these questions. At present, decisions to clean up or to protect the environment from ground water contamination seem to be based almost entirely on subjective evaluations of what problems should be tackled and which postponed or left alone. Certainly, most efforts (and resources) are dedicated to remediation and are reactive as opposed to preventive.

A major problem which has contributed to this lack of action on the economic side of the issue is that it is technically difficult to assess the real costs to society of contaminating something (i.e., ground water and other water) which traditionally has been assumed to have no value. A recent UN sponsored conference in Spain dealt with some of these problems.[42]

One approach which has been proposed is to regard the "cost" of contaminating an aquifer in use as a water supply as being the cost of developing an alternative water supply. However, this approach presents a number of problems e.g. it neglects opportunity costs (what could have been done with the money if it had not been spent on developing an alternative supply) and discounts the benefits that might have arisen from future development of an aquifer which is not already being used to full capacity.

These difficulties are not easy to resolve, primarily because the water in the aquifer is (tacitly) assumed to have no value in and of itself.

Therefore, a necessary precondition to making realistic assessments of what the costs of existing contaminated ground water are and what the benefits are in preventing future contamination is an assessment of the value of uncontaminated ground (and surface) water. Such an assessment is not a trivial undertaking. For example, a recent national survey of the value of wildlife to Canadians [43] cost about $500,000.

One of the problems with the existing approach to ground water contamination is that it takes little account of the variability of social, economic and environmental values across the country or, indeed, within regions or parts of regions. The cost of contaminating an aquifer which serves as a water supply for a million people is obviously much greater than the cost of contaminating in a similar way an aquifer which serves half a dozen farms. This is true whether the costs are measured in terms of the cost of obtaining an alternative supply or in terms of increased health care costs or additional water treatment. However, the cost of cleaning up the contamination is the same in both cases; always assuming it can be done at all. When these factors are taken into account, it may well make sense in the one case (the one million people) to clean up the aquifer and in the other case (the six farms) to truck in water supplies and not try to decontaminate the aquifer. Unfortunately, this is not what usually happens, it is more often a case of "clean-up at all costs". Because Canadian society grossly undervalues its water, whether surface or ground water, it is very difficult to establish a realistic cost for any given incident of ground water contamination. For the same reason it is also difficult to assess what it is worth to protect ground water from contamination, before it occurs.

2. Ground Water Development Issues

Most public, media and government attention has been and still is focused on ground water contamination, primarily because specific "disaster" related incidents are easy to focus on and, on the face of it, to understand. However, there is another much less known aspect to ground water problems in Canada which is just as important and may be in the long run the true key to the long term protection of ground water and associated ecosystems while deriving the best possible economic and social benefits from its use. This aspect relates to the development of ground water and the subsurface as a resource in and of itself and includes issues relating to its use, its management and its development.

Focusing exclusively on the immediately obvious problems of ground water contamination blinds us to the all important interconnection between ground water and surface water.[13]

It is an inevitable consequence of the nature of the hydrologic cycle that today's baseflow is yesterday's ground water. The corollary of this is that today's contaminated ground water is tomorrow's contaminated surface water. Other relationships that are implicit in the fundamental nature of the hydrologic cycle are the connections between wetlands and their role as, for some wetlands, ground water recharge areas and, for others, sinks for pesticides and other agricultural chemicals or the fact that this year's spring run-off could be next year's ground water supply. Practically nothing has been done in Canada to investigate, let alone implement any "conjunctive use" kind of approach from either a quality or a quantity-oriented perspective. Indeed, there is little incentive to investigate methods designed to improve the efficiency of ground water and surface water use, as long as the resource itself (the water) is considered to have little or no intrinsic value.

The hydrological cycle itself is only one component, albeit a fundamental one, of the even larger ecosystems which are vital to the sustainability and development of all human activities. If we do not manage our water resources properly, there is little hope that we will be able to manage our ecosystems effectively.

However, the signs are already here that we are going to have to take these concerns much more seriously in future. Some parts of the country are already facing water shortages (at present mainly in the Prairies); these problems are exacerbated by recurrent periods of drought and may become even worse under some climate change scenarios. As existing surface and ground water supplies become contaminated from past practices, supplies will become even more scarce and impending shortages will spread to other parts of the country. If these regions are to continue to develop, all available options for assuring reliable water supplies will have to be thoroughly examined and a long term supply and demand management strategy developed and put in place.

The country's mechanisms and procedures for guiding the development of ground water resources are as primitive as are those for ground water contamination, the major difference being that the contamination aspect has received much more public and media attention.

For instance, some parts of Canada are or shortly will be facing serious water supply difficulties. Yet essentially nothing has been done to investigate how existing supplies might be augmented by innovative ground water development and very little to establish a realistic price for water in the area in order to assess the economic viability of any such schemes.

There is yet another dimension to the ground water issue, which goes essentially unnoticed amidst the contamination "catastrophes"; namely the use of the subsurface — the ground water/aquifer system — as a resource in and of itself. Ground water has been used for domestic and commercial cooling purposes for many years and the use of ground- source heat pumps is starting to increase significantly.[34]

In both these instances the thermal capacity of the ground water/aquifer system is exploited to provide a competitive alternative to conventional energy systems. Generally, the ground water aspects of these activities are managed even less well than the more familiar ground water resource and contamination problems.

All too frequently ground water development and ground water contamination are regarded and dealt with as if they were completely separate issues. Unfortunately, this categorization tends to obscure the fundamental fact that neither of these categories of issue can be dealt with independently of the other; it is not much use to anyone to have an essentially unlimited supply of ground water if its quality is unsuitable (either because of its natural composition or because of anthropogenic contamination). Equally, pristine, super-clean ground water is of limited value if there is not enough of it to meet society's needs.

These considerations point out an urgent requirement for some way of managing competition for the available ground water resource, whether that competition is between environmental and economic interests, competing economic interests or any number of varying interests.

Appropriate legislative and regulatory frameworks and effective management tools, which by and large do not now exist will have to be established in order to manage both the quantity and quality aspects.[14] Economic and other kinds of incentives need to be put in place to encourage the private sector to make wiser use of the country's ground water resources. It is in the national interest that these developments occur in a timely and appropriate fashion in all areas of the country.

Policy and Strategic Framework

Grand Strategy

The courses of action adopted by governments for dealing with ground water must be consistent with and an intimate part of their actions and policies for dealing with related issues, such as surface water, toxic chemicals and land use practices. They must:

• simultaneously encompass both quantity and quality concerns;
• emphasize prevention of future ground water contamination in addition to fixing existing problems. Even though some existing contamination problems will have to be addressed because of overriding health or other concerns, these short-term issues must not override the longer term (and more crucial) concern with prevention;
• provide for close, cooperative arrangements between all levels of government and the private sector;
• recognize the interconnectedness of all parts of the hydrologic cycle and of the ecosystems in which water plays a vital role;
• recognize the legitimacy of the development-oriented mandates of government departments concerned with ground water development while stimulating their recognition of the importance of governments' environmentally-oriented objectives; and
• draw upon the capabilities of the academic and private sectors in achieving governments' objectives while not impeding their capability to pursue their own goals.

These actions comprise the essence of "Sustainable Development".

Sustainable Development and Ground Water Management

There is more to the concept of sustainable development than merely preventing environmental damages which might be caused by whatever economic developments happen to come along. Implicit in the Brundtland [18] version of "Sustainable Development" are the dual imperatives: 1) developers must recognize the legitimacy of and give full attention to environmental concerns in their plans and projects, and 2) environmentalists must recognize the legitimacy of and give full attention to economic development concerns in their efforts to protect the environment.

This means that any organization subscribing to the principles of sustainable development, which the federal government and (all?) provincial governments have stated that they do, have not only an obligation to protect the environment (including ground water) from adverse impacts, but is also obliged to actively encourage environmentally compatible economic development.

Another important dimension to the sustainable development concern as it relates to ground water is the extent to which ground water is implicated in the sustainable development of other resources, such as wetlands. Traditionally, the primary concern with wetland conservation has been the preservation of wildlife habitat. However, more recently, the role of some wetlands as sources of ground water recharge and, conversely, the role of ground water discharge in maintaining other wetlands areas is beginning to be recognized, as is the place of wetlands in other water management issues.

Thus, governments' ground water strategies must provide for not only preserving and protecting ground water against contamination but also for allowing the development of the most efficient and effective ways of using ground water to achieve economic objectives.

Canada is blessed with an abundance of fresh water relative to its population.[20] The country's rivers contain 9 per cent of the world's fresh water annual flow yet the population is about one half per cent of the world's population. Even when the concentration of population in the south is taken into consideration, Canada still enjoys a relative abundance of fresh surface water supplies compared with most other countries. While Canada has certainly benefited greatly from its generous natural endowment with fresh water, there have been some drawbacks, which are only now becoming apparent.

Because supplies have been relatively abundant, water resource management has tended to focus on the extraction and distribution of an apparently unlimited water supply rather than on the allocation of a finite supply of a (relatively) scarce resource.

