Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 14, Number 5 • Winter 2006
Lake Ontario
Basin Update
Clean Water Primers available to help
Ontarians, Canadians
By Krystyn Tully, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
In 2004, Lake
O n t a r i o
Wa t e r k e e p e r
began researching
and drafting a
series of manuals
called the “Clean
Water Primers.”
The idea for the
Primers stems
from the demand from policy-makers,
analysts, volunteer groups, and the media
who are increasingly searching for comment
on a wide range of water-related issues.
The Clean Water Primer is a reference
guide that includes “everything you ever
needed to know,” including applicable
laws and policies, precedents, history, etc
on a particular subject. Each primer will
also include expert analysis describing the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
emerging issues in the field. Over time, the
individual publications will create an
important resource library for policymakers
around the Great Lakes and across
Canada.
The Primers were designed with grassroots
groups and citizens in mind – people
without legal training who are using legal
processes to help protect aquatic habitats.
The first two are available now:
Primer #1: Taking water from the
Great Lakes: a citizen’s guide to the
policies, rules, and procedures that
protect Ontario’s waterways
This Primer provides a step-by-step guide
to water-takings and diversions in Ontario.
It helps readers comment on new
water-takings, improve existing permits,
and hold people and corporations
accountable for taking water without
proper permits. This Primer also provides
an important context for anyone
participating in the ongoing creation of
Ontario-United States agreements on
water use.
There is an introductory section that
provides a history of water-taking
conflicts and agreements on the Great
Lakes. This helps to put the current Water
Resources Agreements into context. The
rest of the Primer is divided into sections
that correspond to the kinds of watertakings
issues you might have in your
community:
- a proposed withdrawal that threatens your water supply
- an ongoing withdrawal that has no permit
- a permitted withdrawal that is having impacts on the environment
The Primer then walks you through the
different legal tools you can use to resolve
each kind of issue.
Primer #2: An Introduction to
Canadian Environmental Law
and Tools
This Primer was prepared specifically for
use in Waterkeeper's Clean Water
Workshop, but it is a handy tool for anyone
working on environmental issues in
Canada. It provides a brief introduction to
environmental laws (such as the Fisheries
Act and the Canadian Environmental
Assessment Act) and tools (such as judicial
review). This Primer will remain in draft
form until Summer 2007 so that students
and Waterkeepers can offer suggestions
for improvement.
This Primer provides a brief introduction to
every major federal environmental law in
Canada, the tools that these laws create
for citizens, and the process that you go
through to help protect your environmental
rights. It covers topics such as private
prosecutions, access to information
requests, and petitions to the federal
government.
Coming soon… Clean Water Primers on the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, U.S.
water-taking rules, Ontario laws and tools,
and more! A special thanks to the Walter
and Duncan Gordon Foundation for its
support of the Clean Water Primer project.
The Clean Water Primers are
available free of charge.
You can read them online or request
a hard copy by visiting
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s
web site:www.waterkeeper.ca/primer
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