Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Results — Continued

Goal 1: Protect the environment and human health and safety by ensuring clean and safe water, land and air.

The ministry is making significant changes in the way it delivers its environmental mandate. A primary aim is to reduce costs of both the ministry and the regulated community. The ministry is also exploring an Innovation Model (see Figure 1 on page 43) focused on reducing costs to both government and industry, improving compliance and improving British Columbia's competitiveness. To achieve this aim, the ministry is shifting from a prescriptive approach to environmental regulation to a results-based approach informed by science — one with clear results-based standards and workable regulation. The review of the Waste Management Act and the subsequent enactment of the Environmental Management Act, will result in changes to a number of the ministry's processes and outputs.

Objective 1:

Streamline standards and improve monitoring, reporting and compliance.

This objective addresses the ministry's shift from a prescriptive approach for environmental regulation to a results-based approach informed by science. To make progress toward attaining this objective, the ministry is simultaneously working on several strategies that will change some of its processes, clarify regulatory requirements and improve the use of science.

Strategies:

1. Reduce prescriptive regulatory requirements to decrease costs and processing time, and allow flexibility in the methods used to achieve environmental standards.

2. Revise legislation and associated regulations to enable implementation of innovative and results-based approaches.

3. Amend legislation and focus ministry efforts to ensure effective clean-up of previously contaminated sites that pose a high risk to human health and the environment.

4. Update the scientific information used to develop guidelines and standards for environmental protection.

5. Implement an effective data collection process and information network that supports air and water quality monitoring, tracks trends and provides for transparent progress reporting.

6. Maintain regulatory activities to monitor achievement of standards.

7. Work in partnership with stakeholders to develop new compliance tools, such as stewardship initiatives, which prevent violations and result in higher rates of compliance.

Performance Measures:

The ministry is working to streamline standards and processes to remove unnecessary impediments to business and foster economic development. A key objective of the Waste Management Act review was to make the legislative and regulatory changes needed to enable more timely decisions on applications from businesses. This will be achieved with the bringing into effect of the new Environmental Management Act in the spring of 2004 and the subsequent bringing into effect of the necessary regulatory amendments, codes and protocols. Two performance measures are being used to demonstrate progress in streamlining approval processes under the Act: the reduction in the backlog of contaminated sites applications and the average processing time for issuing permits compared to Alberta. A performance measure has also been added pertaining to streamlining approval processes for pesticide certification under the new Integrated Pest Management Act.

Reducing the backlog: The ministry's ongoing efforts to eliminate the backlog of contaminated sites applications will be facilitated by the new legislation. It is important to monitor progress in eliminating the backlog because it is likely that the delay in providing decisions for the applications, which are primarily for low- and medium-risk situations, is preventing some development from proceeding. The target is to eliminate 95% of the backlog of non-high risk applications by March 31, 2006.

Average processing time for permits: The ministry is exploring opportunities to streamline regulatory requirements perceived as an impediment to economic development and diversification of regional economies in British Columbia. This new performance measure assesses average processing time for issuing permits in British Columbia compared to Alberta, with the target being to match Alberta 90% of the time by March 31, 2005. This should result in lower costs to government and industry.

Processing time for pesticide certification: Applicators and dispensers of pesticides are required to be certified and candidates must pass the appropriate examination. In conjunction with the development of the new Integrated Pest Management Act, the process for examination delivery was reviewed. A streamlined approach was introduced that enables individuals to write exams at Government Agent offices rather than in ministry regional offices. This has increased accessibility for those wanting to write the exams, and the target is to reduce the time people must wait to receive results from six weeks to two weeks.

Benchmark Information: Not available, as these measures were only introduced in this Service Plan.

Objective 2:

Limit air pollution and contribute to British Columbia's efforts to respond to climate change.

The quality of air in the province is a key part of the ministry's goal to protect the environment and human health. Meeting this objective requires undertaking action in a number of areas (as identified in the strategies below) to address air quality issues in the province and contribute to addressing the global climate change issue.

Strategies:

1. In partnership with other levels of government, support the development of a climate change strategy and ensure the province's interests are addressed in a national strategy.

2. Encourage incorporation of environmental technology and clean energy into government and other operations.

Performance Measures:

The ministry's efforts toward achieving this objective include addressing province-wide and airshed-specific air quality issues. The ministry is using two performance measures to assess its effectiveness in addressing issues related to the amount of fine particulates in the air and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in British Columbia.

Particulate matter: The outdoor air contaminant of most concern in British Columbia, from a human health perspective, is particulate matter (PM). The percentage of monitored communities achieving the Canada-wide standard for PM_2.5 has been selected as the performance measure. The ministry collects PM data from approximately 47 air quality monitoring sites (using approximately 90 air quality monitors) from across the province.

