(Concurrent Sections)

ENVIRONMENT

Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Environment.

Does the honourable Minister of Environment have an opening statement?

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): Mr. Chairman, I have a considerable amount of information here. I will try and make it brief and to the point. I am not trying to abuse the critic's opportunity for questions, but there have been a number of things that have been initiated and are being carried out in the department over the most recent year. I think it would be worthwhile to reference them, and then we will get directly to the questions of the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar).

Simply, I suppose I should state that the mission of the department is to ensure a high quality of environment for present and future generations, and I want to start the discussion by saying that I am very appreciative of the work that the department has been doing. The employees within the department have very often been going beyond day-to-day responsibilities and have truly made a commitment towards the responsibility that they see with the environmental affairs, and I am more than pleased to have an opportunity to publicly put on the record appreciation for a job well done.

There are a number of strategies that we have been working on. The harmonization at the national level through CCME is one that has taken a lot of time, building partnerships with local governments, focusing on regional solutions, development of innovative approaches to enforcement, alternative approaches to what would be known as a command and control regulation, place greater reliance on targets, objectives and standards rather than prescribing specific technologies, extending our resources through involvement of others through delegation and empowerment, using financial instruments and licences and orders to ensure that clients respect compliance and practise environmental stewardship, strive to provide quality service to all department clients. This is something that I suppose might be--a few years ago it would have been novel to have used those terms, but I believe it is very important today in terms of delivery of regulations that the public indeed feels that they are a client and that they are being appropriately served.

There has been an undertaking of the continuous improvement initiative. The department's vision is to deliver the highest quality of service and achieve the best value for the dollars that are being spent. This focuses on satisfying the needs of identified clients as well as fulfilling the mission that I mentioned earlier.

Significant achievements I would like to point to for the most recent year, the department was recently the 1996 recipient of the Manitoba Quality Network striving for excellence award, and I would like to again add my compliments for the work that the department has done to position themselves to receive that award. There has been a significant increase in the number of departmental employees who participated in continuous improvement activities during the past year. Communication activities were carried out including continuous improvement newsletter and conducting an employee perception check. A program to recognize achievements was initiated, and awards were presented to staff for accomplishments in a number of areas including temporary food handling permits, water quality, monitoring, accounts processing, technical achievements and communications.

Provincial environment employee recognition program was introduced for staff to recognize the service and achievements. Initiatives with key stakeholder groups to address issues in the areas of environmental assessment and scrap processing, auto wrecking were undertaken, and significant accomplishments have been realized. Staff are involved in government-wide service and management improvement initiative. A quality service video, soon to be released, will include the department's water quality unit. Similar initiatives are contemplated for the coming year along with a number of additional initiatives, a follow-up with respect to a Manitoba Quality Network feedback report, follow-up on employee and client surveys. Co-location has taken some significant amount of effort from the department.

The program is that the Manitoba Department of Environment and the Department of Environment Canada, as located in the province, will co-locate. The respective government service departments and the Council of Ministers of the Environment will also be part of that co-location and will continue to implement plans to effect this, each entity, however, being responsible for its respective operations.

The principles that we are looking at in this co-location--and it will be, I believe, the first in Canada--will be to establish a one-stop common environment centre to support the provision of federal and provincial environment services and put a real face on federal-provincial environmental harmonization. As I said earlier, there has been a lot of effort spread over a number of years to try and bring harmonization to federal-provincial enforcement of environmental regulations. I believe this is another step forward. If we continue to press on this front, we should eventually achieve some of the goals that were laid out. Of course, there is also expected cost savings to both organizations by sharing certain services and facilities.

Three parties to the initiative, Manitoba Environment, Environment Canada and CCME secretariat have selected the VIA station as the preferred site for the co-location of the Winnipeg operations. Various joint facility services have been agreed to, including laboratory, library, emergency response and reception facilities and board room facilities. Program integration will occur. This is expected to occur in areas such as emergency response, administrative and financial services, ambient monitoring and SOE reporting.

A contaminated sites remediation act which I expect to table in the House shortly and will be on the Order Paper will deal with the issue of contaminated sites in the province and revitalize the investment in property, in my opinion. We have completed the preparation of the act and I guess I will just leave my comments there. I will make further comments in the House when the act is introduced.

The department will be actively reviewing and amending many of its regulations to ensure we conform with the criteria under the regulatory review committee and I suppose today is an appropriate time given that that committee had a public function today at dinnertime. We want to take this opportunity to ensure that obsolete regulations are discarded, that efficiencies are made where they are compatible with health and environmental safety. Amendments will be made through a process that involves all interested parties.

At the same time, however, when we are looking at reducing and eliminating and modernizing regulations, we do have the responsibility to continue in the areas that need regulation at this time in our history. There will be new regulations to go with The Contaminated Sites Regulation Act, a special waste regulation for oil where we believe we will be able to put an oil collection and disposal system in place that will require some regulation. The onsite sewage disposal system regulation and proposed regulation under The Environment Act will revitalize--oh, pardon me, replace, a little hard to revitalize--the private sewage disposal regulation systems and privies regulation. I think there is a need for an update. The member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) is probably all too familiar with some of the problems of private sewage disposal in Red River Valley clays.

There is a need for an updated and modernized swimming pool and water recreational facilities regulation to recognize some of the situations that have occurred and changes, frankly, in technology, whirlpools, wave pools and those sorts of entertainment and recreational facilities.

Environmental accident reporting regulation: This regulation will be under The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act and will be revised to bring it up to speed in the upcoming fiscal year. We will continue to monitor water quality at Shoal Lake, and we are working with Ontario and the City of Winnipeg to assure that any proposed developments go through stringent review, with participation of Manitobans being a high priority.

The harmonization fund: We have, in many respects, been the lead jurisdiction in terms of discussion at the national level along with Alberta and certainly involvement with several other provinces. I would also reference that this is one of those situations where we seem to have significant harmony between all of the provinces, including Quebec, but we have been unable to persuade the federal authorities to view harmonization of regulatory matters and the environmental process in the same way that the provinces do.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act review: We have been working with the federal government to ensure that an effective process is in place for control of toxic substances. In this regard, we are also taking an active role. But, again, we are concerned about the interaction between CEPA and the harmonization initiative that has been ongoing for some time.

The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act will see some amendments in this session, to designate special wastes and draft regulations respecting their handling and disposal. As I referred to earlier, that would include used oil licensing process for hazardous waste disposal facilities and remove the mandatory requirement for public hearings for even the smallest of storage areas and clarify that licences granted under this act are transferable with the director's approval.

Administrative monetary penalties: The idea of using monetary penalties as a mechanism for dealing with environmental offences and the administration of environmental licences, frankly, and writing of licences. The method is used in various forms in the United States and in Alberta and is being contemplated under the renewed CEPA. It has been found to be advantageous, both to the regulator and the regulated. Perhaps I should rephrase that. What I am referring to here specifically is whereby fines can be directly levied by staff without the necessity of court action using administrative monetary penalties. I was referring to further monetary tools that we may be able to use as a requirement of licensing to provide additional ongoing monetary protection for certain licensed operations.

We are still part of the overall government thrust regarding the sustainable development act, and you will be hearing more about that in the not-too-distant future.

Emergency response: The department continues to function in responding to numerous environmental emergencies. During the past fiscal year, the department received 461 calls through the emergency system involving 301 accidents. The department will continue to dedicate required resources in this area.

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Pollution prevention: Program promoting the shift to Manitoba's approach to environmental protection from control and remediation to prevention and promote the application of practices that avoid the creation of waste and pollutants at source. Pollution prevention is a general concept and not just a new idea. In the past, we relied on the assimilative capacity to absorb waste and pollutants at what appeared to be no apparent cost. We have since learned that there is, indeed, a substantial price to pay in cleaning up contaminated sites or controlling and properly managing the waste and pollutants that we create.

The preference that some might have had prevention on ethical grounds has been matched by economic environmental concerns. Challenges emerge from this realization as how to collectively shift from being a society that attempts to manage pollutants and waste after they have been created to one that does not create them in the first place and, if I might add, the department has had a very successful process over the last two and a half years or so whereby an environment officer can show up at the doors of a company and say, I am here from government and I want to help you, and actually mean it and do it in a nonconfrontational and without-bias situation. The fact is it takes a little while for that type of approach to begin to be accepted, but I think we can point to a number of successes and perhaps the member may want to discuss those later on.

The Innovation Fund is also being used in ways to support projects and we have invested about $6 million in waste reduction and prevention efforts over this period. Infrastructure development, recycling efforts and regional recycling efforts in general have received about half of that, education and awareness about $1.5, some small amount of $100,000 into supporting some work on composting, regional waste management. If the member may recall, there was a considerable amount of money spent to encourage regional waste approaches across the province. About $700,000 went towards that concept and some market development for recyclables received about a half a million dollars. Each of these projects continue to contribute to the waste reduction solution by helping to reduce waste and providing new information. The major challenge that we have faced in moving forward towards the waste reduction goal is to initiate activities that are sustainable in times of fiscal restraint and, frankly, getting the buy-in from the public that is needed to support the activities.

The '96 WRAP strategy: Themes will build on existing stewardship programs, establish new waste minimization initiatives and reduce waste at source.