Traditionally, "Sustainable Development of Ground Water" can be interpreted to mean that aquifers may be developed up to, but not beyond the point where the amount of ground water extracted equals the amount recharged by natural or artificial means. (For a comprehensive discussion of aquifer and basin yields see, for example, Freeze and Cherry, chapter 8.[19]) This could be termed the "No Ground Water Mining" strategy.

However, in many parts of Canada, before extraction rates reached this point, deterioration in water quality would set in caused by intrusion of poorer quality water from underlying brackish or saline ground water, by sea water intrusion, or other causes. However, such contamination can usually be prevented, or at least confined to acceptable levels, by appropriate well field design and pumping schedules and a sound aquifer management plan. Nevertheless, extraction rates would generally be lower than for the "No Ground Water Mining" option. This second option could be called the "Quality Limited Development" strategy.

In Canada, both of the foregoing strategies could be and have been implemented by a single water management agency, that is to say the particular (usually provincial) organization charged with ground water management. Fifteen or twenty years ago, this was all it took to sustain a supply of good quality ground water (or so it seemed).

There was little need to address issues such as allocation between competing users (including the ecosystem), managing supplies for optimal economic and environmental benefits, protection of supplies from contamination or other damage and so on.

In other words, because water was considered to be so abundant, we tended to treat it as a free good, i.e., as if it had no intrinsic value. There was no benefit or motivation to develop sound management practices and policies for something that had no value.

The consequence is that today, when fresh water supplies of all kinds are becoming less abundant (relative to demand) due to increasing demands, contamination, projected climate change scenarios and so on, the management tools required to deal with the problems of limited supply, such as allocation, economic instruments such as water pricing, resource protection, optimizing development of supplies, etc. have not been developed.

Today, the most serious threats to sustaining a continuing supply of good quality ground water are now seen to arise from activities partially or completely out of the control of the specific agency (provincial or other) concerned with ground water management. For example, ground water supplies can be threatened by improper application of fertilizers or pesticides (in which provincial and federal agriculture departments have jurisdiction), by spills of chemicals from road and rail transportation systems (once again, falling under the jurisdiction of various federal and provincial ministries), by improperly planned or malfunctioning sewage disposal systems (again, various provincial and federal agencies have jurisdiction over different aspects), by activities such as the installation of ground source heat pump energy systems or by mining or oil exploration activities, by leaks from underground fuel storage tanks, spills of contaminants from industrial activities and improper disposal of hazardous wastes on landfills, etc. These diverse activities involve many other federal, provincial and municipal departments. If aquifers in use as water supplies are to be adequately protected, all these organizations must subscribe to mutually agreed upon policies for aquifer protection and management. Clearly, a high degree of both intra-and inter-governmental coordination is essential. No one agency can possibly do an effective job on its own. When the scope of the scenario is expanded to include the prevention of surface water contamination by contaminated ground water and the protection of ecosystems the situation becomes even more complex.

This problem is not unique to ground water; surface water management suffers in a similar way. However, surface water managers are somewhat better off in that generally speaking, the resource has been reasonably well inventoried and evaluated, some legislation and regulations have been established, some procedures do exist for water rights allocation, etc.

The field of ground water management is much less well developed in all respects. Not only is the overall level of ground water management less well developed than for surface water, but the variability of management capability between jurisdictions is also much greater. However, it is fair to state that on a national basis significant deficiencies exist in the following areas of sustainable ground water management:

1. Resource evaluation — i.e., aquifer identification and assessment.
2. Aquifer management and protection — planning and operations.
3. Ground water allocation — licensing and regulating withdrawals.
4. Conjunctive surface and ground water planning and operations, e.g., planning and development of artificial recharge projects.

Instruments

Application of Economic Instruments

One of the most effective tools in water management programs has been the use of economic instruments of various kinds. This approach has been used with great success in past water management programs, notably the River Basin Planning Program [21] and the Flood Damage Reduction Program.[22]

Some of these economic instruments are:

1. Provide government financial support only in areas or on practices that meet specific criteria designed to promote rational resource management. Possible applications in the ground water area could include:

a) Granting of mortgages to developments only in areas where no significant ground water contamination hazard existed. Such a policy would imply the existence of a ground water contamination hazard map for the area concerned.

b) Subsidize only those new technological developments which meet accepted national standards. An example of this approach might be a granting of subsidies to ground-source heat pump developments only if the ground system installation techniques complied with established well construction standards. This implies the existence of such standards in all jurisdictions.

c) Purchasing property or constructing buildings and other works only in those areas where no significant ground water hazard existed. This situation is similar to a) only it implies that governments would not develop facilities in areas susceptible to ground water contamination, rather than withholding mortgage money.

2. Encouraging projects and practices which would tend to decrease the risk of contamination or otherwise encourage wise resource use by providing low cost loans, grants or other subsidies to such projects and practices.

Falling into this category could be the recently announced National Contaminated Sites Program[2] where the federal government offers to pay 50 per cent of the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites, provided the provinces take steps to clean up non- orphan sites.

Development and Implementation of National Guidelines, Objectives, Standards

There are many different kinds of ground water related issues, activities and procedures to which some kind of national guidelines or standards could be applied.

Some of the ground water-related topics for which such guidelines have been proposed recently include:

1. Guidelines for deep-well disposal of liquid wastes.
2. Standard practices for ground water well and test-hole abandonment.
3. Codes of practice for water well drilling, construction and testing.
4. Standards of Training and Apprenticeship for Well Drillers.
5. Standard procedures for Ground Water Sampling and Chemical Analysis.
6. National Standards for Exchange of Hydrogeological Data.
7. Minimal National Standards for Aquifer Protection.
8. Hydrogeologic Guidelines and Standards for Landfill Siting, Construction and Operation.
9. Clean-up Criteria for Orphan Sites.
10. Criteria for Selecting Sites for Clean-up.
11. Manual of Procedures for Monitoring Waste Sites.

Undoubtedly there are many other topics to which national standards and guidelines could be applied appropriately; for example, regarding the ground water aspects of managing wetlands and the conduct of environmental assessments.

The list above demonstrates the wide variety of topics which at least some people consider appropriate for the setting of national guidelines. Some are primarily technological (e.g., those dealing with well drilling practice); some are primarily scientific (e.g., those dealing with sampling and analytical procedures); others are geotechnical/engineering in nature (e.g., those relating to siting and construction of landfills); yet others involve a high degree of hydrogeologic expertise (e.g., minimum standards for aquifer protection); some involve a combination of scientific/engineering and socioeconomic considerations (e.g., criteria for deep well disposal, criteria for orphan site clean-up selection) and so on.

Many of these topics deal with matters where the provinces have the primary jurisdiction. However, the job of the provinces in developing, enacting and enforcing regulations and legislation would be made much easier if national guidelines existed, to which provincial regulations could be related. These national guidelines, then, although carrying no legal authority, are perceived as having considerable moral authority and influence. This is especially true if the guidelines have been developed by joint federal/provincial agreement with input from the appropriate municipal, private sector, academic and public interest groups.

The important thing from the provincial point of view is that National Guidelines do not restrict the freedom of the provinces to act in their own best interests, as they see it, while at the same time provide them with a nationally agreed-on yardstick by which their own regulatory and legislative actions can be judged. Because of the complexity of ground water issues, considerable technical and engineering flexibility is needed in implementing any national guideline at a regional provincial or local level. In other words, National Guidelines say, in effect: "These guidelines represent the national Canadian consensus on how this particular activity can be carried out most effectively in all parts of the country." The provincial regulations regulating the same activity then say: "This is how we (the responsible provincial agency) direct that this particular activity should be carried out, bearing in mind the national consensus on how it should be done, as modified in the light of local conditions."

This kind of approach has worked well in other areas of water resources, e.g., Water Quality Guidelines, [23] and there is every reason to believe it would work well for ground water activities as well.

Ground Water Inventories and Databases

The first meeting of what is now the Federal Provincial Ground Water Working Group (FPGWG) [24] concluded that the most significant impediments to sound ground water management are:

• the lack of coherent and/or consistent ground water management strategies and policies at all levels of government;
• the lack of an organized framework of knowledge of the ground water resource in all jurisdictions across the country; and
• the lack of organized ground water databases focusing on ground water management needs.

The FPGWG recognized that ground water data programs must be designed to meet the needs of a well thought out ground water management strategy. Unless this linkage is made, ground water data collection and management programs (like any other data programs) quickly degenerate into data collection for its own sake.

Therefore all three of the impediments mentioned must be addressed together and be mutually supportive and consistent.

As in any other field of water resource management, ground water practitioners make wide use of a variety of mathematical models. Such models are used, for example, to gain a better understanding of physical/chemical processes occuring in an aquifer, to evaluate yields from an aquifer, to forecast the development of contaminant plumes and so on.

In the past, the major constraint on the application of such models was the availability of computing power. Twenty or even ten years ago the speed and storage capacity of the then available computers was such that only relatively straightforward situations could be modelled realistically at a reasonable cost.

