Abstract
The research finds evidence in support of and wide recognition of the practical value of management system standards (MSS) by assisting municipalities in meeting their human health protection, environmental objectives, addressing environmental and property damage risks, and providing an additional mechanism of public accountability and transparency. Semi-structured interviews were applied to assess perceptions with practitioners and environmental non-governmental organizations on whether a similar approach to the legally required drinking water quality management standard (DWQMS) could be applied for the municipal wastewater and stormwater sectors. Twelve Ontario municipalities have adopted or are in the process of adopting an ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard for their wastewater and/or stormwater systems, which represents 66% of Ontario’s population. With the large urban centres (e.g., Toronto, York Region, Durham Region, Halton Region and Peel Region) adopting the standard, this is likely to influence small to medium-sized cities to follow a similar approach. Although, resources might be a factor preventing the cohort of smaller utilities voluntarily taking this path. Regulations governing Ontario’s municipal drinking water, wastewater and stormwater utilities were compared via gap analysis. Gaps on management of the system, performance monitoring, auditing and having minimum design criteria left the municipal wastewater and stormwater sectors behind in comparison with recently updated (2004–2008) regulatory framework for the drinking water sector. Based on the identification and review of significant gaps in wastewater and stormwater regulation (compared with the drinking water sector), environmental MSS should be incorporated to strengthen the regulatory framework of these sectors. These phenomena also depict a form of sustainable governance with the use of MSS, which are initiated, developed and regulated by non-state actors, recognizing the value of non-state rule instruments in the water, wastewater and stormwater sectors.
Highlights
In a broader context, the objective of municipal water systems is to remove potential contaminants in the water taken from surface and underground sources for human uses, and to clean it after it has been used and polluted before its discharge to the environment
The qualitative data were examined with a focus on the relevant position taken by the respondents, and on the following: (a) relevance to municipalities of voluntarily adopting non-state regulatory standards, such as International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001 or ISO 9001; (b) regulatory barriers to modernizing the Ontario municipal wastewater and stormwater regulatory framework; and (c) provincial regulatory priorities associated with improving the protection of freshwater quality from potential contamination from municipal wastewater and stormwater
This study of the use of management system standards (MSS) depicts a form of sustainable governance with the use of MSS, which are initiated, developed and regulated by non-state actors, recognizing the value of non-state rule instruments in the water, wastewater and stormwater sectors
Summary
The objective of municipal water systems (i.e., drinking water, wastewater and stormwater) is to remove potential contaminants in the water taken from surface and underground sources for human uses, and to clean it after it has been used and polluted before its discharge to the environment. 522–529), and an independent public inquiry, known as the Justice O’Connor’s Inquiry [3,4], the government of Ontario modernized its legislation on municipal drinking water [5] The resultant new governance framework for Ontario’s drinking water follows a risk-based management approach and includes a legislatively mandated quality management system (QMS) developed for drinking water (the Drinking Water Quality Management Standard, or DWQMS). This is what is referred to in this paper as the ecosystem of regulations, a network of rule instruments intertwined with requirements to address the same policy objective (i.e., Justice O’Connor’s Inquiry recommendations). While government rule instruments provide minimum standards, non-state standards are developed and updated more frequently and may be more stringent than government criteria [9] (p. 75)
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