Group opposes new holding pond
Local farmers say they have followed all regulations constructing reservoir for agriculture business
SHAMROCK – A new holding pond under construction near Kinkora drew a crowd Wednesday as members of the Coalition for Protection of P.E.I. Water held a news conference to voice opposition to the project.
At issue are revisions to the P.E.I. Water Act concerning high-capacity wells that were passed in 2017 but still not formally proclaimed. In the meantime, there has been a moratorium on new high-capacity wells while existing wells are still in use.
The new Shamrock pond falls outside the moratorium as it is shallow. Farmers Austin Roberts and Andrew Lawless, who are building the pond, say they have followed all regulations.
Coalition members at the gathering Wednesday, however, say the protection of the Island's water is at stake.
“We have a moratorium on highcapacity wells that is long-standing; the government has regulations that they developed supporting that moratorium and recognizing that these holding ponds can be used as a way of getting around the moratorium," said coalition member Don Mazer.
Douglas Campbell, a district director of the National Farmers Union, says the union has been talking about land protection for 40 years.
“You can’t talk about the land without water being connected to it because they both go hand in hand," he said. “People have to realize that they may not see the land as an issue for them, but everybody is impacted by water. That’s a big reason for being here.”
Roberts and Lawless, who are lifelong farmers and members of P.E.I.’s agriculture community, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon indicating this project is theirs alone. There are two regular low-flow wells attached to this project.
“The goal of this project is to direct rain and runoff to flow over the land and run into the pond over the year so it may be used for irrigation of our cropland during a few weeks in the summer when rainfall is insufficient,” read the statement.
Roberts and Lawless employed consultants and engineers in the project’s design, and the statement noted it meets or exceeds all provincial guidelines.
“All of the water captured will be naturally filtered and returned to the environment in a controlled manner,” continued the statement.
Roberts and Lawless said this project will ensure the least possible impact on the environment and will drastically reduce the need to use groundwater for irrigation.
The release goes on to say that if this pond was in place during posttropical storm Dorian last fall, enough water would have been captured to fill half the pond in one rainfall while also preventing erosion from the runoff.
The Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Water has requested a meeting with Premier Dennis King and Environment, Water and Climate Change Minister Natalie Jameson to discuss “serious concerns about the lack of protection for P.E.I. water that stems from the unregulated development of holding ponds for agriculture”.
“The government needs to take whatever time they feel they need to take to proclaim the water act, but that time cannot be used as an opportunity for the development of things that are clearly contrary to the spirit of the water act,” said Mazer, who also suggested an idea of licencing and registering all wells on P.E.I.
“So, we can know who is using the water,” he said. “This is a common good, it is a public resource, it belongs to all of us and it’s related to the wellbeing of all of us. It deserves a transparent process, where we would have the right to know.”
Asked if there was an alternative to holding ponds for irrigation, Campbell answered concentration on organic matter and proper rotation of the land.
“Getting away from mono agriculture and reliance on that sort of industrialized agriculture because that is hard on the soil,” said Campbell.
“It impacts organic matter and then that impacts the amount of water the land can retain, therefore being able to produce a crop.”