However, since that time, the storage capacity, speed and cost of computer hardware have improved so much, that computational hardware and software limitations are no longer the major constraint to the further development and utilization of mathematical ground water models.

Today, the major constraint to the use of mathematical models is the availability of input data, which are essential to the realistic functioning of such models. Such data include the physical characteristics of the aquifer, e.g., permeability, porosity, anisotropy, storage co-efficient, compressibility of the aquifer, geometry and physical dimensions of fractures; the chemistry of the system, e.g., mineralogy of the aquifer, chemistry of the ground water, nature of any dissolved gases, presence or absence of immiscible fluids, dispersivity, partition coefficients, and so on.

To collect such data (all of which and more are needed for a typical ground water contamination problem) for even a small aquifer at a sufficiently fine scale to obtain reliable results is an extremely expensive process. (This is one of the reasons why ground water contamination clean- up projects are so costly).

Short of a major breakthrough in our comprehension of the physical and chemical processes occurring in aquifers, this situation seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, the data required for day to day management purposes, e.g., advising drillers on site selection, issuing licenses to withdraw ground water, etc., are by and large far less complex and much less expensive.

A large part of this kind of data is the water well records submitted by the well drillers. Many observation well hydrograph records and chemical analyses are paid for by the organization using the ground water, e.g., a municipality.

The implications of the foregoing for ground water data collection programs are:

a) All ground water data collection programs ("monitoring") must be designed to serve well defined project specific purposes. For example, an observation well or piezometer designed to measure water levels could be (and often is) installed to measure the response of an aquifer to pumping. Such a well might also be installed to measure the natural fluctuations in an aquifer which had the potential to be developed for water- supply purposes or as a part of an integrated data network for assessing the hydrologic impacts of climatic change.

In a contamination investigation, an extremely dense "network" of piezometers, wells, sampling points is often essential to define the extent of the contamination and to develop schemes for remediation.[31] These very high cost data acquisition programs should be justified by the social and economic implications of the problem under investigation and sometimes they are. (However, in some situations the costs of investigating a given ground water contamination issue may just not be warranted by the potential benefits). Other viable ground water quality monitoring programs could include, for example, networks to monitor the impacts of acid rain on ground water, or to monitor the (hoped for) decrease in pesticide levels in ground water after use of a pesticide has been terminated or modified (e.g. aldicarb in PEI ground water).

b) Traditional "monitoring" programs designed to provide early warning of potential problems have limited utility from a ground water perspective. One problem, common to both ground water and surface water is that, although we may have a general idea about what chemicals to look for, it is impossible to know beforehand exactly what the contaminants of concern will be ten or fifteen years in the future, and hence what to monitor for now.

The second, and much more important from the point of view of ground water, is that by the time a monitoring network detects the appearance of a contaminant in the ground water it is often too late to do anything about it. This is due to the relatively low velocities of flow of most ground waters and to the uncertainties in flow directions which are a consequence of the three dimensional nature of ground water flow systems. By the time the contamination is detected, large parts of the aquifer have often already become contaminated.

c) There is a strong incentive to develop new methodologies to replace and supplement traditional "monitoring" techniques. For example, drawing on pesticide sales figures, geological information, crop types, etc. and combining these types of data into a "probability of ground water contamination" map using a Geographic Information System (GIS) [32] of some kind shows considerable promise as a low cost alternative to installing an extensive and expensive network of observation wells.

d) Data storage and processing systems for ground water data will have to be capable of dealing with the specific problems peculiar to ground water.

e) Although many ground water contamination programs are severely constrained by the costs of data acquisition, ground water management programs need not suffer to anything like the same extent. (This is one of the reasons why prevention of contamination by good management is preferable to attempting to cure the problem afterwards).

One of the more effective approaches which could be used is to enter into cooperative arrangements between governments. For ground water data and information the approach could involve:

1. Developing nationally compatible ground water data banks.
   
   
2. Developing inventories of ground water resources across the country, to some minimum scale of detail and to minimum national standards.
   
   
3. To make financial contributions to 1 and 2 above conditional on the development of rational ground water management strategies. At a minimum these strategies would have to provide for aquifer protection as well as development.

In fact, there already exists a large quantity of raw ground water data in most jurisdictions. The problem is not inadequate data (or if it is, that is not now apparent), but rather inadequately organized data.

Carrying out Environmental Assessments and Emergency Planning

It is axiomatic, in managing any environmental resource, and especially ground water, that it is much more efficient and far less costly to prevent damage from happening in the first place than it is to fix it up afterwards.

Some of the more effective non-economics oriented tools for preventing the occurrence of ground water contamination are (i) the assessment of the impacts of projects before they are put in place, (ii) responding promptly to accidents such as spills or other environmental emergencies so that action can be taken to deal with the situation before significant damage has been done and (iii) adopting state of the art technologies and management practices to prevent spills and losses from industrial and transportation sources. Together, these tools can be considered under two headings:

(a) Environmental Assessments

Some of the ways in which ground water can be implicated in the impacts of projects are mentioned throughout this report. They include the impacts of mining on fish habitat (through the leaching of toxic contaminants from tailings piles or acid mine drainage); contamination of drinking water supplies by agricultural practices (e.g., by excessive application of poultry wastes as fertilizers, by improper use of pesticides) or improper industrial waste disposal practices (examples are legion); and in many other ways.

Detailed descriptions of the ways in which ground water can become contaminated and its impacts on the environment and human activities can be found in standard ground water texts such as Freeze and Cherry [19] and are summarized in DOE Fact Sheet No. 5 — Ground water — Nature's Hidden Treasure.[44]

Almost any conceivable land-based development has the potential to cause or to be affected by ground water contamination. Therefore ground water must be considered an essential and integral part of any environmental assessment. However, it is all too frequently the case that ground water concerns are not given appropriate consideration in such assessments, with the inevitable "unexpected" consequences of greater or lesser severity.

(b) Emergency Planning

Emergency planning is analogous to environmental assessment in that it attempts to foresee the consequences of possible future events, and to minimize the adverse environmental impacts of such events, in this case by making contingency plans for responding to a variety of hypothetical emergency scenarios such as spills, accidents, etc. From the ground water point of view, the most significant kinds of emergency are spills of hazardous products from industrial facilities, such as spills of wood preservatives from lumber yards, or accidents on transportation routes involving the release of hazardous materials such as railroad accidents in which organic solvents or other materials may be released from damaged cars.

It is stating no more than the obvious to say that the subsurface environment is one of the most vulnerable components of the environment to such land- based accidents. However, it is unfortunately also the case that ground water is often overlooked by those responsible for dealing with such accidents. This situation is especially regrettable because often, if action is taken promptly, the ground water system can be preserved, essentially undamaged, whereas if action is delayed for even a short time, irreversible harm to the system can result.

The reason why ground water concerns have been too often overlooked in both these areas is almost certainly a lack of trained personnel in governments, both federal and provincial and in industry, as well as the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

In view of the critical shortage of hydrogeologic expertise discussed elsewhere in this report, there are no easy solutions. For the short term the most feasible solution appears to lie in training existing personnel, while taking steps to encourage the education system to train more ground water professionals for the long term.

Developing Improved Awareness of Ground Water

There is is a strong and widespread feeling among government ground water program managers and workers that both the public and political and public service decision makers are seriously uninformed about the importance of ground water as a resource and as a critical component of many environmental issues.

One problem is that ground water is very much the "invisible resource" so that the "out-of-sight, out- of-mind" mindset seems to dominate.[30]

Mechanisms for remedying this situation include: newsletters targeted to a variety of audiences; information guides, fact sheets, brochures; displays for various audiences; public "events", such as Environment Week; articles in newspapers; media interviews; movies/videotapes for various audiences; lectures and seminars at colleges and schools; advertising government services and others.

Most of these relate to audiences outside the government sector. How to get the "message" to politicians and public service managers is much more difficult. This particular group is highly influenced by the media and media attention tends to focus on "environmental disasters" which make for good copy but also by their very nature tend to be short term. This kind of media treatment serves very well to raise public and political consciousness about the environment in general and specific disasters in particular (e.g., Ste Basile-Le-Grand, Hagarsville) but it has at least two serious shortcomings from the ground water point of view.

One is that media-type national disasters tend not to happen to ground water or, to put it another way, no-one can see ground water disasters when they happen because they happen underground. The other drawback is that the media's environmental disaster approach tends to generate a short- term, crisis-response approach to environment management by governments. This reactive crisis- response approach is the least effective way of dealing with most ground water problems. By focusing on the short term, governments tend to neglect the longer term, preventive strategies that are in the long run much more effective in dealing with ground water management issues.

Somehow, communications mechanisms must be developed to persuade politicians and public service managers to pay less attention to crises and more to long term management.