Specific objectives that I would like to touch on, and I will do it in a highlight fashion in order to save time--we want full municipal participation in the multiproduct stewardship program. We believe that high participation rates, high waste aversion rates and high rates of value-added processing will be objectives that we will continue to see activity on, monitoring and reporting on progress, broadening the scope of stewardship responsibility and broadening the stewardship participation if the situation warrants it, and extending multimaterial programs to the industrial, commercial and institutional section.

I will touch briefly on the tire program. We believe that we have now successfully closed the loop and tire recycling in the province. About $200,000 has gone out of the program to support municipalities in assistance with their collection that they run at their landfill sites. Four million has been paid to processors that manufacture products from the discarded tires or send them to energy recovery. About 50 percent are now being recovered and the balance is being used for energy recovery and, of course, we wish to continue to reduce the numbers going to energy recovery, because that would be the lower level of our priority listing.

The multimaterial stewardship board was established a year ago. Ten members representing the stakeholders, including UMM, the urban municipalities, City of Winnipeg recycling, consumer and retail grocery interests, beverage and newspaper publishing sectors, and the committee has been chaired by the Deputy Minister of Environment.

The tonnage of MPSP recyclable materials collected in '95 doubled to about 12,000 tonnes over the tonnages reported in 1994. I will only state, without putting all the detail to it, that, of course, fluctuation in recyclable material values makes this a very interesting and sometimes scary area to be able to administer and predict. Services are now available at 85 percent of households. Municipalities registered are now up to 123 with about 370,000 households registered, active recycling programs 102, curbside 42, depots 60, recycling systems planned that we know of amount to 10 and recycling support payments that would be paid out will amount to about $1.5 million as of March this year. There undoubtedly will be additional anticipated payments.

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A number of areas I could spend, I suppose, further time on, but I touched on the used oil initiative. Perhaps the member would like to ask some questions about that in the next hour or so. Capital region waste management strategy, I am sure that he will want to discuss that in some respect. The fact is that we have spent a lot of energy over the last few years putting together the capital regions, getting the municipalities and the City of Winnipeg talking to each other, but we have not taken the step to put in place a mandated top-down planning process that would require regional co-operation and, of course, that has led to some interesting debate to which my critics may well want to involve themselves in.

I want to confirm that the Environmental Youth Corps will continue again in '96-97. It maximizes, I believe, local involvement and volunteer participation of youth. I would have to indicate that the one aspect of this that is unique and I think has been successful, is that it literally speaks to the fact that there should be some volunteer involvement in the communities by our youth and by our citizens in managing what occurs. This program has labelled and encouraged the voluntary involvement of youth, and that is not child labour or free labour we are talking about. We are talking also about developing an attitude and responsibility for how people view their own communities.

I can remember one or two communities that applied in this area and when they found out it was only going to support a limited amount of capital and some supervisory wages, they said, well, that is no good to us, we want salaried positions for our young people. I would have to say that there are also situations out there--and I believe the fact that over 5,000 young people became involved in this--that it is, in fact, now becoming more and more of an understanding and an unwritten agreement between the community and its residents that it really does not hurt to have some of that volunteer commitment on behalf of the youth.

I look to the years that thousands of youth have put in the Manitoba 4-H program, as an example, and a number of others, the Boy Scouts, Guides and all those programs that also pulled together the energy and enthusiasm on a volunteer basis to accomplish good things for the community. I see the Youth Corps as being supplementary and helpful to those organizations in what they are attempting to achieve.

Mr. Chairman, I could put another 15 minutes worth on the record here, but I will attempt not to abuse my critic's time and let him pick the agenda.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the Minister of Environment for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Selkirk, have any opening comments?

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the minister for his opening comments. I understand and appreciate the important job that he fills here in our society and that, of course, is ensuring the protection of our environment. I just want to refer to a headline from the Saturday, April 20, 1996, edition of the Winnipeg Free Press; it is entitled, Earth is gasping for life UN warns. The UN raised a report that states that our planet is experiencing an unprecedented mass extinction of life everywhere from the water we drink to the air that we breath. So this is an important task that he has to perform here in our province.

There are a number of issues that I will be raising. I know that some of my colleagues as well will like to take the opportunity to put some concerns that they may have on the record and raise issues with the minister regarding a number of different areas. I would like to, if we could today, talk a bit about the proposed sustainable development act. The minister referenced that in his opening comments.

He also mentioned the waste management issue here in the province that will lead us into the recent granting of a licence to BFI to operate a landfill site in the R.M. of Rosser. General waste management issues within the capital region are also of a concern to me and will be addressed as we proceed along today. We will be questioning the minister as to how far his department has gone along in terms of reaching a 50 percent reduction in waste, based on 1988 levels, by the year 2000. He did not reference the used oil.

I attended, along with the minister, the waste reduction 1996 conference that was held in Portage just recently. I want to ask him some questions on that.

I think one of the most important environmental issues facing Manitobans is water, both the quality of our water and the quantity of our water, and I want to follow up on that. It may be ironic at this time when there are huge areas of our province that are under water, but there are also areas of our province that are facing shortages of water, in particular, ground water, and that is an issue that I want to follow up on.

I was disappointed that the World Wildlife Federation recently awarded a grade of D-minus to the government in terms of its Endangered Spaces Campaign and its commitment to protecting 12 percent of our province, and we will be questioning the government's action in that area.

I want to, as well, raise issues related to some of the changes that have been made to the Selkirk & District Planning Board plan, in particular, the decision of the planning board to move from four-acre to two-acre lots, which would allow an additional 3,000 new building permits to be issued in an area between the City of Winnipeg and Lockport on both sides of the Red River and the concerns that I have regarding that.

The Municipal Board is conducting hearings this week, and I was there for most of the hearings. I did, unfortunately, miss the presentation by the Department of Environment, so I am sure the minister will fill us in to that.

After all those issues are raised, I would once again, if I could, go to the State of the Environment Report as I did last session and highlight a number of areas in there and question a number of the findings in that report.

With those few comments, I would thank the Chair for giving me the time to make opening statements, and if we could just get into questioning, please.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the official opposition critic for those remarks.

Under the Manitoba practice, debate of the Minister's Salary is traditionally the last item considered for the Estimates of the department. Accordingly, we shall defer consideration of this item and now proceed with consideration of the next line.

Before we do that, we invite the minister's staff to join us at the table, and we ask that the minister introduce his staff present.

Mr. Cummings: Norm Brandson, Deputy Minister of Environment; Carl Orcutt, responsible for--I know what he is responsible for, but what is his official title?--ADM of Operations; and Wolf Boehm, who acts in the function of a controller, administrator of Finance; and Dick Stephens, who works in the legislative and regulatory section of the department to keep all of the regulatory requirements and innovative legislative goodies in line. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the minister. We will now proceed to 1.(b)(1) Executive Support, Salaries and Employee Benefits, $332,900, on page 48 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Mr. Dewar: What I think we will do, if the minister agrees, is we will raise all of our questions under this particular item, and then when we are concluded, we will go line by line and pass all the rest of the Estimates.

Mr. Minister, in your opening comments you referred to the sustainable development act, and I understand that it was the original--the plan of the government to table the act this session. Could he provide to us today an update of that, as to that act, please?

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Before the minister answers, I would just like to note that it is the will of the committee to ask their questions in line 1.(b)(1), and then we will pass all the other sections after that. Agreed? [agreed]

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Mr. Cummings: If I indicated that I would be tabling the act per se, I did not mean to mislead anybody.

What our plans are is to bring forward for further consultation a white paper on the act, and the timing of that will be sooner than later but not within the next few days. We are hoping to have a white paper prepared within the confines of the session, but if we do not have everything completed by then, we will then make it a public document as soon as possible and go to public discussion on it.

Mr. Dewar: You will be releasing the white paper this session?

Mr. Cummings: I think probably what the member is concerned about is, are we going to have something that is going to be in the session, that is going to be debated, and going to the understanding between the parties, in terms of introducing and passing legislation. It is not that--I am obviously not going to fall within that framework, and we are not going to take extraordinary measures to circumvent that. We will simply--if the white paper does not make it by the time the House rises--we will get it prepared or released as soon as we can this summer.

The white paper will have options. We will be putting together a committee that will do direct work on the paper and consultation, in the broadest meaning of the word, before we would go back to preparing something for the Legislature. But our commitment is, as it has always been, that we will work towards the implementation of this type of legislation. Given that it is the first of its kind, as far as we know, in the world, we are approaching it carefully, and we do not want to create any unnecessary fears or concerns out there either.

Mr. Dewar: As the minister is aware, there have been some concerns raised by the Union of Manitoba Municipalities, for example, where the concern is that a superboard will be contained in the act. Is that to be the case?

Mr. Cummings: Well, I guess it would be a little unwise of me to put together a lot of responses that would basically give you or anybody else the make-up of the bill until we had put together the white paper, but there has certainly been a fair bit of public consultation that would indicate reasons to ask that question. So I want to respond to it to put aside concerns that have been raised when that question is elevated to the front of the public's concern. What we are talking about is a situation where it would be much easier for those who wish to pursue a development to interface with government and get answers. That will require some kind of administrative body to do that. If I could be so bold and observe that the member has a clipping or two in front of him, and I know that some of the comments that have been put in the paper were quite misleading or at least tended to create the worst possible picture of what might occur.

The fact is that by policy today we try to make it as user friendly as possible for somebody approaching government, but that is my administrative policy, that departments attempt to make the interface with government expedient and reasonable and at that same time making sure that they have exercised their due diligence in providing answers or asking questions or putting them into correct processes.

