World
Water Day took place this week, and public attention in Canada
as in many other countries was for a time focused on what clearly
is our most valuable natural resource.
 

Canada has about nine per cent of the world’s water
supply, according to Environment Canada, but only 0.5 per cent of
the world’s population. One might interpret this to mean our
supplies of fresh water are more than adequate to meet all our
needs.   

In fact, although Canada has significant amounts of
fresh water, we possess only 7% of the world’s
renewable freshwater supply. On top of that, 84% of
our population lives in a narrow southern band, while 60% of our
water supply flows north to the Arctic
Circle. 

Increasing pollution of surface and groundwater is
further reducing the supplies of readily available, clean water,
because our water use almost always leads to some degree of
deterioration in water
quality. 

Our growing population mainly concentrated in
expanding metropolitan areas of the south and increased demands for
fresh water for a variety of purposes is forcing regulators and
policy makers to find ways to stretch available supplies even
further through conservation
measures. 

But according to some experts, Canada is falling
behind the rest of the world when it comes to conserving our
precious freshwater resource. A recent Conference Board report says
Canada ranks 15th out of 16 peer countries when it comes to water
conservation.  

“Excessive water consumption in Canada
can be attributed to the lack of widespread water conservation
practices and water pricing that does not promote efficiency.”
Conference Board of Canada

Most of our water use (over 90%) goes toward
thermal-electric power generation, manufacturing and agriculture.
The rest is for residential use. 
Within the manufacturing sectors, pulp and paper,
metals, chemicals, petroleum and coal, and food industries are the
largest users of water. In some parts of the country, competing
demands for water have raised the specter of shortages that could
limit available supplies for households and/or industrial
purposes. 

It is becoming abundantly clear that water is not a
free good. Sooner or later it presents us with a bill, be it the
cost to clean up polluted lakes and rivers, or the need to upgrade
purification
infrastructure. 

Compounding the problem is the fact that in many
cases we pay less than the actual cost of processing and delivering
water. Environment Canada estimates, for example, irrigation water
charges recover only about 10% of the actual costs of the service.
The same is true, to a less extreme extent, for water costs to
householders. 

This leads to overuse of water and compared to many
other countries, we pay very little of the true cost to have water
delivered to our kitchen and bathroom faucets, and clearly if we
are to improve our track record with respect to conservation of our
water resources, we must be prepared to pay more for this life
sustaining commodity.

 

Source:
World Commission on Water for the 21^st class=”apple-converted-space”>  class=”tinytext”>Century, 1999.class=”apple-converted-space”> 
 

While changing our patterns of household water use
is an important starting point, there has been an increased
emphasis in recent years within the corporate sector to make better
use of water they
use. 

Significant gains have been made in our oil and gas
sector in terms of the intensity of water use per unit of
production. Suncor, a GLOBE Award for Environmental Excellence,
reports major improvements in its recycling of waste water for its
Edmonton refinery resulting in 5.5 million litres of treated waste
water being reused instead of taking the equivalent amount of fresh
water from the North Saskatchewan River.

The company reports   similar
gains in the recycling of water used to separate bitumen from oil
sands resulting significantly less water per unit of heavy oil
produced. Other oil and gas are striving to achieve similar gains
both in the amount of water they use and in the minimization of
environmental
impacts. 

Recent reports commissioned by both the federal and
Alberta governments suggest that there is much more that needs to
be done in this regard, starting with much improved monitoring of
water-related
impacts. 

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a U.K.-based,
not-for-profit organization that discloses information about
companies’ greenhouse gas emissions, water management and climate
change strategies, polled 500 of the world’s largest companies in
2010. 

Of the seven large Canadian
corporations polled, none reported they had set any concrete goals
for reducing their use of water or improving the quality of their
discharges.

Similar findings were echoed in a survey report
published last year by Corporate Knights. It reported that
“Canadians’ efforts to save water appear to be going down the drain
despite their reported concern about its
availability”.

  This conclusion was
based on the findings of the third annual href=”http://www.rbc.com/newsroom/2010/0317-waterstudy.html”>Canadian
Water Attitudes Study commissioned by RBC and
Unilever and endorsed by the Canadian Partnership Initiative of the
United Nations Water for Life
Decade. 

“There is an obvious disconnect between Canadians’
attitudes towards water conservation and what they’re actually
doing,” noted Bob Sandford, chair, Canadian Partnership Initiative
of the UN Water for Life
Decade. 

“Canadians say they are much more concerned about
the availability and quantity of fresh water than any other natural
resource, yet their efforts to conserve water are actually
decreasing. This should be a huge concern, given that we live in a
society run by water and the long-term supply of this precious
resource is already at risk in many parts of the
country.”

Despite this somewhat pessimistic commentary about
Canadian attitudes toward water conservation, many municipalities
across the country are actively putting into play strategies and
programs to ensure better management of this increasingly scarce
resource.

And industry is also responding. Water efficient
fixtures for households and improved water metering technologies
for factories and institutional users are becoming more
commonplace.

The Carbon Disclosure Project survey cited above
notes that in the U.S., 60 per cent of the companies polled had set
concrete water conservation goals, and in the U.K., over 85 per
cent of the companies polled reported similar
programs.

PepsiCo is one of the top corporate leaders with
respect to better water management. It has publicly announced plans
to conserve water in all countries wherein it operates, including
Canada. Redesigning its production processes and refining its
production facilities accounted for 12-billion litres of water
saved in 2009 alone.

Canada’s Environmental Minister Peter Kent addressed
the issue of water conservation last week, noting that Canada is
moving forward on tighter wastewater regulations, and in taking the
first steps to develop a world class water monitoring program for
the oil sands.

“We will continue to work collaboratively on the
cleanup of the Great Lakes and Lake Winnipeg, we will continue our
world class research and technology development, and we will
continue to take steps to safeguard Canada’s ongoing access to
clean and safe water,” he added.