Actors

The Respective Roles of the Federal and Provincial Governments

Throughout this report, as in real life, there are three underlying themes:

• the provinces have the major legislative / constitutional responsibility for water, including ground water;
• a host of activities undertaken by or under the jurisdiction of the federal government, as well as by the provincial governments, have a major influence on ground water; and
• ground water can and does have a significant impact on activities that do fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

In the past, before these three realities were understood, there were endless discussions as to whether the federal government had the constitutional authority to deal with ground water and whether or not it should have a "ground water program."

Today, these arguments seem sterile and futile. Many of the actions taken by the federal government have a significant effect on ground water and on the way the provinces manage it. Many of the problems facing the federal government and which are undoubtedly its responsibility have a very significant ground water component. Therefore, the federal government is involved in ground water management, regardless of constitutional authority and regardless of whether it wants to be or not.

Until recently, the federal government tended to maintain a low profile in dealing with ground water issues, restricting its activities to a modest research program.

However, in the last few years, it has become increasingly apparent that ground water plays an important, and often all-important role in many environmental and surface water problems and the federal government has begun to recognize that its historical, minimalist approach to ground water is no longer adequate to discharge its legitimate responsibilities. An important milestone in this process of awakening to the importance of ground water to the department was the report of the Federal Water Inquiry [15] which recognized and emphasized the integrity of the hydrologic cycle and the interconnectedness of all its ground water, surface water and atmospheric water components. Another was the Federal Water Policy, [16] which set forth a policy framework for ground water which recognizes that the federal government does have well defined responsibilities for ground water which it will discharge. The five elements of this policy framework make it clear that the federal government now considers that its mandate for engaging in ground water related activities is very similar to its mandate for surface water.

Even more recently, the federal government announced its National Contaminated Sites Program, [2] whereby major federal funding will be made available to clean up contaminated sites. In the last three or four years, some federal departments have started to hire ground water specialists to respond to the increasing demands for this kind of expertise.

The Federal Water Policy provides the basic directions for the federal government's ground water programs. It expresses an explicit federal government commitment "to the preservation and enhancement of the ground water resource for the beneficial use of present and future generations". A framework to guide the department in its program activities with respect to this commitment is part of the policy statement. It states that the federal government will:

• develop, with provincial governments and other interested parties, appropriate strategies, national guidelines and activities for ground water assessment and protection;
• conduct research and undertake technological development and demonstration projects in response to ground water problems;
• develop exemplary ground water management practices involving federal lands, responsibilities, facilities, and federally funded projects;
• develop measures to achieve appropriate ground water quality in transboundary waters; and
• provide information and advise on ground water issues of federal and national interest.

The fact of the matter is that the federal government can have an enormous influence on the way ground water is managed in Canada, without trespassing one millimetre into areas of provincial responsibility. The Federal Water Inquiry [15] made the point that the public was not interested in what level of government did what; what the public wants is effective action.

Therefore there is no reason why the federal and provincial governments, exerting their own mandates, cannot work together in harmony to put the country's ground water management on a sound footing.

Accordingly there is no reason to seek to change the relative roles of the federal and provincial governments; there is no need for increased authority to do the things that need to be done and, especially, no reason to place the blame for lack of action on many of the more important issues on uncertain constitutional authorities. Between them, the federal and provincial governments have all the authority they need, right now. What is required is for governments to harmonize their approaches, so that they act and are seen to act in concert.

The need for the federal and provincial governments to act together to address important environmental issues has been explicitly recognized in a Statement of Interjurisdictional Cooperation on Environmental Matters issued by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment in March 1990.[33]

Role of Federal Departments

Many federal government departments have mandates for activities which can have a very important impact on ground water. Many other departments have responsibilities for activities which depend on or can be severely affected by ground water.

A list of the more important departments (in terms of their influence on or potential to be influenced by ground water) would have to include:

Environment (DOE) which has the major federal responsibility for water, including ground water. DOE administers a variety of Acts, such as the Canada Water Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) and others and provides technical advice to other Departments on various water related issues, e.g. on boundary waters. DOE's Research Institutes, in particular the National Water Research Institute at Burlington, Ontario and the National Hydrology Research Institute in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan have major ground water research programs. Many other Departmental programs have significant implications for ground water, e.g. Contaminated Sites, Leaking Underground Storage Tanks, Acid Rain.

Agriculture (CDA) which regulates pesticides and is concerned with other agricultural chemicals which can contaminate ground water. Its Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) is also concerned with water supply in the west, where ground water is very important. The very nature of agriculture means that Agriculture Canada has to be considered a major federal player in the ground water game.

Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) which, like Agriculture, has fundamental ties to ground water because of its basic interest in the subsurface environment. Many geotechnical questions of interest to EMR have a strong ground water component and there are fundamental scientific similarities between the role of ground water and ground water processes and ore genesis, oil occurrence, exploration and production, mine waste disposal, permafrost, geothermal energy and so on. EMR has to be considered another major actor in the ground water field.

Transport (DOT) regulates and controls many activities which can have a very large impact on ground water. Transport is the operator of airport facilities which, being large enterprises situated in proximity to large population centres have the potential to cause serious ground water contamination problems e.g., from airplane deicing or firefighting training. Transport also controls federal transportation routes such as highways, rivers and railways on which the risk of accidents and spills is higher with attendant dangers to ground water.

Health and Welfare (DHW) is concerned with drinking water and its sources and is therefore very concerned by perceived threats to water supplies for humans. NHW has carried out a number of studies on ground water as it relates to health.

Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has a major interest in various kinds of development which can impact fish and fish habitat. On the west coast, one of the major threats to the salmon fishery is the many mining developments with associated tailings and waste rock piles. DFO is also interested in the use of and further development of ground water supplies for fish hatcheries, to which ground water is particularly suited.

Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), together with the Territorial governments has the responsibility for managing water, including ground water in the two Territories of Canada.

National Defence (DND) is a large federal land owner and a major user of petroleum fuels.

Public Works (DPW) owns and manages much federal property.

Many other departments have responsibilities that are somewhat more remote, but nevertheless can have significant impacts on ground water e.g. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) with its influence on land use, and so on.

Crown Corporations can have a very important interest in and impact on ground water. For example, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has spent 400 million dollars in the last twelve years in developing its concept for the disposal of high level nuclear wastes in which ground water is probably the most significant factor.

Role of the Provinces

TO BE ADDED

(This section could include references to the diverse number of provincial Departments involved with ground water and the problems this causes; the various roles played by provincial agencies, e.g. licensing well drillers, issuing ground water use permits, developing municipal ground water supplies, operating data bases etc.)

Role of Municipalities

In many respects, municipalities are the leading players in the implementation of any aquifer management plan. Although the legislative authorities for dealing with ground water (or any other environmental issue) lie with the two senior levels of government, in the real world, it is the municipalities which are most closely concerned with day to day decisions concerning land use and other practices such as land use zoning, siting of landfills, operating municipal water supply and sewage disposal systems, inspecting septic tank installations and so on. Although actions taken by municipalities are always in theory subject to review and modification by senior governments, in practice, decisions made by municipalities are rarely overturned.

For any national, federal or provincial ground water strategy or plan to succeed, it is therefore essential that municipal governments be aware of the consequences of their actions (or omissions) on the ground water regime, and that they subscribe to the same philosophies and principles of ground water management as do the two senior levels of government. It is very much a case of "Think globally, act locally".

It is estimated that, in 1981, 951 (38 per cent) of the municipalities in Canada relied entirely or in part on ground water for their supplies.[1] This figure includes only those municipalities on distribution networks. Such municipalities tend to be urban. However, 82 per cent of rural users in Canada rely on ground water [1], so that the total number of municipalities — rural and urban, with and without distribution networks — with a significant interest in sound ground water management must be much higher.

It is very unlikely, especially in view of the nation- wide shortage of hydrogeologists, that more than a very few of these municipalities have any sound appreciation of the importance of ground water and ground water management to their residents, or that they have ready access to ground water expertise in their day to day decision making.

The trend today is for senior governments to devolve more responsibility for "infrastructure" such as water supply and waste disposal to the local level. Increasingly, municipalities will be compelled to address many of the ground water issues which hitherto have been regarded as the responsibility of the two senior levels of government.

Role of Industry

(a) The Well Drilling Industry

In 1986 there were approximately 1500 water well drilling rigs operating in Canada. The industry employed about 3000 persons and drilled about 38 000 water wells worth approximately 230 million dollars for the wells alone. The cost of the associated water systems was an estimated 53 million dollars more.[25]

Drillers are organized into individual provincial associations which are affiliated with the Canadian Water Well Association (CWWA), a national organization. Up to recently the CWWA has maintained a low public profile, but it has lately started to seek a more active role in maintaining and upgrading industry standards and to remedy some of the deficiencies it sees in ground water development practice.

The CWWA would be well placed to assist in developing national guidelines on the technical aspects of water well drilling and to contribute technical expertise, either directly or indirectly, to the development of codes of practice.

