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April Lindgren
Legislation introduced yesterday by Agriculture Minister Brian Coburn comes in the aftermath of the Walkerton tragedy, where manure from a farm contaminated the municipal water supply with E. coli bacteria that killed seven people and made more than 2,000 ill.
Although the farm involved was small, recent Agriculture Ministry figures showed industrial-sized hog, poultry and cattle barns that generate tonnes of manure are going up at the average rate of one a day in Ontario, despite the absence of strict controls on their operations.
Mr. Coburn said yesterday the new manure law will set standards for farmer training, mandate the amount of land farmers must have relative to livestock numbers and require all farm operators to produce manure-management plans. The minister also said the largest farm operations will face annual inspections to ensure they are abiding by the rules.
All new or expanding operations will be subject to the regulations when they are drafted, a process expected to take months. But the new rules won't apply to existing large livestock operations for three years, while medium-sized operations will have five years to comply.
The bill decrees the spreading of raw sewage on farmers' fields will be phased out, but that, too, will take five years.
Mr. Coburn acknowledged that the province will not impose any size restrictions on farms, though larger operations will be subject to different regulations than small family farms.
NDP leader Howard Hampton was unimpressed with the government's effort, which to date has taken 18 months.
Residents in many parts of the province can't wait five years for regulations to protect their drinking water and environment, he told the legislature. Mr. Hampton said he's been contacted by one group of citizens concerned about a barn for 6,000 pigs. The hogs will produce nine million litres of raw, untreated liquid manure to be spread on surrounding land, he told the legislature.
Failure to apply the new rules to all farms immediately, Mr. Hampton said, will mean "the controversy out there in rural Ontario is simply going to continue. ... So give us some assurances that that kind of operation is going to be brought under regulation immediately, not three or five years from now."
The new legislation will replace all municipal bylaws that set size limits on what critics call "factory farms."
Mr. Coburn could not say how many inspectors will be responsible for the on-site inspections, whether more inspectors will be hired or how much money will be committed to the new enforcement process.
Mr. Coburn told reporters the Ministry of the Environment may be responsible for the inspections, but an aide insisted later that no decision has yet been made.
Ramani Nadarajah, legal counsel with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said it is important who does the inspections: "We want it to be with the Environment Ministry because the Agriculture Ministry does not have an established history of taking environmental action and has generally had a very cozy relationship with farmers," she said.
Liberal environmental critic Jim Bradley was also critical: "There are an awful lot of questions left unanswered," he said, "lots of deadlines that are months or years away and no commitment of staff to enforce this. It's a start -- but that's all."
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