So I acknowledge that it will require some administrative structure. I get a little uneasy when people refer to it as a super board and think that we are going to usurp everybody's power here and there and everywhere. What it is meant to do is to provide a more co-ordinated response to the public when they want to interface or get approvals or licensing done. It is not just something that affects the Department of Environment.

Mr. Dewar: Is the minister contemplating within this new act to abolish the current Clean Environment Commission?

Mr. Cummings: I see the member has the paper in front of him that says, well, that ain't necessarily so. I guess he already knows the answer, but I am not trying to deceive him or anybody else. We certainly are looking at reviewing how boards and commissions would function under this act and whether there are some combined responsibilities, and I say that in a positive way. No matter what the name is, the work is still going to have to be done, and it will be done with the same amount of diligence that it is today. The act, I can assure you, will not interfere with the responsibility of government to do due diligence or if it does, I am sure we will be told during the consultation process.

Mr. Dewar: I attended a public meeting at the Winnipeg Library, I think it was in March or maybe February. The title of the meeting was legislating sustainable development and Mr. Sopuck was there. The question was asked of the crowd how many individuals were given an opportunity to make presentations to the government regarding this, any changes, and very few raised their hands. What level of consultation are you planning to have in terms of this act, public consultation?

Mr. Cummings: Something along the line of The Contaminated Sites Remediation Act, where I think we consulted until the public was getting tired of us, frankly, but what it means is that we will need to have a--I think there is an implication in that question. I can recall now the meeting you are talking about. I was not there, but there is an implication that somehow the concept, as it is being talked about today, was dreamed up in some dark room after Christmas. That is not what happened.

There has, in fact, been workbooks and published materials that have gone out with feedback questionnaires. I would be the first to acknowledge that is not the best and the most capable way of getting the total amount of input that you want from the public, but it is one way. The principles and the concepts were tested by that process, and I make no apologies for the fact that it has taken a fair bit of time to move from that step to where we are now, where we are conceptualizing how you would put this information into an act.

Remember that there is a requirement to satisfy Leg Counsel, that it is a workable act, and that it does not contravene existing legislation or, if it does, there has to be consequential amendments. There is, I would say, half a dozen controversial aspects to it that will have a number of options that will need to be consulted and explained and revised, and can certainly anticipate a fair bit of public input and consultation on where it will go, or when we go to the public, where the public will want to take it.

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Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, will the minister be allowing or supporting intervener funding for different groups that are interested in making a presentation on the act itself?

Mr. Cummings: Probably not.

Mr. Dewar: That is clearly regrettable because there is, as the minister is aware, a great concern out there and expertise that exists in our province, and individuals, unfortunately, do not have the resources that the minister and the government have in order to put forward ideas and criticisms and so on. So I hope the minister would reconsider that.

Is part of the new sustainable development act to prepare every four years for a State of the Environment Report?

Mr. Cummings: I am certain that there are a number of options that one of them might be for, but I think the member is trying to push water up hill if he is suggesting that we have hard and fast recommendations on this bill that will have those types of consequences. We certainly need to discuss in the consultation process what is an appropriate time period for a state of the environment reporting or sustainable development reporting.

There are two things--and I will be the first to acknowledge that there are two or three things--that impact on this. One quite simply is the availability of staff and dollars; the other is to be able to have a decent evaluation of the trends. We are on a two-year schedule right now, but there are lots of examples of where four years or five years would be normal. We know that every two years for a detailed report we find ourselves stumbling over each other on it because we have not quite finished the two-year report and we are already doing the next two years, so there is nothing magical about two years, nor is there anything tragic about the idea that we might consider four years.

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): I wanted to ask the minister whether there were any untendered contracts in his department in the last 12-month period or since the last series of Estimates, untendered. Perhaps he could tell us how many tendered contracts there are as well.

Mr. Cummings: We will check, but I do not think so. There is one, as an example--the member might wonder why I would give an answer--there is one contract that we probably had a small one for reviewing the library, bringing in a consultant from B.C. to help catalogue, due to some expertise in environmental libraries, who had a specialty in categorizing the type of library that we keep. I think it was about $12,000. I know that one by memory.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I accept that the minister will get back to us with this information on the tendered and the untendered contracts over the last year. I would just like to ask him what the time frame will be on this because in many cases we have examples where we have asked ministers questions six months, eight months ago, and we are still waiting for responses. I am not suggesting that this minister would operate such as the Attorney-General has done in the past and other ministers, but I just want him to assure us that he would give us a time frame as to when--for example, the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pallister) provided for me within a reasonable time last year pretty much everything that I asked for, in some cases, more. He did this a month or two after the Estimates, but nevertheless he provided the information.

Mr. Cummings: I am sure I can provide the information within a month easily enough, probably sooner.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister about the regulations that are in force for the transportation of gasoline products from--

Mr. Cummings: If he could defer that line of questioning until the one member of staff comes back, he will probably get you the answers more efficiently on transportation of dangerous goods. If you will just give us five minutes until Carl comes back.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I would like to ask the minister then whether this particular person will be able to answer questions about other regulations in the gasoline business. I am not interested in just the distribution alone. I am interested in the requirements, the rules that govern the actual selling of a product, gasoline out of a tanker truck, and I do not know for sure whether this person can answer all of these questions. I gather he is just dealing with the transportation portion of it.

Mr. Cummings: The Department of Environment does not manage the actual sale and wholesale aspects of it. We manage the regulatory aspects related to environmental protection, but we may be able to give you the majority of the answers to your questions.

Mr. Maloway: In that case, then, perhaps the member for Radisson could ask a couple of questions while we are waiting for this person.

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I want to ask the minister if he will indulge me to ask some questions. I am not sure what line this would fit into, but I am wanting to ask the minister first of all to just explain what the current procedure is for siting a hazardous waste facility in the province.

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Mr. Cummings: I want to make sure that I answer the question correctly. I think you are asking in a general sense, but there is probably a very specific aspect to it. Under The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act, there would have to be an application made with specific information which would then be advertised for public comment, and then at that stage there is a decision point as to which direction the licensing process might take--hearings, or whether it would be done through--oh, pardon me, the same process as would fall under The Environment Act as well. So public hearing would be mandatory. [interjection] The reason I am double-checking this, are you talking about a disposal facility? A handling facility is not handled the same way.

Ms. Cerilli: I am referring to a hazardous waste disposal facility, and maybe the minister could clarify the definition of that as it pertains to legislation, and clarify specifically what that would entail in terms of the kind of containment facility that it would be.

Mr. Cummings: Containment would have a number of criteria that would dictate what that might be. I guess that is the thing that in fact some applicants find frustrating about the process; that is, it is specific as much as it is general, in terms of the requirements: containment of what, and what level of volatility, the conditions of the area and where the application is being made as well. For example, different locations might have much different results, frankly. That would be maybe the extreme rather than the norm, but that could happen. What would be a sensitive area as opposed to what would be a low-risk area might end up with different requirements.

Ms. Cerilli: I will just clarify that for the minister, because currently I think the legislation suggests that any facility that is going to treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste is defined as a hazardous waste disposal facility, and what I am asking is, what is currently the process for siting that kind of facility in the province of Manitoba?

Mr. Cummings: I will take it directly from what the staff is indicating. The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act references essentially the environmental licensing process under The Environment Act. Public hearings are mandatory. The licence would dictate specific containment requirements depending on the development and the location conditions.

If the member is thinking about a specific site, if it is a site that we have talked about recently, I do not mind discussing her concerns if she would like to ask direct questions about a site.

Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate that but what I am wanting to focus on right now is the process for siting any type of hazardous waste, storage or disposal. I just want to clarify; I am understanding the minister is saying that currently there is a requirement for public hearings and for a Clean Environment Commission hearing on the siting of any hazardous waste disposal facility in the province. That is correct?

Mr. Cummings: It has been pointed out to me that there is a difference between licensing approval and site approval for operations. Is that where some of the confusion arises? I am sorry, I partly missed your question when I was getting that information.

There should be a simple answer to this. I did not mean to make it complicated, but the process for a site as opposed to the operation licence might be the difference.

Ms. Cerilli: I am interested in both the siting and licensing. I would think that it would have to be sited prior to being licensed, so I am asking for the minister to explain both of these procedures, for either the siting of the hazardous waste disposal facility for treatment, storage or disposal and then also for the licensing of said facility.

(Mr. Mervin Tweed, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Cummings: The approval process is under the act. To use an example, the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Corporation went through a siting process which looked at its various options.

They may be asked to describe how they choose a site, and that is a siting process. The approval of what happens in the licence once the site is chosen, as I guess as I described earlier, the licence would dictate specific containment requirements depending on the nature of the development and the location and the conditions. The proponent has to make an application and justify it in response to questions that the department puts to it.

When a proponent puts forward a site, if it is deemed acceptable, it could be licensed as a site. That does not mean they can do anything on it until we have provided them with the specific licence for operations on a site, and that is what I referred to earlier about the location, the soil types and then what is potentially considered to be handled on that site. If the thought is that it is a process that somebody could easily slip through, it is not, but it is very much an interactive process, I guess, with the department in terms of determining what their responsibilities would be to meet the standards that the department would impose on it. Those standards are spelled out in The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act, and the process is more referenced than The Environment Act.

