Submit your comments for stronger water protection!

Your Message (feel free to edit)
I am writing to express my support for a strong water protection strategy for New Brunswick. I commend the provincial government for moving forward on its commitment to protecting our water, however, I believe the draft strategy does not go far enough to ensure healthy water for people and nature into the future. The development of a water protection strategy is a unique opportunity to ensure that our water is pollution free and healthy. In some areas, we need ambitious plans to restore degraded water systems. In others, we must put in place protections to preserve pristine water quality. If left untended, New Brunswick’s waters will face ongoing and increasing threats from pollution, wetland and coastal estuary loss, loss of adequate environmental flow to sustain aquatic life, and increasing climate change impacts such as floods, droughts, and high temperatures. A strong water protection strategy should detail the steps that will lay out the why, what, how, and when, of the actions New Brunswick intends to take to protect water, including bringing into force modern water protection laws. New Brunswick deserves a strong water protection strategy that: - is science-based; (involving baseline data, tracking and taking into consideration cumulative impacts, environmental flows) - sets water quality standards within a working, legal mechanism; - conserves all water within watersheds including surface waters (lakes, streams, rivers) and groundwater, by developing good conservation plans, policies and practices, and uses the precautionary principle as a guiding, legally-enforceable tool; - protects our marine coastal areas in law; - has a meaningful form of co-governance with First Nations; - includes the development, implementation and enforcement of watershed protection plans, developed in a transparent manner, involving government, businesses, watershed organizations, farmers, municipal officials, and citizens; - is accountable, which includes ongoing monitoring and annual reporting to the public on the progress of goals and objectives outlined in the water protection strategy; and, - is enforceable through a modern legal framework. As an engaged citizen, I urge you to advocate for a strong water protection with modern legislation that will protect the health of our water and people. Sincerely,