Quebec court strikes down municipal anti-fracking bylaw
A Quebec court has struck down a Gaspe municipal bylaw that tried to prevent exploratory oil wells being drilled and fracked uncomfortably close to its drinking water supply. The court ruled that the bylaw was invalid because it prevented Petrolia Inc. from carrying out drilling specifically…
View the post titled Quebec court strikes down municipal anti-fracking bylawModel Sewer Bylaw spreading across Canada
In 2009, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) adopted a national Waste Water Effluents Strategy that recommends/expects municipalities to adopt and implement an updated sewer use bylaw. The text of the recommended CCME Model Sewer Use By-Law is set out in a 2006 repo…
View the post titled Model Sewer Bylaw spreading across CanadaWhen can municipalities regulate environmental impacts?
Eleven years after the landmark Spraytech case, how far have municipalities been able to go in regulating environmental impacts of federally and provincially regulated activities? The people who must live closest to a resource or energy project often turn to their municipalities to protect t…
View the post titled When can municipalities regulate environmental impacts?How much can municipalities regulate boat use?
Québec’s Court of Appeal has struck down part of a municipal by-law that impinged on the public right of navigation, an area where only the federal government has jurisdiction to make laws. As we noted in an earlier blog post, St.-Adolphe d’Howard’s by-law prevented non-residents from using …
View the post titled How much can municipalities regulate boat use?Banning sludge spreading?
The Québec Court of Appeal has struck down a municipal bylaw banning the spreading of sludge, on the ground that it exceeds the municipality’s jurisdiction.
View the post titled Banning sludge spreading?Block 2- The Industrial Water Rate
For major employers in Toronto, the most important incentive to comply with the sewer bylaw is not the risk of prosecution, it’s the risk of losing their preferential Block 2 Industrial Rate for water and sewage service. Block 2 can save large companies tens of thousands of dollars or…
View the post titled Block 2- The Industrial Water RateHide and seek with bylaws
The Internet has been an enormous boon to those needing to keep up with municipal bylaws. Instead of the old process of sending a student down to City Hall, now we just access the city’s website. But it turns out that municipalities have as much trouble keeping their websites up-to-da…
View the post titled Hide and seek with bylawsMunicipality can protect shoreline
Quebec City has successfully defended a bylaw requiring private property owners to naturalize the shoreline of its water supply. The St. Charles River, which flows into the lake of the same name, provides over half the potable water used by Quebec City. A study revealed that the banks of th…
View the post titled Municipality can protect shorelineStormwater surprise
Why does so much filth pour out of Toronto sewer outfalls? Hundreds of the outfalls, which should only carry rainwater and perhaps noncontact cooling water, run even in dry weather. Toronto’s water department has identified 53 priority outfalls, places where the “water” p…
View the post titled Stormwater surpriseReceive Blog Posts
By subscribing to our blog, you will receive an email when a new post is added. You can unsubscribe at any time by sending an email to us at [email protected] with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.