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Ms. Cerilli: Just let me see if I am understanding this correctly. Is the minister saying that The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act deals with licensing operation and the siting is dealt with under The Environment Act? Is that correct? Perhaps, if that is not correct, the minister could clarify and direct me to where in the Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act it speaks to siting of hazardous waste disposal facilities.

Mr. Cummings: I think, just the way the question is asked, trying to respond to it, there is not a specific process laid out in The Environment Act, but processes of that act can be directed by the department to be used. The conditions are as a result that would be imposed, however, on any operation as a result of what is laid out in The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act. For example, a major facility such as the Hazardous Waste Corp., the process that was imposed upon it was quite significant, but not every applicant is going to be expected, nor would anybody of reasonable mind expect them, to respond in the same way to an application.

The smaller, less complicated operations, and depending on where they want to locate, could follow a much more simplified process. Remember that The Environment Act is also driven largely, the process is driven largely or very often driven largely, by the amount of public interest expressed. When advertisement is made and concerns are raised, if those concerns are deemed to be legitimate and there is a decision point there, if those concerns are deemed to be legitimate or significant or cannot be answered appropriately by the proponent, then further public hearings will be directed. If the question is how extensive those hearings would be, the question as you described it earlier is that there would in fact be a hearing, but that hearing would not necessarily take the form of the one that the Hazardous Waste Corp. went through. That was a two-year process.

Ms. Cerilli: So am I right in saying that there would be a two-stage procedure though for siting a hazardous waste disposal facility, first of all, to locate the site, and there would be a process which would include public hearings, and there would have to be a process to license that facility to operate under The Dangerous Goods Handling Act? Is that correct?

Mr. Cummings: That could vary according to the conditions that we talked about earlier. The type of facility and whether or not their siting would be an issue, where it is being located--I mean, unless you are out in the middle of nowhere, one of the first things that comes to mind is concerns of people adjacent to it in the planning process. This is very much interrelated with that aspect. Then there comes the soil conditions, the type of facility, what it might be doing.

Maybe the problem we are having in reaching a mutual understanding in this is the definition of disposal as well.

Ms. Cerilli: I was considering the definition as outlined in The Dangerous Goods Handling Act for a hazardous waste disposal facility where it says, treats, stores, or disposes of hazardous waste; treats, stores, or disposes of hazardous waste as part of a process for recycling. I am wanting to ask the minister if he can tell the committee how many sites in Manitoba are licensed for hazardous waste disposal, are licensed as a hazardous waste disposal facility in a manner that is approved by the department.

Mr. Cummings: About a dozen. Based on the full range, I mean, one that is described to me at the low end of the range would not be very big.

Ms. Cerilli: The minister said earlier that the licensing of the hazardous waste disposal facility would require a public hearing, and I am wondering if there are any plans to change that in Manitoba.

Mr. Cummings: Yes, there is an issue around size and type significance of a facility, and there is also an issue around transference of licences, where there is an issue of whether or not a hearing process is required a second time. That is only logical, but when I said earlier about the size and type of the facilities, or the small ones at the low end, I mean, you are talking about a garden centre as opposed to the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corp. There does need to be some discretion whether or not there is a hearing. That is why I laughed when I heard the question.

Ms. Cerilli: Can the minister explain why there would be a rationale to move away from having public hearings and Clean Environment Commission hearings on the siting of the hazardous waste disposal facility? Given what the minister has just said about size and extent, if there could be some commitment that any changes in this area would specify that certain types of contaminated materials, certain dangerous and hazardous wastes, certain more significant disposal facilities would still require public hearings and the Clean Environment Commission review, if we would not sort of change legislation and weaken legislation for provisions of public hearings for all hazardous waste disposal facilities if we are only trying to change the process for those that are of less consequence.

Mr. Cummings: Well, I would not share the member's concern. I mean, even the process today, I suppose, might point out where we would be talking about regulatory reform. There is, I think, a rationale to look at size and what it means in terms of process.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Some are insignificant operations, but all applications are public advertised, and that means that even a small concern would turn a very small application into a large, massive public hearing process in front of the Clean Environment Commission. I do not think that is necessarily a reasonable response to what variety of applications we are talking about.

Ms. Cerilli: I would think that the legislation speaking to this would define small, and I want to ask the minister if 10,000 tonnes of contaminated soil is small.

I am going to refer now specifically to the Domtar site, and I want to ask for the minister's assurance that there would be a Clean Environment Commission hearing and public hearing on the siting of hazardous waste disposal related to the Domtar site in Transcona.

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, I guess I was pretty sure this was where the member was heading with the question, and I guess she is entitled to her skepticism about whether or not 10,000 tonnes or 20,000 tonnes or 30,000 tonnes of stored material is considered small. I mean, I am not into playing word games about small.

Obviously, that is not a small amount, and I am not into playing games with the people adjacent to the Transcona site. I mean, this will be done by the book if anything of that nature should be brought forward.

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I guess the reason I can say that with some safety, frankly, is that it has just been pointed out to me that we have put Domtar on notice that we want the materials classified as hazardous, at the high end of the scale, to be removed from the site. I know that the member has some significant concerns about discussion that is being driven by Domtar about why do we not just leave it onsite and capsulate it.

There is no reason that they cannot talk about it, but it is certainly not a position that we have accepted, and we have directed that the hazardous material be removed. However, the member knows, as well as I do, that over a period of 10 years we have found out how negotiations of this nature have a way of to-ing and fro-ing, and there is also an awful lot of who has the best new widget out there in terms of how they might deal with this stuff with bioremediation onsite or bioremediation offsite. We have reached the point where we are not interested in much more experimentation. If somebody brings forward a proposal to deal with this, there, hopefully, will be some kind of a guarantee attached to it, and give us some security as to what will happen. We really are concerned about getting this through within a reasonable period of time, or we are going to miss another year's season of operation.

Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate what the minister has just said about the department requiring them for offsite disposal of the highly contaminated soil, they being Domtar, and I am wondering if that is going to be put into a work order, or if the current proposal that has been submitted is going to simply be sent back and asked to be revamped with the directive that it should include offsite disposal of that highly impacted soil. I do not want to take up too much more time at this. I was willing to have these concerns addressed in responses to the letters I have sent. I appreciate that we have also had some conversations on this issue, but then I noticed that there was legislation on our tables in the House today, and I am concerned that the legislation is going to change the approval process for siting or licensing a hazardous waste disposal facility. It specifically is eliminating the section that says, there shall be a Clean Environment Commission hearing and there shall be public hearings. I would like some explanation of why we are headed in that direction, and if it is not imperative in this time of increasing concern and awareness of a number of contaminated sites that we would have a strong requirement for public information and the public participation that occurs through Clean Environment Commission hearings.

I have asked also for a definition of the proposed Domtar site if there was going to be onsite containment cell there, if it would qualify then as a hazardous waste disposal site. It seems to me that it would. It would be a long-term disposal facility on an area that is still zoned residential land, and I am concerned that this would invoke this legislation that has been tabled in the House today. I am looking for the minister's assurance that is not the case. He has already said that there will be a directive for offsite storage and treatment or disposal, and I am again wanting to get some confirmation on that, if that is going to be coming in the term of a work order, or if Domtar is simply going to be sent back its most recent proposal, which, as I understand it, still includes onsite risk management. So I am hoping that the minister can answer those questions.

Mr. Cummings: I will answer the direct question, but there is also a part of the question earlier that I want to deal with. The Domtar proposal that was brought forward is being reviewed by the technical committee, but one thing that I have attempted to do and will continue to do is that this is in the hands of the department. The director involved, I am not going to allow myself to publicly second-guess him through Hansard while he is trying to have some technical review of what is in front of him. I want him to be able to review all of the information freely and provide his best technical advice on what should be done, but the letter has already gone to Domtar about the removal.

So, yes, you might logically ask, why are they coming back with another proposal for onsite management? But onsite remediation is different than onsite storage, and I have not personally seen the present proposal, but I guess we will be hearing about it once the technical advisory committee has reviewed it, and if it is nothing more than a rehash of the previous position, then I would suspect they would be recommending appropriately.

Going back to the legislation that we talked about introducing--that we are introducing--there is no intention, and I will during the course of debate on that legislation make sure that I can satisfy the concern about whether or not this is intended to weaken the position vis-à-vis licensing hazardous waste disposal facilities. But there are some pretty insignificant requests that come in that should not trigger a $6,000 or $10,000 Clean Environment Commission review if they are of minimal or zero risk, and if there is not local concerns that are being raised about the siting of it. I think that only makes some reasonable sense to attempt to deal with that

It is not intended to slip anything under the rug or to create a situation where somehow the minister might be able to approve the licensing of a facility that would be detrimental to the community. It is meant to be an administrative improvement while still maintaining the safety of the community and the operation, and it does not take away from the public, up front public part of the process.

Ms. Cerilli: Will then there be regulations that speak to the size or the seriousness of the contaminated materials being disposed of or something under the changes to The Dangerous Goods Handling and Transportation Act that are being put before the House?