(b) Manufacturing, Mining and Oil, Agriculture Industries

Whether or not industry ever was the environmental villain that some people think it was, today, more and more companies are recognizing that it is just good business to be a responsible corporate environmental citizen. They see that it is well worth while to spend some significant effort on environmental issues, including the avoidance and clean-up of ground water contamination. For example, the Canadian Chemical Producers Association adoption of "Responsible Care" as a condition of membership, signals a desire to be a part of the solution and not just the problem.

Although there have been exceptions, by and large industry and governments have been slow to capitalize on their mutual interest in a clean environment by combining forces in cooperative research and other ventures. For example, the development of clean technologies, source and loss control techniques and the promotion of innovative management methodologies are all areas where a collaborative industry / government approach could prove very worthwhile. Some of this tardiness may be due to the nature of present environmental review practices, where governments and industry frequently are constrained to act as adversaries.

Nevertheless, there is ample opportunity for highly innovative approaches to preventing ground water (and other environmental) contamination.

For example, small companies find it difficult to treat, recycle or safely dispose of wastes from their operations. In many parts of the world such companies, in co-operation with governments, are forming cooperatives for dealing with these wastes which include metal finishing wastes, contaminated soils from oil refineries, etc. There are probably many opportunities for such co-operative ventures in Canada. These kinds of initiatives should be welcomed and encouraged.

(c) Service Industries — Consultants, Equipment Developers

TO BE ADDED

Role of the Universities

There is a critical shortage of hydrogeologists in Canada. In 1988 there were fifty to seventy vacant positions available in government and industry for hydrogeologists. The University of Waterloo (by far the biggest and best known "supplier" of graduate hydrogeologists in Canada) graduated 56 PhD level and MSc-level hydrogeologists in the period 1986 to 1989.[27]

This shortage has been caused by:

1. The infancy of hydrogeology as a recognized scientific discipline. Many ground water professionals active in Canada today have received no formal training in the subject.[25] There is still little emphasis on hydrogeologic courses at the undergraduate level in most university earth science / geotechnical curricula.
   
   
2. The fact that it is only recently that the importance of hydrogeology to a wide variety of environmental issues has been generally recognized. Only in the last ten years or so has it been widely recognized that ground water plays a major and often all important role in issues such as waste disposal, management of mine wastes, acid rain, lake contamination etc. The education system has not yet caught up with the demands of the real world market place.
   
   
3. The seemingly insatiable demand of the U.S. for trained hydrogeologists for hazardous waste studies (estimated at 25,000 professionals between now and 1995) and the consequent high U.S. salaries with which it is difficult to compete.[25] It is estimated that 40 per cent of Canadian trained PhD graduates in hydrogeology have emigrated over the past five years, nearly all to the U.S.

Although as many as twelve universities in Canada offer "significant" graduate programs in ground water science / engineering, [25] there is really only one which has consistently maintained an ongoing major hydrogeology program; namely the University of Waterloo. This university is barely capable of graduating enough hydrogeologists for the needs of Ontario. It is completely unable to satisfy demands for hydrogeologists for the rest of Canada.

Although other educational institutions are interested in establishing ground water programs (e.g. University of Saskatchewan, University of New Brunswick, Technical University of Nova Scotia), they have been and are hampered in doing so by the general climate of economic restraint.

The major consequence of all these factors is that Canada is facing a serious deficiency in ground water expertise in all segments of society — government, private sector, university — which seems likely to continue for at least the next decade.

Another consequence is that there is only a limited capability in the university sector to carry out research or other studies sponsored by outside organizations e.g. governments. It is not far off the mark to state that any university faculty member with expertise in hydrogeology can find however much contracted work as he / she wants with very little effort. Consequently, the opportunity for governments to contract out any significant part of their ground water requirements to qualified university faculty is strictly limited.

Such studies as are contracted tend to be "one-shot" in nature and for highly specialized sole-source services so that they do not (and cannot) provide the kind of long term contact and influence which governments need to maintain with the university community.

This might not be the case if the global demand for hydrogeological expertise were not so heavy, but universities can hardly be faulted for giving their attention to and focusing their priorities on those clients who are most willing to pay.

A number of avenues exist whereby governments' relationships with the university ground water community could be improved:

1. Increased Government Support for University Ground Water Research

There is no doubt that this would be welcomed by universities but, in the present economic climate, increased support for ground water research will face strong competition from other scientific disciplines.

2. Establishment of Faculty Positions in Hydrogeology at Canadian Universities

Over the long term, a reasonable target might be the establishment of a viable ground water program at one university in each of five Regions (Pacific, Prairie, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic). However, in the immediate future, establishment of more than two such programs in ground water would appear to be extremely unlikely.

At present, interest in increasing their involvement in ground water activities has been expressed by the Universities of Waterloo and Saskatchewan. Also, because of the importance of ground water to Atlantic Canada, interest exists in establishing a ground water program at a university within that Region.

In addition to these specific possibilities, there are, of course many other kinds of contacts which are in wide use already or which could be developed e.g., adjunct professor appointments; cooperative government / university projects; training of university students at government research establishments; networks of centres of excellence, etc.

Role of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)

(a) Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) and other Advocacy Groups

There has never been an active lobby for ground water issues in Canada comparable to those for other environmental issues. ENGOs have not been consistently active in pushing for action on ground water issues across the country, although some groups have been active locally.

The reason for this apparent relative lack of interest in ground water by the public and by advocacy groups is not clear; it may be that this is another manifestation of the "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" syndrome, or perhaps a lack of information on the importance of ground water to many of today's environmental issues.

The main role played by those organizations which have interested themselves in ground water has been in the area of public information. For example, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick worked with Environment Canada to produce a Ground Water Pollution Primer.[38] The Girl Guides of Canada have produced an information guide on ground water for use in their ongoing activities.[39]

These productions have been well done and serve a very useful purpose in informing the groups' clientele about ground water. The continuing involvement of these kinds of organizations in public information activities concerning ground water is to be welcomed and encouraged.

The current concern with environmental assessment offers the opportunity to ENGOs to become involved in environmental assessments of development projects, which often include ground water-related issues. To the extent that ENGOs take up ground water concerns in these projects, this is all to the good.

Other non-governmental organizations have played an important role in helping governments develop policies, strategies, etc. This kind of service could well be very useful in the development of specific ground water strategies, e.g., guidelines.

(b) Standards Setting Organizations

Another type of non-governmental organization includes standards-setting organizations such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). Other standards setting organizations that are affiliated with governments include the Canadian Government Standards Bureau (CGSB), the National Research Council (NRC) and others.

At least some of these organizations are seeking a role in the relatively new area of environmental standards and guidelines development. It could well be appropriate for some of these bodies to play an important part in developing and maintaining guidelines and codes of practice relating to ground water.

Conclusions

Need for New Approaches

The ground water issue has escalated in importance so rapidly that governments have been ill-prepared to meet it. Lacking the basic management tools to deal with ground water issues and lacking the time and expertise to develop them, governments have been forced onto the defensive to the point where everything else is being sacrificed to crisis management. Fundamental management requirements such as ground water data banks are being stripped of resources in order to deal with a seemingly endless series of fire-fighting episodes. Rather than develop longer term integrated management strategies, governments have adopted, almost exclusively, a regulatory approach which seemed to offer a quick response to the problems faced. However, it is now becoming increasingly clear that the regulatory approach, however essential it may be as a component of an overall ground water strategy, cannot by itself deal with the fundamental problems of ground water management. Nor do the firefighting clean-up efforts appear to be achieving what was hoped and expected of them.

Facing a probable clean-up bill of several billion dollars now, and with the prospect that that figure will grow by leaps and bounds as new ground water contamination occurrences come to light, the country simply cannot afford to continue with its present approach. Regardless of who pays the bill directly, the implications for the viability of national, regional and local economies are serious.

The problem has been that no-one knew what to do about the situation because no-one knew what the real problems were. Now that it is becoming clear that "quick fix" approaches do not work, the fundamental importance of the basic resource management tools that are well known (but seem to have been temporarily forgotten) is reappearing as is shown in the foregoing sections of the report. A valuable summary of the fundamentals of a sound ground water management system is the recently issued ECE Charter on Ground Water Management.[36]

Once these management tools are organized and are operating effectively, there is no reason why they cannot continue to do so indefinitely.

If these tools are put in place, what today appear to be almost insuperable difficulties will be just another job for the system tomorrow.

CONCLUSION NO. 1:

Present, reactive, single issue, uncoordinated approaches are completely inadequate to address the widespread problems of ground water contamination and present and impending supply shortages.

New approaches are required, based on integrated, cooperative ground water management emphasizing long term prevention rather than short term crisis response.

A major, conspicuous gap in all governments' past approaches to ground water issues has been the lack of any significant benefit / cost or risk analysis — in either economic, social or environmental terms. The consequence has been that many programs have been ineffective or, even worse, counter- productive, in terms of addressing the fundamental causes of the ground water related problems facing Canadians today.

CONCLUSION NO. 2:

The new approaches mentioned in CONCLUSION NO. 1 must include a greatly increased component of environmental, social and economic benefit / cost and risk analysis.

