Municipalities look to tap water

At a meeting that took place March 7 in Victoria British Columbia, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) adopted a “resolution urging tap water over bottled water where appropriate at municipal facilities,” said a press release. 

The FCM was established in 1901 for the purpose of representing the interests of municipalities at a federal level. 

The resolution is not punitive in nature and simply encourages responsible distribution and use of bottled water where potable tap water is unavailable. Jasper’s councillors and municipal administrators have discussed this initiative internally. In an interview on March 13, Mayor Richard Ireland said “we’ve just agreed that it should be on the public agenda... I can’t tell you where it’s going to go, but it’ll get discussed for sure.” The agenda for the biweekly council meeting included the bottled water reduction initiative.

Jasper’s new environmental stewardship coordinator Lori Rissling-Wynn, who took over the role on March 2, said “we’re working towards reducing our consumption internally of bottled water because we do have water coolers in our office, so we’re looking at making some changes with respect to the Activity Centre vending machine units.” 

The resolution to regulate bottle water sales was put forward by the cities of Toronto and London, Ont. According to a story on the CBC’s website, there are currently 27 municipalities across the country that have already phased out bottled water sales on municipal property. Additionally, “Twenty-one Canadian universities and colleges have created bottle-free zones,” said the website.