It is important to note that the communities included in the sampling tend to be those that have experienced air quality problems related to particulate matter. When a community's air quality problems have been resolved, monitoring may be reduced, except in those communities where long-term regional trends are monitored. The target is for all monitored communities to achieve the Canada-wide standard for PM_2.5 by 2005/06.

Greenhouse gas emissions: To assess performance in contributing to addressing the global climate change issue, the ministry is using an outcome measure of per capita GHG emissions relative to other provinces, which was selected by the BC Progress Board. This measure may be considered more appropriate than the measure of total GHG emissions in British Columbia used previously. A per capita measure accounts for the largely unknown effects of future national GHG commitments and clean technology development that are likely to apply to all provinces, and hence should reflect the effect of British Columbia's actions relative to other provinces. The target will be to maintain or improve on the per capita ranking relative to other provinces.

Benchmark Information: Based on 2001 data, British Columbia currently ranks third in Canada after Prince Edward Island and Quebec in GHG emissions per capita. (Source: BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection.)

Objective 3:

Ensure safe, high-quality drinking water and reduce discharges that threaten water quality.

This objective addresses the component of the goal that pertains to ensuring clean and safe water. The following strategy will be critical to attaining the objective.

Strategy:

1. Protect surface water and groundwater from health-threatening contamination by implementing groundwater regulations.

Performance Measure:

Protecting water quality requires ongoing efforts to monitor, protect and manage water resources on both province-wide and watershed-specific levels. In this Service Plan, the ministry includes a performance measure that reflects progress toward attaining the objective on a province-wide basis. The measure focuses on trends in surface water quality for 30 water bodies monitored under a federal/provincial agreement. The measure will monitor trends based on the presence of environmentally significant variables, such as metals and nutrients. Tracking such trends will indicate the cumulative effect of multi-agency land use activities and resource management activities in source watersheds. This measure is also used in the government's Strategic Plan. The target is for water quality trends in the monitored water bodies to be maintained or improved by 2006.

Benchmark Information: In addition to the 30 stations funded under the Canada – B.C. Water Quality Monitoring Agreement, the ministry uses water quality data from approximately 150 other community-based stations. This number compares with Ontario's 200 stations for monitoring the water quality of streams and rivers, which is down from a peak of about 2,700 stations in the 1970s. (Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Research Branch. The Health of Our Water: Toward Sustainable Agriculture in Canada. 2000.)

Objective 4:

Reduce/remove toxins and wastes that contaminate land.

This objective addresses the component of Goal 1 that pertains to ensuring clean and safe land. The following strategy will be important for ministry effectiveness in attaining this objective.

Strategy:

1. Create a business strategy that enables producers to remove high-risk components from the waste stream and expand the number of products that can be recycled.

Performance Measure:

To track its progress toward achieving this objective, the ministry is using a performance measure of the number of product categories with industry-led product stewardship. Many provincial and international jurisdictions are working to find ways to expand producer responsibility for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products. Since efforts tend to focus on reducing waste from product categories that pose relatively high risks to the environment (e.g., paint and used oil), this measure should be a reasonable indicator of success in attaining the objective.

Performance targets are based on the lead time for industry-led product stewardship programs to be developed for additional product categories. In time, the ministry may move to an outcome-based measure such as product recovery rate.

Benchmark Information: British Columbia is a recognized leader in industry-led product stewardship with seven product categories (paint, used oil products, beverage containers and four other post-consumer residuals). Many other provinces have only one or two products managed through industry-led product stewardship.

Objective 5:

Effective response to high-risk environmental emergencies.

Responding to environmental emergencies is an area in which the ministry is implementing its shift to focusing on high-risk issues. Like Objective 1 above, this objective pertains to all components of the goal, encompassing air, water and land. The ministry is undertaking the following strategies for achieving this objective.

Strategies:

1. Implement a Flood Hazard Management Strategy to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the provincial government, local governments and others.

2. Respond effectively to high-risk environmental emergencies in conjunction with other ministries, local governments and industry.

3. Expand industry responsibility for response to and clean-up of spills.

4. Test industry, agency and ministry toxic-spill emergency response plans.

Performance Measure:

The ministry is using an outcome measure of the percentage of high-risk environmental emergencies responded to effectively to assess its progress toward achieving the objective. The measure focuses on responses to environmental spills and the target is for 100% of high-risk environmental spills to be responded to effectively. Effectiveness considers several issues, including identifying the spills that require attendance by ministry staff, timeliness of response, addressing the technical issues at the site, effecting proper response by parties responsible for the spill or by others when there is no responsible party, and ensuring appropriate clean-up.

Benchmark Information: In 2002/03, the ministry made considerable progress toward shifting responsibility for low- and medium-risk spills to industry and other partners and responded to the nearly 300 high-risk spills. (Source: BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection. 2002/03 Annual Service Plan Report. 2003. http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/Annual_Reports/2002_2003/wlap/default.htm.)