Coordination of Federal and Provincial Ground Water Activities

Effective coordination of federal and provincial approaches is the key to the success of any Ground Water Strategy. Although mechanisms such as the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME, formerly CCREM) operate effectively in other resource areas, they seem to have had little or no effect on the way ground water programs at the federal/provincial level have been handled. This report indicates that it is essential to get bodies such as CCME not only to support the strategy but to actively promote it, if it is to succeed. In turn this implies that there must be some significant benefits to these bodies and their constituent members in endorsing and adopting the strategy. For example, by moving away from a purely "protectionist" approach and placing more emphasis on "sustainable development" kinds of approach, it offers a way of dealing with the ground water issue without sacrificing the economic goals of some departments and agencies. However, this implies that all government departments and agencies must come to a mutual understanding and agreement about environmental and development goals and how they are to be achieved and even more importantly, how differences of viewpoint are to be reconciled. This mutual understanding is the essence of what Sustainable Development is about. Although some progress is being made, [35] there is still a long way to go.

At the working level, various co-ordinating groups have been created over the years to deal with federal/provincial co- operation in ground water. Two of the more long-lived are the Committee on Ground Water of the Prairie Provinces Water Board (PPWB/COG) and the Atlantic Water Resources Group (AWRG). Membership of PPWB/COG includes representatives from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, together with federal representatives from DOE and PFRA. AWRG began as an informal group of government personnel working in ground water in the Atlantic Provinces and included representatives from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and the federal government. Later, the interests of AWRG expanded to encompass all water resources issues, but ground water remains a key interest of the group.

In addition to these two bodies, which are well established, there have been numerous informal federal-provincial groups established on an ad-hoc basis to deal with various ground water issues that arise from time to time. The recent established Federal Provincial Ground Water Working Group (FPGWG) is an example of this type of federal-provincial ground water group.

Such groups have been useful, in that they have certainly served to exchange information and ideas. However, they have not really been much more than informally organized meetings, to discuss issues of the day. Up to now, none has achieved any degree of permanence and, with the exception of the FPGWG, none has had any substantial effect in coordinating federal and provincial ground water programs.

One reason for this is that federal and provincial programs have had little in common. Federal interests have been primarily in the field of research, while provinces have been mainly concerned with the "nuts and bolts" of ground water management such as licensing well drillers, controlling flowing wells etc. To be sure, there has been a significant degree of co-operation between federal departments and many provinces on particular ground water issues but these cooperative efforts have usually come about independent of any formal or informal coordinating mechanisms.

Another reason for the lack of effectiveness of many past federal- provincial coordinating groups has been that there has been little economic incentive for the different levels of government to cooperate. The federal government has rarely had significant resources for ground water to put on the table as an incentive to the provinces to enter into cost-shared agreements and provinces have not had the resources to help to sponsor particular pieces of research.

CONCLUSION NO. 3:

The lack of effective, permanent mechanisms for coordinating federal and provincial ground water activities has been a major impediment to taking effective action on the ground water issue. Establishment and maintenance of such mechanisms and institutions is essential if today's critical ground water issues are to be addressed.

In order to manage ground water (or any other resource) rationally, plans must be in place establishing procedures, mechanisms for resolving competition and allocation, priorities, etc.

The body of this report indicates that one of the major causes of the problems the country now faces in the ground water area is that there has been too much emphasis on "quick-fix" solutions and crisis-response at the expense of the development of longer term ground water management.

When established, ground water management plans could include, but are not restricted to:

1. Enactment of legislation and promulgation of regulations to control land use in order to help prevent ground water contamination.
2. Establishment and operation of realistic ground water withdrawal licensing systems, taking into account the value of the water extracted and its intended use, the need to preserve the ground water resource for the use of future generations, the economic costs and benefits to society of allowing or disallowing the request to withdraw ground water and other relevant environmental and socioeconomic factors.
3. Establishment of guidelines and codes of practice for various ground water related practices and activities and promulgation of regulations based on those guidelines.
4. Establishment and operation of efficient ground water data banks.
5. Establishment of pollution prevention measures including emergency response procedures to prevent or minimize ground water contamination from normal operations, spills, accidents, fires, etc.
6. Establishment of procedures and guidelines for carrying out the ground water aspects of environmental assessments.
7. Establishing protocols, procedures, guidelines for implementing the provisions of the various federal and provincial Acts applying to ground water.

Although agencies' ground water management plans would differ due to their differing responsibilities, there would be nevertheless large areas of overlap. On the international scene, even though the objectives of individual member nations of the ECE differ considerably, nevertheless there is sufficient agreement on the general principles of sound ground water management that all members of ECE have agreed on a fairly detailed specification of what is required.[36] There is no apparent reason why the various jurisdictions in Canada should not be able to agree at least to the same extent as ECE member states.

With over a dozen jurisdictions in Canada (counting only federal, provincial and territorial governments), it would clearly be beneficial (if only from the point of view of not reinventing the wheel 12 times over), for all governments to develop their ground water management plans in concert and to manage their ground water resources in compatible, if not identical ways.

CONCLUSION NO. 4:

It would be mutually beneficial for all governments to develop and implement their ground water management plans in cooperation with each other.

Development of Guidelines for Ground Water Management

Some of the different kinds of Guidelines and Strategies which have been proposed for development are listed on pages 23 to 24. No doubt there are many others. All governments have a direct interest in these guidelines (because they apply to all activities, regardless of jurisdictional considerations) so that a joint intergovernmental approach is the only realistic alternative.

There are no general rules to establish what organization will develop guidelines; the specific circumstances of each situation and common sense are the main criteria.

A variety of organizations and individuals could contribute to the development of the various Guidelines.

For example, national organizations such as the Canadian Water Well Association (CWWA) might well be best placed to actually prepare guidelines for matters such as standards for well construction and abandonment, training levels for drillers, etc. The University of Waterloo has extensive experience in investigating ground water contamination, so it is eminently qualified to develop a Waste Site Monitoring Manual.

The Federal Provincial Ground Water Working Group recently issued a set of Guidelines on Ground Water Data Management [45], which are the first of a series of Guidelines that the FPGWG plans to issue over the next few years.

National standards organizations such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and others could play a major role in establishing credible and nationally acceptable Guidelines.

CONCLUSION No. 5:

The development of Guidelines and Codes of Practice is such a key part of the establishment of viable ground water management plans that it should be given highest priority.

Technical Capability for Ground Water Contamination Clean-up and Prevention and Development

Generally, Canadian ground water managers are well informed about the technical options available for cleaning up contaminated ground water. (Whether or not this technical knowledge is well applied to real- world problems is another matter and governments' records in actual ground water clean-up have been seriously questioned).

The problems with applying this knowledge lie a). in the weak co-ordination of the efforts of the people working in the technology development field with ground water managers and b). in the lack of priorities based on benefit/cost and risk analyses for attacking clean-up problems. As discussed in a previous section of this report, it may make most sense, when all factors are considered, not to clean up a particular case of ground water contamination, even if the technology exists to do so. However, lacking any overall ground water management strategy for making such decisions, there is a natural tendency for people to take on a problem just because it is there.

Clearly, the technical people concerned with clean-up and prevention should have a major role to play in making these decisions but until overall ground water management plans are in place, it will be difficult for them to play that role effectively.

CONCLUSION NO. 6:

Coordination between specialists in ground water contamination clean- up and prevention and ground water managers needs to be significantly improved.

In terms of ground water development, governments' knowledge of available technical options is more problematical. Some of the more obvious deficiencies are a very inadequate knowledge of artificial recharge techniques and of conjunctive surface and ground water development. Other areas relating to ground water development technology where governments seem to be seriously deficient include permafrost, instrumentation (both quantitative and qualitative), numerical modelling, geophysics, drilling technology, geochemistry, ground water microbiology and others. The problem is not so much that governments lack these technological skills in- house because many of them are available in industry or the universities. The real problem is that because governments lack so many of these skills, they often do not know the right experts to ask or, even worse, do not even know they should be asking a question at all.

If the implementation of the sustainable development program is to succeed with respect to ground water, governments will have to make a much more serious effort to ensure that they have available the best possible ground water development technology. Whereas it would definitely be advantageous to have the expertise in-house, this would be very expensive. However, expertise is available in universities and the private sector, which could be drawn upon provided that governments are knowledgeable enough to initiate and manage the appropriate contracts.

CONCLUSION NO. 7:

Governments' access to technical expertise in ground water development is inadequate and needs to be significantly improved.

Governments' Access to State-of-the-Art Hydrogeological Knowledge and Expertise.

In many respects Canada appears to be adequately served by its ground water professionals; for example, Canada does not appear to be technically backward in dealing with U.S. agencies on international ground water issues, apart from sheer numbers of people. However, there are some disturbing signs that we may be in danger of falling behind. For example, some people sense that the ground water research community and ground water managers are becoming increasingly out of touch with each other.