I also want to ask the minister just to conclude, given what he said about Domtar being instructed that its offsite disposal for Transcona--I am wondering what will happen if Domtar goes ahead with its plan to have an open house and present to the community a plan for onsite risk management and will attempt to sort of sell this as something that will be done now as opposed to something else that may not be done for a longer period of time. I am concerned that the approach that is being suggested, through the residents participating on the technical advisory committee and in meetings with Domtar, that they are going to suggest that it is either the current status of that site which still is extremely hazardous or a risk-management approach or some other question mark, at some question mark time in the future. I am wondering if that is what the minister sees as happening here, and if that is the case, if this risk-management proposal is presented to the community and there is an attempt to sort of sell it to the community, if we can have Domtar just maintain that it wants to go ahead with risk management.

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Mr. Cummings: I suppose there is an element of risk, to pick up on that word, in having the Domtar presentation and open house done in that manner, but the member is quite correct that if in fact the community were to consider something other than what we are talking about, I suppose we then have a responsibility to explain why we have given the order we have and whether or not we would have any--“order” is the wrong word; we have communicated our position--valid reason to modify that position.

There is a lot of uncertainty that arises around this issue. I find it odd that the only known place to lodge this material right now that we are aware of is in Quebec. There are lots of people who have come forward and said that they have the next greatest idea in how to treat it, but, no, we thought we were on the road a year ago with the desorption process, and it, in the end, did not work.

So I think the member will have to appreciate that we are continuing to work with this. I cannot always predict the direction that some of this may take. If we provide an order to remove it, that order will have to take into consideration where it might be moved to. We want to get the job done in a way that there is also a finality to the cleanup of that site. So that influences how an order might be issued in the end.

Ms. Cerilli: I just wanted to encourage the minister to also respond to my question about the regulations, and I will leave it at that. I mean, we could talk about this for a long time, but I will pass off the opportunity to ask questions to my colleagues.

Mr. Cummings: Two parts that I should answer to the member's question. One is to continue on what I was saying a minute ago about Domtar communicating to the community a certain view of how this should be cleaned up. The department officials will ultimately have to provide the analysis to respond to that process, or whatever they are--you would want to describe what they are selling to the community.

Secondly, the question earlier about, would there be regulations that would spell out a certain size of facility? I think we will likely end up relying more on a wording that would direct the department towards a size rather than specific parameters. I am informed that the amount of variation that could occur in applications for small sites might make it pretty difficult to put explicit regulations in place, but there are ways of containing it through other wording.

Mr. Maloway: Today the Minister of Government Services made a ministerial statement regarding regulations, and I note that evidently 113 regulations, or nearly a quarter of the total regulation base, is being identified to be repealed or streamlined. I wonder, how many of those regulations deal with the Environment department?

Mr. Cummings: It appears to be six areas, regulations relating to hotels, campgrounds, industrial and construction camps, rags and other materials, classification criteria on product substances and organizations. I suppose it would be better if there were some sort of an additional explanation as to what these areas are. What the department has looked for is regulations that are essentially redundant or not being used or can be handled in a different way. It is not as if we are backing away from regulatory responsibility. Four out of the six of these are areas that we regulate under The Public Health Act, and they would be replaced by a general sanitation regulation that would apply and make sure that we are not setting a standard in an area that we should be.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister repeat that list again? I heard the first two, but missed a couple in the middle.

Mr. Cummings: We will provide the list. I will give it to you, a copy.

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Mr. Maloway: I can appreciate that the government is trying to reduce the regulations and foster more competition. That is the intention of the government. Not that many regulations ever get eliminated. When it comes to dealing with business, it seems to be a lot of promises, but very little action at the end of the day. But what I want to say is that the government is working very hard in its stated idea to bring competition into the home care business, but it does not seem to be doing much about bringing any real competition into the gasoline retailing business. I know that is quite a contentious issue with the public at this point, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the minister to tell us how the Environment department regulates gasoline from the well to the gas tank.

Mr. Cummings: I am told the best way, if I understand what I was just told correctly, that we regulate it when it is in a tank. In other words, if it is in a tank at the wellhead, or if it is in a tank on a truck, or if it is in a tank in a farmer's yard, or in a dispensing yard, a retailer's yard, it would be regulated under one of the regulations or sections of our act.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister then tell us what these regulations are? What exactly are the regulations governing the handling of the gasoline, and I guess the minister knows, and I have mentioned this to the minister, that I am interested in knowing what is to stop a farmer in this province, a native group in this province or any other citizen in this province from obtaining a quantity of gasoline from, say, a source in the United States and selling it to the public directly out of the truck. I know that technically it is possible to do. Five years ago, there were a lot less regulations in place, and it was possible to do it at that point in time. Today it is not. There are a lot of regulations, and I would like to know from the minister as to what the regulations are that prohibit this from happening, with the view, of course, to fostering some real competition in the gasoline business which we all know does not exist.

So why is this government trying to introduce competition into the home care business but at the same time protecting, standing by and protecting, the gasoline business, protecting its friends? That is right, there is no competition there.

Mr. Cummings: Well, Mr. Chairman, I am aghast that we now have the urban member adopting some pro-trade principles for rural Manitoba which, in fact, I guess my view is that they are there. Where he is talking about competition, the fact is, provided they meet the transportation rules and there are a number of farmers out there who do--I have some that I am aware of where they do directly compete by buying proper equipment and bringing tanked gasoline and putting it into their own storage vessels.

They can redistribute, but where they would be caught in environmental regulations is, if they buy a series of old 10,000-gallon bulk storage tanks and stick them up in their farmyard, they better meet the environmental regulations. That is not anticompetition. That is to enable protection of the environment on what I hope is a reasonably level playing field.

Agriculture, however, and I think the member has probably a different angle on this, but agriculture, for example, provided their tankages are under 1,000 gallons, can store any amount of fuel without breaking any requirements to The Environment Act and without having diking and all of that that can be very expensive.

Where the issue starts to become clouded, and perhaps this is where the member is heading, if you are going to drag a semi out to the field and load 60-gallon tanks on the tractors or put the hose into a truck and load her out of a semi, that is a practice that is not acceptable. I am not sure whether it is under environment regulations or under the retail, but it is not a sound-- [interjection] Is it the dispensing regulation? That is not an environment reg, I am informed, if there is indeed a regulation that covers that.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, last summer, in July and August, the Clean Environment Commission held hearings on solid waste management in the capital region, and one of--in fact, the No. 1 recommendation was that the Manitoba government should provide leadership in the development of an integrated system for solid waste management in and around the capital region.

Could the minister bring us up to date as to how far he has gotten along in that recommendation?

Mr. Cummings: We have recently let a contract, and there was a question earlier about contracts. We have recently been seeking a tendered contract to do some consulting work on assembling the information in the capital region on waste management and to deal with the appropriate municipalies, not only to find out where their sites are but to assemble information on the condition of the sites and some of the risk factors around those sites, and hopefully initiate at the table in the capital region some reasonable response to the challenge of reducing the number of waste sites and to save everybody a few bucks in the process. If every municipality has every facility supplied by their own volition and their cost, there probably is not much of a saving that will accrue to them. As they look to save dollars and keep their tax base stable, we are going to get increased co-operation, but as I said before, we do not have a regulation or a planning authority in place to force this regionalization.

Mr. Dewar: Would the minister tell us which R.M.s in the capital region are considering adding additional landfill sites in their municipalities?

Mr. Cummings: I cannot name them all, but I know that there are probably three or four active ones, obviously the private one, Rosser, BFI. St. Clements has an initiative. St. Andrews has an initiative, not for landfill but for waste management. There are a couple of R.M.s, at least one R.M. south of the city of Winnipeg.

Mr. Dewar: I want to, as the minister could guess--that we would like to get into the issue of the granting of a licence to BFI to establish a landfill site in the R.M. of Rosser and some of the concerns that we have. I want the minister to know up front that we disagree with the decision of the minister to grant a licence to BFI. The issues have been raised many times. There are concerns relating to the pollution of the ground water aquifer in the West St. Paul area. We know that the city of Winnipeg, that the Brady landfill site has the capacity to serve the entire capital region. As I mentioned, the Clean Environment Commission recommended the province initiate a waste management plan for the capital region. I do not think that plan is yet in place. We know there is a potential for the city of Winnipeg to lose $7 million in tipping fees if this goes ahead.

Mr. Chairman, the question would be, how does the minister reconcile his approval of the licence to BFI and his own stated objectives of waste reduction in the capital region?

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Mr. Cummings: I am glad the member asked the question, because a lot of verbiage has been put around this topic and a lot of effort has been put into it by a number of jurisdictions. I think there is a significant misunderstanding that has developed over the last while, despite the fact that we have the R.M.s and the City of Winnipeg, as I have indicated, at the table, capital regions. BFI has been in the works, frankly, for four years at least. Everybody at the table knew it, and nobody was interested in talking even at that point. I believe I received a letter from the city stating that as of 1994 they had changed their proposal. I think the members would have got the same letter, and correct me if I am quoting it wrong, I do not have it in front of me. I believe it was 1994, they said that they were prepared to open up their landfill for surrounding municipalities.

The BFI proposal was there, and, prior to '94, a number of people had been working on trying to amalgamate services out there. During that period of time, a number of municipalities started looking to close down their landfills. When I referenced a couple or three active municipalities siting additional landfill capacity right now, I should qualify that by saying we are not talking about additional, we are replacing existing in most cases. We are not talking about putting three landfills where once there were two. We are talking about putting one where once there were two or five, where in fact these discussions are occurring.

When we were having the debate and even when the Clean Environment Commission made its recommendation, all parties knew that there was active discussion for a number of years and a lot of money being committed. Frankly, the issue of flat out imposing a solution on the capital region would be the only way that any of this would not have unfolded as it has.

