REQUEST FOR DECISION
DATE: August 13, 2019 Report No. ADM-19-026
TO: Laurie Hurst, Chief Administrative Officer
FROM: Anja Nurvo, Director of Corporate Services
SUBJECT:
Title
Watercourse and Drainage Regulation Bylaw
End
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
That Council give first, second and third readings to the Watercourse and Drainage Regulation Bylaw, 2019, No. 2971 as attached to Staff Report ADM-19-026.
Body
RELEVANT POLICY:
Community Charter
Watercourse and Drainage Regulation Bylaw, 1998, No. 2332
STRATEGIC RELEVANCE:
Identify infrastructure repair and proactively plan for replacement needs
BACKGROUND:
The Township's current Watercourse and Drainage Regulation Bylaw, 1998, No. 2332 is obsolete and inadequate to ensure that any person contravening the Bylaw would be held responsible for the containment, cleanup and restoration of a spill or discharge of pollutants into the Township's drainage systems and all costs associated with those actions. The Bylaw also does not follow the standard requirements of procedural fairness, by providing a person the opportunity to be heard, nor does it specifically permit the Township to carry out the cleanup at the polluter's cost in the event the polluter fails to do so. The Township's drains and storm sewers discharge directly into the Harbour or Gorge Waterway, which are regulated by the Provincial Ministry of the Environment and the Federal Fisheries and Oceans. Updating of the Bylaw would reduce our exposure to third party claims arising from discharge of pollutants into our infrastructure.
The Township applied for and received a grant through the Risk Management Program of the Municipal Insurance Association (MIA). The grant was to cover legal services to assist the Township to prepare an updated bylaw to regulate our natural water courses, ditches, drains and storm sewers, to adequately address obligations and prohibitions relating to discharge and pollution, and to provide for enforcement op...
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