Two important factors giving rise to this concern are:

• an overall shortage of ground water expertise — high level nuclear waste ground water experts are also pesticide experts, landfill experts, mining experts, etc. so that if they work on one problem, others suffer; and
  
  
• a lack of effective mechanisms whereby research knowledge and expertise can be transferred to operational managers.

A large part of the problem seems to be that at present there is a serious shortage of operational hydrogeologists, at least within government agencies, who can apply both existing and new knowledge to real world problems.

There are extensive overlaps of scientific interest in ground water between various federal and provincial departments. Therefore there should be significant opportunities for jointly supporting hydrogeological research in a wide variety of areas of mutual interest which would undoubtedly result in substantially reduced overall costs.

Possible mechanisms for developing closer ties with the academic community were outlined on pages 47 to 48. For a relatively modest investment, a very significant improvement in governments' access to the country's best hydrogeological talent would be obtained, together with the prospect of substantially increasing the numbers of trained hydrogeologists in the job market place.

CONCLUSION NO. 8:

There is reason for concern that governments may be in danger of losing access to state-of-the-art hydrogeological expertise. Action can be taken to prevent this happening.

Ground Water Databases

At present there is no reason to believe that lack of data is an obstacle hindering the development and operation of rational ground water management strategies. The problem now appears to be that existing data are poorly organized for management purposes. Governments seem to be reasonably content, in general, with the mechanisms they have set up to ensure that they obtain the data being generated by well drillers, water quality laboratories, etc. However, as mentioned on page 31, action is required to organize ground water data banks more effectively. It was suggested that a joint federal/provincial approach be adopted to develop nationally compatible ground water data banks.

A start on developing nationally compatible ground water data banks has already been made through the development and publication of Guideline for Ground Water Data Management [45] by the Federal Provincial Ground Water Working Group.

An important consideration which must be borne in mind is that these data banks will have to be capable of dealing with both traditional resource management data and data generated in the course of site remediation investigations and post-clean-up monitoring.

CONCLUSION NO. 9:

Although there is little evidence that the amount of available ground water data is inadequate for governments' ground water management needs, existing data bases are poorly organized and uncoordinated. Cooperative efforts to improve the effectiveness of ground water data bases are required.

Value of Canada's Ground Water Resources

Although some very preliminary studies have been carried out [46,47], at present very little is known concerning the value in social, economic and environmental terms of Canada's ground water resources.

It is not even possible to make qualitative statements about its value to society, based on how society deals with ground water-related issues. On the one hand, society appears to treat this resource as having essentially no value. Withdrawals are poorly managed, if at all; little consideration is given to the possibility of contaminating ground water by a host of common practices; we have not bothered to look for new and more efficient ways of utilizing ground water even in areas where water shortages are imminent. All this would indicate that we do not value the resource very highly.

On the other hand, society appears to be perfectly content to spend (or to force someone else to spend) millions of dollars on clean-up attempts in cases where only a few users are threatened and where replacement water supplies could be provided at a small fraction of the cost of clean-up. This seems to imply that ground water is a highly valued commodity, to be protected at almost any cost.

These attitudes are obviously inconsistent and they could not co-exist if we had any true appreciation of what our ground water resources are really worth to us. Most ground water managers would probably agree that on balance Canada's ground water resources, like its surface water resources, are seriously undervalued, whatever value system is used as a yard-stick; economic, social or environmental. However, such views cannot be regarded as much more than opinion because to date there have been very few studies on what the country's ground water resources are worth. Such studies as have been carried out (see, for example, reference 47) indicate that the value of ground water, in economic terms alone, can be substantial. Without knowing the value of the resource it is very difficult to make rational decisions concerning either ground water contamination or ground water development and ground water management becomes a pointless and wasteful activity.

It will not be easy to assess the value of ground water to Canadians for the reasons given on pages 5 to 12. The most effective approach will likely be to start with a general, national overview and then to develop successively more detailed pictures on regional, provincial and local scales. This process will take five to six years to complete and will need to be updated periodically. A joint federal/provincial approach appears, as usual, to be the preferred course of action.

CONCLUSION NO. 10:

Very little information exists concerning the value of ground water to Canadians in either social, environmental or economic terms, which makes it virtually impossible to develop rational ground water management plans.

Immediate action to remedy this situation is required.

Value of Other Resources at Risk from Contaminated Ground Water

It was pointed out on page 13 that, due to the nature of the hydrologic cycle, contaminated ground water poses a threat not just to the direct users of that ground water but also to users of surface water bodies which may become contaminated by the ground water discharging into it. It is suspected that a significant proportion of the contaminants in Lake Ontario got there in this way.

This kind of threat is also very important in other areas, such as B.C. where salmon spawning grounds and stream habitats are highly vulnerable to contaminated ground water leaching from mine workings. The same kind of concern exists with the proposed method of disposing of high level nuclear wastes in a deep underground vault.

In all these cases, the major threat posed by contaminated ground water is not to direct users of the ground water, but to users of surface water which has been contaminated by the ground water. It is believed that the indirect threat posed by contaminated ground water is of the same order of magnitude as the direct threat to ground water users.

However, as with the direct threat the magnitude of this indirect threat has not been evaluated in any systematic way so that at present it is impossible to evaluate the actual or potential costs attributable to this cause. It is therefore difficult to establish any rational approach to deal with this problem.

Unfortunately, there appears to have been a tendency to neglect the indirect aspect of ground water contamination, which is why it has been identified separately in this Report. It is essential, therefore to establish some way to assess the magnitude of the problem.

CONCLUSION NO. 11:

The value of other resources at risk from contaminated ground water is unknown. Information on the value of these resources and the magnitude of the risks is essential in order to develop rational ground water management plans.

Present and Future Demands for Ground Water

Although present demands for ground water can be (and have been, see reference no. 1) estimated from records of consumption, future demands cannot be estimated in any rational way without introducing the notion of water pricing. Without knowing what price consumers will be asked to pay for their water supply, it is not possible to assess what the overall demand for water will be, nor to estimate what proportion of that total demand could be supplied by ground water. Without some pricing mechanism, it is not feasible to determine whether some new technology (such as artificial recharge) will be able to augment existing supplies economically, or whether some existing consumer practices might become uneconomic and hence, cease.

At present there is nothing resembling a free market place for water and it is not likely that one will be developed in the next decade or so, so that establishing a pricing structure for ground water cannot rely on free market concepts. Instead, reliance will have to be placed on establishing the value of ground water in order to be able to assess future demands on the resource.

This may require some innovative economic science. However, the concern with pricing applies just as much to surface water as to ground water, so that whatever economic approaches are developed for the one will apply to the other and costs will thereby be minimized.

CONCLUSION NO. 12:

Information on future demands for ground water is sparse. Much more is required in order to be able to develop ground water management plans.

Socioeconomic Research on Ground Water Issues

Throughout this report, social and economic considerations appear repeatedly as being major factors in the ground water issue. They are just as important as the natural science and engineering factors which traditionally are what is thought of when ground water management is under consideration.

But natural science and engineering by themselves are not enough to ensure that ground water and, indeed, any other natural resource is managed effectively.

There have certainly been problems with the way governments have attempted to deal with the ground water issue, but fundamentally they have not arisen from major deficiencies in governments' natural science and engineering capabilities.

Time and again throughout this Report it is evident that if governments had got their basic Socioeconomic approach right, then the scientific and engineering problems would have been relatively straightforward. As matters now stand, it appears that little progress will be made towards managing Canada's ground water effectively until those Socioeconomic problems are resolved.

However, the foregoing discussions also show that ground water poses some special and intractable problems; for example, in attempting to place a value on ground water. It is not evident that governments possess or have access to the right Socioeconomic tools to perform this kind of analysis; they may not even exist.

Therefore, it would appear that what is needed is an increased effort in research into the Socioeconomic aspects of ground water issues. At present, there exist no government organizations specifically charged with performing socioeconomic research on ground water.

CONCLUSION NO. 13:

Governments' knowledge and understanding of the basic socioeconomic dimensions of ground water issues is deficient. Fundamental socioeconomic research into these aspects of ground water management is required.

Public Information and Education on Ground Water Management, Protection and Development

A perennial problem with publicizing ground water and ground water issues is that it is the hidden resource; all the "action" happens underground. This makes it difficult for the public to relate to and understand — much more so than for surface water where everything is visible and accessible. Spill a toxic chemical in a river and the dead fish are on the beach tomorrow. Spill that same toxic chemical on the ground and it may take decades for anything visible to happen. This is not the kind of thing out of which hot news items are made!

One of the consequences of the invisibility of ground water is that there are a lot of popular misconceptions about how it occurs and what processes take place.

For example, one very common myth is that ground water occurs as underground rivers and lakes. Whereas underground rivers do occur in very special, unusual conditions, by far the greatest volume of ground water of significance to man occurs in porous media like sands and gravels or in fractured rocks such as limestones and sandstones.