My view was that there was a lot of competition; there was also a lot of opportunity for co-operation, both of which can be good if they are brought to bear on the problem appropriately. The city of Winnipeg--the licence is still in appeal. I will try and stay away from the specifics of the licence, but I think it is reasonable to respond to the concerns that have been raised in the House as well about, why do not we just arbitrarily kibosh any further possibility of licensing landfills in the capital region? This is not just BFI. There are a couple of other facilities out there, plus we have St. Andrews today looking at a material processing possibility, a waste processing investment.

I have no idea whether it will proceed or not, but I have encouraged co-operation from all of these jurisdictions at the same time that these discussions have been going on. Every one of them has approached this discussion, in my mind, with their eyes wide open. Now there have been some municipalities that have signed agreements with the city of Winnipeg, and I did not appropriately reference earlier. Ritchot and Springfield now have agreements to use Brady. So it is a small success, but it has occurred. St. Cements would be the one which is looking to site a new one, as I believe Tache did, and they got some infrastructure support if they could go ahead with their project.

Let us discuss what the city of Winnipeg has put on the table, and that is whether we agree or disagree with the figures put forward. Nevertheless, their challenge has been based on loss of revenue to the City of Winnipeg. There is another challenge based on environmental matters, and the Clean Environment Commission and the director made their decision based on what they felt was the best way of answering the question from the point of view of environmental protection.

I have consistently said that BFI and the city should be reviewing how they can make the best out of this situation in terms of protecting the city from loss of revenue and at the same time provide reasonable, cost-efficient service to the capital region. Now, there is lots of opportunity for trading of haulage; there is lots of opportunity for co-operation and exchange of materials from one end of the city to the other.

The real opportunity, I think, that nobody is talking about is if we look at the total value of what the City of Winnipeg collects from its landfill operation, BFI, if we want to look at it in the harshest way, is going after commercial waste. That waste has not always gone to Brady today.

Well, without naming the company, I know a very large producer of commercial waste which put waste in Springfield, some in Elie--a number of sights where they hauled to. The city did not get that waste. It went to alternate disposal sites. Nobody said it should not. It is just that now we have two significantly sized entities that will compete for that same waste. The city certainly will continue to have full control of all of its household waste.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, is it correct that BFI is proceeding with the construction of this site even though the City of Winnipeg is making an appeal?

Mr. Cummings: Environment licences are active at the time they are issued. They are not inactive while they are under appeal. It is an active licence as soon as it is issued. Appeal does not make it inactive. Appeal can throw it completely out of order, so it is a risk that the proponent takes.

BFI is not the only one who has been under these circumstances. Most of the major licences that have been issued end up under appeal these days, but the way the act is written--by the way, an act that your predecessors helped write--[interjection] Well, just following the law.

Mr. Dewar: So it is true that they are proceeding with construction at this moment?

Mr. Cummings: I cannot confirm what they are doing, but if they are doing something onsite, they have a right to do it.

Mr. Dewar: Are we allowed to talk about the licence while there is an appeal underway?

Mr. Cummings: You can talk, I can listen, but I will not respond.

Mr. Dewar: There are a number of issues I wanted to raise clearly with the licence. I guess I could just put the concerns on the record here.

In the general terms and conditions, No. 1, there will be a liaison committee established. This is adjacent municipalities. I was just going to ask which municipalities would be part of that committee. Then, clearly, I have some concerns about the fact that the licensee, in this case BFI, will be able to monitor themselves. I find that to be quite an interesting requirement, one that I would disagree with.

Then it goes on. We are concerned about, of course, the potential leakage of any leachate into the ground water. I want to talk about that. As well, I am concerned that they may accept waste from outside of the province. That is a concern to me, as well. I understand that BFI has done that in other jurisdictions where they have established a similar site.

There are a number of other issues, but could we talk about the ground water issue? This is a concern to me, both as the critic for the Environment for our caucus, but as a member of the Legislature that represents West St. Paul. I have received several calls from residents, and, as the minister could appreciate, they are opposed to the BFI proposal, and the construction of this landfill site adjacent to the municipality, to their homes. They are concerned, and it has been, I do not think, clearly demonstrated to me that the issue of leachate contamination has been dealt with. Even BFI recognizes that it could potentially take 210 years to contaminate the ground water aquifer. Of course, the city contests that, and they feel it could be as early as 20-30 years that the contamination could occur. This ground water is a source of drinking water for many of my constituents in the southern end of my constituency and in north Winnipeg, individuals who use this aquifer as their source of drinking water.

As the minister is aware, there was considerable contamination of an aquifer just to the north of this by chemical spills at the Bristol Aerospace plant in the R.M. of Rockwood, and he knows the effort that was required to provide drinking water to the residents and the considerable expense of that remediation.

Can the minister make some comments about that? Can he assure the residents of that area that their ground water will not be polluted by the establishment of this waste management site?

Mr. Cummings: Yes, the licence is intended to provide that assurance. Under appeal, we will hear if there are reasons that have not been addressed, I am sure. The amount of protection that was put in place, additional to what was originally proposed, is significant, doubling, as a matter of fact.

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I know someone asked me facetiously, can you double state of the art. I would have to say that is a bit of a facetious comment because you can double the amount of compacted clay, the amount of impervious liner that is put in, but it also raises the issue about whether BFI and the city have reason to talk.

The city, in fact, could earn a significant revenue stream by agreeing to treat any leachate that might be collected by BFI at their landfill, and charge BFI full price for it, whatever that might be. That is an example where, if the city believes they are losing part of their revenue stream, they can get some of it back directly out of BFI, because one of the conditions of the licence is that they have to have it appropriately treated. So the question will arise, are they going to build an onsite treatment facility or are they going to hire the city to manage it for them? I do not feel that I can direct that, but it is certainly a question that I think should be asked.

Out-of-province material is controlled by conditions of the licence, which say that it must have local and provincial approval, and the monitoring--I am quite sensitive to the question about whether or not we are allowing the fox to monitor himself in the chicken coop. The fact is that the fox is monitored even while he is doing the monitoring. This is a double check on anything that is being done and through spot checks and everything else. It is no different than what we do in any one of a hundred other government customer interactions with spot checks and monitoring of the information that the customer is putting together, provided the assurance is being done right. I should leave my comments at that point, unless the member has more questions.

Mr. Dewar: Well, I received a call from a constituent who lives nearby and he informed me that that area was under a considerable amount of water a couple of weeks ago. Was the minister aware of that?

Mr. Cummings: I am informed that we actually had heard the same rumour and have checked it out and it was not; the area that they intend to develop was not. Maybe it is a different area they are going to develop. Nevertheless, that is something that will be required to be dealt with. If there is something about the elevations, they will not get their operating licence until they have met those elevation requirements. That is not a problem.

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chairman, as the minister is aware, the R.M. of West St. Paul and the reeve of the R.M. of West St. Paul has been very active in their opposition to this development.

Has he met with the reeve recently? Has he talked with the council and tried to alleviate some of the concerns, in particular the ground water issue?

Mr. Cummings: I have not, but I understand that there was at least some conversation between the reeve and the department. I am certainly open to any presentation they may want to make. They have made their opposition to this project known early on, and I have been very conscious of their concerns. I understand the department has been invited to attend upcoming council meetings. That will, undoubtedly, allow for exchange of ideas.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a series of questions in regard to the approved licence for BFI and the R.M. of Rosser and its possible impact on the planning district proposed for the economic development of the airport. Last night, the Winnipeg Airports Authority, which will be taking control of the airport by early 1997, reported that one of the major components of the project was the development of the airport planning district.

My question to the minister is, is the minister familiar with the proposal of the planning district and the area that is being discussed?

Mr. Cummings: I attended a meeting two nights ago on that very topic. If I said I was intimately familiar with the plans, I would be wrong, but I am comfortable with the general knowledge of the plans.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister indicate if the BFI site is within the 15,000 acres identified by the Winnipeg Airports Authority?

Mr. Cummings: Well, the 15,000 is the larger circumference, and I am not sure that I can accurately address the question, but I have some confidence that the planning process will pick up any anomalies. As was indicated earlier today, the Department of Rural Development, the planners, in doing the review of the area, if they had seen or indicated the problem, they certainly have not indicated it to us. In fact that is what the planning process and the review was intended to do, was to reflect whether or not there were any outstanding concerns.

I can indicate that as far as the airport flight paths and those questions have been concerned, those have been all thoroughly screened, and we are not aware of any problems. In fact, there was some considerable issue, as the member is aware, raised about whether or not changes had been made by federal aviation authorities specifically to accommodate this BFI site and whether there was something inappropriate about that decision-making process. The answer was that this is a standard that has been applied. I forget the precise number of kilometres, but this standard is applied. There was a list of, I think, some 20 or so airports across the country with similar size of planes being on the runway, and this was an acknowledged standard. I am not an aviator, so I read the information that was brought to me carefully and from that am satisfied that the location is not a problem for the airport or the proposed existing expansion of the airport planning area.

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Ms. Mihychuk: It is my understanding that Lynn Bishop from the airport, when hearing of the proposal of the BFI site in the R.M. of Rosser, expressed objection to that location on the grounds that it would indeed have an impact on the airport, given that the development that they are talking about will make Winnipeg, hopefully, a world-class site--“a gateway” is the wordage that I heard last night--a centre of air traffic and transport hub, where we see materials coming in from around the world, from Asia, coming into Winnipeg 24 hours a day, using the northern runway a great deal more than it is at this time.

