After several months of community meetings, the Cataraqui Source Water Protection Area Committee has submitted its initial report to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

Seasoned biologist, environmental policy consultant and local committee Chair John Williamson said he thinks the process has gone well so far.

“What’s so different about it than so many other government initiatives is that we’ve gone in with a blank piece of paper,” he said from his home in Inverary.

Williamson’s career in environmental consultation began in 1968, and has included work with the Ministry of Natural Res o u rc e s and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

“Traditionally you’d go out and try and sell something,” he said. “I called it the last of the blood sports because you’d mostly get beat up.

“(This process) has been a lot more pleasant.”

The policy to which the committee is contributing will protect drinking water in-take sites in the event of a contaminant spill, Williamson said.

The committee held monthly meetings in communities from Napanee to Brockville, and north to Newboro, throughout the spring. It also held secondary meetings with specific landowners in each region.

“For places like Kingston (the intake) is out in the lake,” he said. “For Mallorytown or Lansdowne it could be a well.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the areas, and identify any (one of 21 regulated) risks around them,” he said, and make sure there is enough time to react to protect drinking water.

The individual meetings were held with “farmers or business owners, but some were also just households,” Williamson said, “maybe people with fuel oil tanks in the basement or septic fields.

“We’d tell them what we’re looking for and invite them to sit down with us,” he said. They could discuss options such as creating buffers between agricultural runoff, upgrading septic systems or making sure fuel tanks were double-walled, as well as offering “stewardship funding” to implement the plans.

“It’s a longer process but hopefully there will be better buy-in that what’s traditionally been the case,” Williamson said.

Environment Minister John Wilkinson released an annual report on drinking water last week, calling the policy-development process a “key achievement.”

“All committees have made good progress in completing the first two key milestones (of the process),” Wilkinson said.

“These assessment reports identify the current and future risks to raw water sources. They also lay the foundation for source water protection plans that highlight actions to address the most serious risks.”