Another common misconception is that once something gets into ground water it will stay there indefinitely unless someone deliberately pumps the ground water back up again. In fact, "what goes down, must come up", and although this catch-phrase is something of a simplification (e.g., it takes no account of sorption processes), it is much closer to reality than prevailing popular opinion. It is, in fact, the antithesis of the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

These and other erroneous or distorted popular impressions about what ground water is and how it behaves make it difficult for ground water managers to "sell" the public on what is required in order to manage the resource effectively.

In recent years, both federal and provincial agencies have taken a more active role in attempting to provide the public with accurate, factual, non-partisan information on a wide variety of water resources topics, including ground water, using many formats, such as Fact Sheets, Brochures, Videos, etc. Non-governmental organizations, such as the Girl Guides, have started to prepare their own Fact Sheets [39] and other information on ground water for the benefit of their members and the general public.

All these developments cannot do anything but good for the public's awareness of the real ground water issues and such public information efforts should be maintained and intensified. Because of its "visibility" problems, ground water should be given particular attention.

CONCLUSION NO. 14:

Canadians are seriously uninformed about the significance of ground water to many environmental issues. This lack of understanding is a significant hindrance to governments in taking effective action to address ground water issues.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1. The goal of governments should be to establish effective, viable ground water management systems and mechanisms in all jurisdictions, with the aim of having them in place in six years.

Recommendation 2. Governments should endorse and maintain co-ordinating mechanisms such as the Federal-Provincial Ground Water Working Group. Such groups should be permanent and meet regularly.

Recommendation 3. Governments should enter into cost-sharing agreements to jointly develop guidelines, data banks, and other ground water management tools and put in place effective ground water management plans.

Recommendation 4. The appropriate federal and provincial departments should jointly develop Guidelines and Strategies relating to ground water and activities which impact on ground water. Funding of the development of specific Guidelines should be cost-shared according to some appropriate formula.

Recommendation 5. A review should be undertaken of the adequacy of existing technology transfer mechanisms between research and operational components of governments.

Recommendation 6. Governments should enter into formal agreements for joint research on ground water topics of mutual interest.

Recommendation 7. Governments should cooperate in endorsing the establishment of one or more Chairs in Ground Water at Canadian universities and/or a viable ground water program at one university in each of five Regions. Governments should assist candidate Universities in seeking industrial sponsors.

Recommendation 8. Governments should increase funding for the support of extra-mural ground water research.

Recommendation 9. Governments should initiate immediately studies to establish the social, economic and environmental value of ground water to Canadians.

Recommendation 10. In conjunction with the studies recommended in 9, above, governments should initiate studies of the indirect social, economic and environmental costs of ground water contamination.

Recommendation 11. Governments should initiate programs to determine future demands for ground water.

Recommendation 12. Governments should cooperate in developing nationally compatible, efficient ground water data banks,

Recommendation 13. Governments should review the adequacy of their own internal expertise and knowledge in the area of the socioeconomic aspects of ground water resources and also the extent to which any deficiencies identified could be remedied through arrangements with universities and the private sector.

Recommendation 14. Governments, in their ongoing public water information programs, should place more emphasis on ground water because of its "visibility" problem compared with other water resources issues.

References

1. HESS, Paul J. 1986: Ground Water Use in Canada, 1981; NHRI Paper No. 28; IWD Technical Bulletin No. 140; National Hydrology Research Institute, Inland Waters Directorate, Environment Canada, Ottawa.

2. 1989: National Contamination Sites Remediation Program: Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, November 1989.

3. JACKSON, R.E., S. Lesage, M.W.Priddle, A.S. Crowe and S. Shikaze, 1989: Contaminant Hydrogeology of Toxic Organic Chemicals at a Disposal Site, Gloucester, Ontario. 2. Remedial Investigation. National Water Research Institute Contribution No. 89-154.

4. 1989: Briefing on Nuclear Fuel Waste Management presented to federal government departments by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited; November 21, 1989.

5. 1989: Annual Report 1987- 88, Crop Protection Institute of Canada.

6. HENNIGAR, T., 1990: Personal communication.

7. HENNIGAR, T., 1990: Personal communication.

8. LIEBSCHER, H.L., 1990: A Modified Proposal for the Ground Water Component of the Fraser River Basin Action Plan. Internal report, Water Planning and Management Branch, Pacific and Yukon Region, Environment Canada.

9. JOHNSTON, L.M., 1990: Personal communication.

10. SHIMIZU, R., 1990: Personal communication.

11. BOOTH, L., 1990: Personal communication.

12. FREEZE, R.A. and J.A. Cherry, 1989: Guest Editorial — What Has Gone Wrong. Ground Water, volume 27, No. 4, July- August 1989.

13. GILLILAND, J.A., 1990: Guest Editorial — Ground Water Contamination and the Hydrologic Cycle, Canadian Water Resources Journal, volume 15, No. 1, May 1990.

14. CHERRY, J.A., 1990: Ground Water Protection — The Lack of Government Action in Canada, Hazardous Materials Management Magazine, November-December 1989.

15. PEARSE, P.H., F. Bertrand and J.W. MacLean, 1985: Currents of Change; Final Report, Inquiry on Federal Water Policy; Environment Canada.

16. 1987: Federal Water Policy Environment Canada.

17. 1990: A Framework for Discussion on the Environment. The Green Plan, a National Challenge. Environment Canada. Cat. No. En. 21-86/1990 ISBN 0-662-57411- 7.

18. The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: Our Common Future. Oxford University Press.

19. FREEZE, R. Allan and J.A. Cherry, 1979: Ground Water, Prentice Hall Inc.; New Jersey.

20. 1990: A Primer on Water, Questions and Answers; Environment Canada.

21. 1976: Canada Water Yearbook, 1976; Canada Department of Fisheries and Environment.

22. 1978: Cutting our Flood Losses; Flood Damage Reduction Program, Inland Waters Directorate, Environment Canada, ISBN 0-662-0152- 6.

23. 1987: Canadian Water Quality Guidelines, Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers.

24. 1990: Report on Federal/Provincial Workshop on Ground Water Data Banks, Inland Waters Directorate, Water Planning and Management Branch, Unpublished Report.

25. CHERRY, John A., Stan Feenstra, Ronald V. Nicholson, 1988: Ground Water in Canada; Overview of Activities and Issues and Recommendations for a National Research Strategy; Unpublished Report, prepared for the Science Council of Canada.

27. SMYTH, D., 1990: Personal communication.

28. Undated: Industrial Research Chairs in Canadian Universities; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

29. 1990: Inland Waters Directorate Strategic Plan, Environment Canada, September 1990.

30. JOHNSTON, L.M. and J.A. Gilliland, 1987: Ground Water — Why Worry?; Unpublished Report; NHRI Contribution No. 87008.

31. See for example, Jackson et.al., reference 3 above.

32. TURNER, Anthony M., 1990: The Mapping of Relative Vulnerability of Ground Water to Contamination from Agricultural Pesticides; a GIS Approach, NHRI Contribution in press.

33. 1990: Statement on Interjurisdictional Cooperation on Environmental Matters; Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, Winnipeg, March 20, 1990.

34. 1989: The Ground- Source Heat Pump; Publication no. 984A050:5 12/89 35K Ontario Hydro, Toronto, Ontario.

35. 1990: Implementing Sustainable Development. Report of the Interdepartmental Workshop on Sustainable Development in Federal Natural Resource Departments, Environment Canada.

36. 1989: Charter on Ground Water Management; Economic Commission for Europe, United Nations, New York.

37. CHERRY, J.A., 1990: Personal Communication.

38. COON, David and Janice Harvey, 1987: The Ground Water Pollution Primer. Conservation Council, Fredericton, New Brunswick. 44pp.

39. 1990: Background Paper for Water for Tomorrow Project. Girl Guides of Canada.

40. 1981: Memorandum of Understanding between the Atomic Envergy Control Board and the Department of the Environment, Ottawa, June 22, 1981.

41. 1990: Federal Environmental Assessment; New Directions. Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office.

42. CUSTODIO, E. AND GURGUI, A, 1989: (eds.) Ground Water Economics — Selected Papers from a United Nations Symposium held in Barcelona, Spain, Elsevier, 1989.

43. 1989: The Importance of Wildlife to Canadians in 1987; highlights of a national survey. Federal- Provincial Task Force for the 1987 National Survey on the Importance of Wildlife the Canadians. Canadian Wildlife Service, Minister of Supply and Services, Canada, Cat. no. CW66- 103/1989E.

44. 1990: Ground Water - Nature's Hidden Treasure Fact Sheet No. 5, Environment Canada.

45. 1991: Guidelines for Ground Water Data Management, Federal- Provincial Working Group on Ground Water, December 1991.

46. 1991: The Social, Economic and Environmental Value of Ground Water in Canada: Phase I Developing a Conceptual Model. Unpublished Report prepared for Inland Waters Directorate, Environment Canada by Wayne B. Trusty and Associates Limited.

47. KULRESHTHA, S. N., 1992: Economic Value of Ground Water in the Assiniboine-Delta Aquifer in Manitoba. ESED Social Sciences Series, In Press