Licences needed to safeguard water

(Letter to the Editor, Winnipeg Free Press)

While the requirements of the proposed Drinking Water Safety Act may reduce, as Oscar Lathlin says, "the probability of a system failure to as low a level as possible," what we also need are laws that keep our drinking-water resources from becoming contaminated in the first place.

Today, the biggest threat to our water quality comes from large corporate livestock operations, which Agriculture Canada says are polluting the water. Until Manitoba's NDP-PC alliance requires them to operate under industrial licences, amends the Environment Act to include agricultural practices, and gives the Clean Environment Commission teeth, citizens may well expect the effects of polluted water supplies to strike at the very moment their expensive water-treatment systems fail.

ROB RIDGEN, Conservation Critic, Green Party of Manitoba