If this type of development does occur--and our party is in favour of this development; we hope that it goes ahead; it is a major economic step for the capital region--to have something like the BFI site even potentially impacting on that development is a concern. Did the minister look at the potential of that impact, and is he saying that the concerns raised by Lynn Bishop are unwarranted?

Mr. Cummings: Do not put words in my mouth as reference of what I might think of any comments, which I cannot verify, that Mr. Bishop may or may not have said. I have talked to him as well and wanted to make sure that there was no possible situation where we would do anything that would impede upon this development. I received from him, along with the federal authorities, that there is no conflict. Interestingly enough, the Summit sitting right on the shoulder of the airport, I mean, the city, over the years, has operated that site in very close proximity, and that is not a defence if either one of them is in the wrong location. I am certainly of the understanding that this is not an issue for the airport.

Ms. Mihychuk: It is my understanding that the issue is no longer at the forefront because the federal government apparently was under some pressure, I understand, to change their regulations. Once the regulations were changed, then the airport obviously--BFI fell outside of those parameters. Was the minister in favour, or does the minister support the federal government's changing of those regulations to allow BFI to be outside of those regulations?

Mr. Cummings: The member and I do not know each other all that well, but I detect a certain inflection of motive or some impropriety in terms of how these regulations are established. Maybe she should tell me who she thought was applying pressure because it sure as heck did not come from me.

Ms. Mihychuk: It is my understanding that a great deal of lobbying was being done by BFI to have the regulations modified, and I have no doubt. Presumably, BFI is interested in looking at, perhaps, eliminating the number of obstacles or barriers to the development of the site in Rosser. It is my understanding that they made an appeal to the federal government, the regulations got changed. My question is fairly simple: Does the minister support those changes?

Mr. Cummings: Again, the member has a certain inflection in her question that I do not particularly like. If she thinks that the federal authorities are so limp-wristed that they would respond to this type of request just because it was a good morning in Ottawa, hopefully the aviation authorities in this country have a lot more jam than that. It is certainly not my job to respond for them. I do not have any inclination--and I mentioned this deliberately earlier, the member from St. James might not have been clear what it was I was referring to, but my earlier reference to the 20 or so airports that have exactly the same regulations on them was material that was forwarded to me by my own request to try and determine if there was any reason to be concerned, from the responsibility that we exercise not only in my department but in our government as a whole, in making sure we did not overlook something in this area. I was satisfied that their changes were done appropriately.

If you are asking me, do I support their changes or not support their changes, I do not have an aviation background or resources that would indicate anything other than what I saw in the reports from the federal authorities. If they are fudging the figures somehow, then they have got an awful lot to answer for, if that is in fact what the member is implying.

(Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair.)

Ms. Mihychuk: My question is to the minister responsible for our environment, Manitoba's decision to license BFI was one that he made, and I am somewhat reassured that he says that he considered all factors. My question was basically did we, as a province and him specifically as a minister responsible for the environment, look at those regulations, look at the potential impact, considering that he very well knows that locally we are trying to develop a world class facility for transport. Did he or his department look at this in terms of the WINNPORT development?

Mr. Cummings: Number one, this is not yet my licence. This licence for BFI was put together by the department and the director. I am not attempting to dodge ministerial responsibility for what goes on in the department, but do not ever confuse the idea that the minister issues the licence; the minister does not issue the licence. In terms of the specifics of do I support or not support the decision of the federal aviation authorities, I do not look at it in that manner. What I looked at was in the manner of whether or not the location had been suitably screened by those who might have concerns about it, and that included the airport authorities.

Unless there is something that changed since I talked to them, and I do not think there should have been, I received an assurance in that respect. Certainly the hard information that came from the responsible aviation authorities was what I referred to earlier, and either they are fudging their figures or we--do we have a reason to question them? I know that there were some people who were interviewed by the media who did question them, but after I saw the number of airports that are in fact operating with those proximities, it was not seen to be a problem by me.

Ms. Mihychuk: Would the minister table the proposed planning district, both in terms of the immediate 6,300 acres that has been identified and the overall planning district, the 15,000 acres in question; as well, the location of the BFI site in regard to that planning district.

Mr. Cummings: Yes, I suppose I can get that information, but I would think the member--like it is not the planning authority of the airport. If you were at the public meeting last night where they laid out their plans, then you probably already have the information.

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Ms. Mihychuk: The minister and I have not had an opportunity to be in a forum like this before. I can assure the minister if I had the information I would not be making the department go and search for this planning district and the proposals. I do not have a copy of that, and I would be interested in seeing where the WINNPORT and the airport development has identified as the area that they want to identify as a planning district. I am not one to try and create work or waste time. We do that enough at the other House.

My questions are basically trying to establish that clearly we have uses here that potentially may cause some conflict, and when we look at decisions made, the fear is that if the gateway concept does take off and if we see a significant increase in the amount of air transport, we may require another runway, we may actually expand our airport. My concerns are based that there has been a comprehensive review of the implications to ensure that we are not going to jeopardize what may be a very significant economic development north of the city for something that in my opinion we did not need, quite frankly. So that is the basis of my questioning. Perhaps the minister would like to comment.

Mr. Cummings: It is a fair question put in the context that you just did. I am not sure how much of the information is mine to release, and certainly I think the airport planning authority will likely be more than anxious to get that information out in front of all of us.

But remember what we are talking about in terms of the plan and the expansion around the airport. You are talking an industrial development. You are not talking residential, and you are not talking about making the runway another three miles longer heading out towards this potential landfill site.

I am sure, knowing what little I do about the planning process, but I think I can assure the member that the planning process, if it is worth anything at all, will have taken into consideration all potential problems that could be associated with this and whether or not there would be future incompatibility in some manner, but we will attempt to get that information in terms of where the specific boundaries are.

Today's landfill--and I want to make it clear I am not talking about BFI here, in case someone tries to say I am talking about the licence. Let us just talk about today's landfill. I guess I just caught myself thinking that I understand there is actually a bit of a mess around Brady right now, but the fact is a modern, properly operated landfill is not just dump and fill anymore. There should be recycling capacity. There should be a whole lot of other things, and, in fact, a modern landfill can have a face, a very, very small percentage that is kept open. The rest of it can be virtually farmed over or grow alfalfa on it, that type of cropping according to some plans that I have seen in my office, not from BFI, but from how the operations can be run if operated by a different plan than what we would normally have.

So I am suggesting that even in reviewing the proximity to the total 15,000 acres that WINNPORT might eventually want to assume, that we are not likely talking about an incompatible relationship. I will do what I can to find the information.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister assure us and those involved with the airport development that there will be some type of review of the potential conflict? As we see growth of the two land uses, is the minister considering periodic reviews of this issue?

Mr. Cummings: Maybe the member should repeat the first part of the question. I am not sure that I understood.

Ms. Mihychuk: It is my understanding that the minister feels fairly confident that there is going to be no conflict between the landfill site and the airport development. I am saying in the future, when you may see some changes in that area, is there going to be a review process? Is the minister and the department going to keep in mind the potential conflict that may be there, and it may develop in the future.

Mr. Cummings: Then the process that we are in right now, if it can be demonstrated that there is something incompatible, potentially. It is not an issue that I would ignore. I mean, the appeal process is real.

Ms. Mihychuk: I thank the minister for those comments, and I look forward to reviewing the site maps. Can the minister provide for me some basic information? What is the depth of the till or clay at the site of the Rosser site?

Mr. Cummings: I am not sure we can give you those specifics. That information would have been presented at the hearings. I think we might be going by memory or guessing if I tried to answer it right now.

Ms. Mihychuk: Is the protection of leachate through to the ground water going to be done artificially or through a natural system? By that I mean is it going to be some sort of a plastic liner or are we looking at natural materials being the base?

Mr. Cummings: Both.

Ms. Mihychuk: There is no doubt in my mind, with my scientific background, and it is fairly limited and getting out of date as the years go by fairly quickly, that we do have the technology to have a landfill site virtually in almost any type of material, and we can do that. My philosophical position remains that at the Brady landfill site we have a site that has significant Lake Agassiz clays, which are impermeable. They house natural substances that do not allow a great deal of permeability and that it is a natural site for a landfill. In fact, geologically, if you are going to have a landfill, around Winnipeg is one of the best, and south where the clay is thicker, all the better.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

There is the ongoing story that if it was not for some of the landfill sites, we would not have any ski hills at all. Our toboggan slides were down into ditches, but at least now we have some topography, so it is not that I am opposed to landfill sites. I think that they can be harboured safely with minimal environmental damage. The question becomes, given that I understand that there is an enormous capacity, you know, philosophically, I would say it would be preferable to remain in the natural site where we have a lot of capacity. The decision to license BFI in Rosser, we will have to agree to differ on that basic decision.

I would like to ask the minister a more general question in terms of garbage disposal. Can the minister tell us how many pits, or shall I use more delicate terminology, garbage sites, landfill sites are in permeable materials, aggregate materials? I know that it is probably policy or hopefully our mission to remove sites from those permeable materials, but I also know the practicality. We do have many landfill sites that are still in gravel or sand or permeable till materials. Do we have an idea of how many?

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Mr. Cummings: We probably know how many are improperly sited and how many are going to have to be shut down in the near future, but I cannot tell you right at the moment. We do have a fairly extensive list out in rural Manitoba. I do not think, if we are talking province-wide as opposed to the capital region then, yes, we have an idea of how many are on, for example, one- year permits, to clean up their action. It might not always be because of improper siting. I think it would be fair to say that those that are the biggest problem have probably already been shut down. That does not mean that we do not have more. I know of examples a few years ago where the only place the water collected was in the bottom of the landfill. We knew it was in the wrong place.

Ms. Mihychuk: What is the relationship between the Department of Environment and the Department of Energy and Mines, which has a fairly extensive database in terms of where these aggregate materials are?

Mr. Cummings: I am sure we have availability to all of their data. We also use the data that the Hazardous Waste Corp. collected, which is probably more current, because they were looking for specific landfill-type information that did a pretty detailed survey of the whole province, which is, while I have the mike, another reason why the corporation had so many expenses in the start-up period. It was not losses associated to handling hazardous waste. It was expenses which were useful for more than just Hazardous Waste Corp.

Ms. Mihychuk: Would the minister be prepared to share the information that they have in terms of landfill sites on short-term permits, in addition, the number of sites where we do have water table at surface? Personal experience, not that much outdated, had indicated that there are several pits in the province where the water table is at surface and could cause some concern. I would be interested to see how we are progressing in terms of cleaning up our landfill sites.

Mr. Cummings: Yes, we can provide--there is no privileged information in this area. One thing that we have always maintained is that we-- and it was in 1989-90 that we started increased enforcement and waste reduction policy really parallel. It has, in my view, worked out very well. As the regulatory enforcement came down more on the sites that were operating out there, it became more obvious to the owners that they had to consolidate for costs that were being imposed on them, at the same time consolidate because of improper siting.

The numbers have probably dropped a lot compared to the historic numbers which may not be all that--well, okay, make a liar out of me. There are about a hundred less than there were five years ago, I am told by staff. Bear in mind, frankly, there are probably landfills out there that are not used very much that we may not even know about. I mean, that is not an admission by commission; it is a matter of number of disposal areas that have been established across the province over the years.

In my own municipality, which is very small, there were Clean Environment Commission hearings on withdrawal of waters from the aquifer, and they referenced a couple of old landfills in the immediate area of the pumping site. After the commission was done and the report was issued, some of the local people were heard to say, what do you mean there are only two? I mean, there were likely five more within the next 10 miles. Historically, that is how Manitoba has developed, so we have come really, I would suggest, a long way in the last five years.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister share how many inspectors the department has in terms of looking at landfill sites and historically how that personnel ratio has moved? Are we looking at more inspectors, because we obviously have more regulations and more landfill sites as we create more garbage, or how is the monitoring of this regulations actually being enforced?

Mr. Cummings: While we are looking up the precise numbers here, I would say that we are not putting more officers in the field. The department did have an increase a few years ago, but it stayed flat or reduced slightly from that increase that occurred in 1989, I believe. We did decentralize as a result of a reorganization in 1989, and, frankly, in terms of how you enforce landfill, you need to be decentralized because then you do have the people in the regions who are familiar with the area and working with the local councils. It has been a very, you know, tying it to the decentralization, opportune time to do a whole lot of things. It is the same as putting police officers in a certain area. Sometimes you do not think you have a problem until you have an enforcement officer in the area because then you find the problems.

Almost everyone in the regional office can do enforcement. We have about 65 inspectors capable of doing waste disposal grounds. Bear in mind that we have a lot of public health inspectors out there who would also be environment officers. [interjection] There are 65.

Ms. Mihychuk: I would like to just do a local constituency question. I have got just a few more questions, a few more minutes before the time is up for the day, and I wanted to ask this one area of questions.

Mr. Cummings: We have staff here who are responsible for providing some information on the Sustainable Development Innovations Fund. If we do not need them--or do you want to ask questions in the morning?

Mr. Dewar: Tomorrow morning.

Mr. Cummings: We will be continuing at nine tomorrow morning? [interjection] Okay.

Ms. Mihychuk: I recently got a phone call from a concerned citizen saying that the potential water quality of Sturgeon Creek would be, in fact, perhaps jeopardized by a decision to approve a piggery near Marquette, Manitoba. This is a piece of land that was purchased, I understand, by the Municipality of Woodlands. They wanted to establish a landfill site. The Department of Environment rejected their application, and, subsequently, the R.M. sold the property to another interest who is now putting on, I understand, 6,000 head of hogs on the same piece of land.

Obviously, the concern here is that the Department of Environment rejected the landfill site and now we have approval of a fairly major hog production. Can the minister provide for us the reasons for rejecting the R.M.'s proposal for a landfill site at the property? If the minister is not familiar with the location, I believe I have that.

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Mr. Cummings: We do not have, at our finger tips, any of the reasons that were put forward for rejection of the landfill. I know when I was at the site there is a fair bit of overburden. It might not have been enough overburden, however, for a landfill. Remember that a landfill requires a few metres of clay, so the two decisions may not be incompatible. I saw some of the soil opened up and it was clay as far down as they had opened it that day, and we are talking three or four feet. So, if you are talking about building a lagoon, for example, they can mitigate that by putting in recompacted clay or a liner if necessary.

A lagoon can be shallow, and I think the requirements for a hog lagoon is like six feet of clay--perhaps a little bit more, but six feet, for sure--between that and any potential ground water infiltration. That would have to be engineered, and we require an engineer's approval. While we do not design or necessarily inspect at the point of start-up, we require these types of operations to have been designed to engineer's specs to certain permeability and they have to deliver that information to us. Therefore, we believe we have a high degree of certainty as to what the quality of the lagoon might be, if in fact there is a lagoon.

I believe that is also a site where you have got about three or four sections of land around there where there are huge tracts of land. If appropriately contracted for them, material could be spread for fertilizer purposes, low quality land, frankly. The comment was made to me there that a jackrabbit would have to pack a lunch to get across some of it a few years ago. It is not, like I say, high-quality land, but certainly what I saw--now if you want the detailed information of why the landfill may have been rejected, I suppose we can find that out, but I suspect it was as I said.

Ms. Mihychuk: It is interesting that the minister describes the land as being marginal. Often sites for landfill sites are based on lands that are nonagricultural. That is often because the ground materials do not sustain good soil development and, therefore, crop development is also very poor. In areas where you have a very coarse, permeable till, for example, you will get scrubby oak bush type of surface cover; you will have a shallow soil development where you have limestone near the surface. You will also have what would be called marginal agricultural land. You just need to go into the Interlake and you can see some of the topography there.

The question is, given that this is, indeed, marginal land, it would I think raise suspicion as to what is the soil material there, what is the surficial material, what is its permeability, what is the depth of limestone in that area?

The reasons that I heard from the person that called me was that the landfill was, in fact, rejected because water table was very close to surface. If that is true, and I have no doubt that this person was somehow trying to misinform me, he was actually I guess involved with the citizens group that protested the landfill site in that area, water table apparently is very high, and the concern then is, if the department said no to a landfill site, why would they say yes to 6,000 pigs?

Mr. Cummings: I think the specifics I will have to leave until we actually have them, but salinity is also a reason why you would not have good production. That could be related to the water table. But remember that livestock operation, they are required to have in excess of a year's retention capability so that spreading should occur at a time when it is not likely to be washed off or flooded out, so there are ways that it is not inconceivable to speculate on how this could be managed and not be a detriment to Sturgeon Creek.

Ms. Mihychuk: What assurances can the minister give the people that live near Sturgeon Creek, and in fact Sturgeon Creek feeds into the Assiniboine, that monitoring will take place to ensure that we do not have the pollution of the water that feeds into our area?

Mr. Cummings: There are a number of things that enter into it. One is the guidelines under which these operations are expected to function, and we have The Farm Practices Protection Act, which dictates what would be acceptable practices, and we would be able to provide inspections.

If I could take the next two or three minutes, I would like to actually address that issue if the member does not mind. The fact is we want and we are encouraging increasing development of livestock operations in the province. You can tie it all the way back to the fact that we have lost the subsidies for moving grain out of this part of the country. There is still going to be lots of grain grown, and right now the price is very high, so it is going to move readily, but in the long run the development of this part of the continent is going to be related to value-added, one of which is increased livestock production.

Our government will do everything reasonable to make sure that we do not trade an economic activity. In fact, I think, given the comments that we have put on the record over the years, you can expect me to say that we will do everything possible to guarantee that we do not allow certain sections of the livestock industry to give the industry a black eye. We have no interest in turning a blind eye to bad operations. There have been some examples of where the edges of good reason have been abused, and, frankly, the Department of Environment and the Department of Agriculture will be expected to enforce and maintain a certain standard of operation that is not harmful to the environment.

I believe my word is my guarantee, but you cannot take a written guarantee to the folks on Sturgeon Creek until I know a little bit more about the specifics of the soil, but in the general sense, the ability to maintain a standard of operation in that area that would not contribute to pollution floating down off the fields--it is very flat country out there. A lot of alfalfa being grown is what I saw when I was there. It should be an ideal location if properly managed, but I would have to get more information on the soil types.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The hour is now 5:30 p.m. I am interrupting the proceedings of the committee. The committee will be recessed until 9 a.m. tomorrow.