NCC lags on most objectives
Four of five ‘priorities’ are behind schedule or won’t meet their targets
As the National Capital Commission prepares to develop a new environmental strategy in 2016, it is falling short — critically so, in some cases — on four of the five priority objectives of its current strategy.
The strategy, called Building a Greener Capital, was approved in 2009. It lists five key action areas, each with one priority objective and several secondary targets.
According to the NCC’s annual environment report, released this week, only one of the priority objectives has been achieved, and the other four are either behind schedule or simply won’t be met. The NCC is faring better with its secondary targets, with only three of 18 not on track or already achieved.
The NCC is hopelessly behind in its objectives of securing all contaminated sites by 2017 and reducing its overall carbon footprint by 30 per cent by 2017 from 2011-12 levels.
It’s also behind schedule in its objectives of obtaining LEED Gold certification for all major renovations and new buildings over 250 square metres and reducing waste sent to landfill sites from the Rideau Canal Skateway by 50 per cent by 2013.
The NCC managed to achieve one priority objective: Ensuring that all 28 high-value ecosystems and habitats in the National Capital Region were designated as conservation lands by 2012.
The contaminated sites are mostly former industrial or railway lands. The report says the “ambitious objective” of securing all of them by 2017 will not be met and “will have to be revisited.”
As of this past spring, 152 of the 268 sites considered to be contaminated had not been secured, and 367 other sites still needed to be assessed.
In 2014-15, active remediation took place at just two sites — the future site of the National Holocaust Monument on LeBreton Flats, and a property at 16 Tauvette St.
At the NCC’s board meeting this week, director Bob Plamondon expressed concern about the Crown corporation’s $466.7-million contingent liability costs for contaminated lands, a measure of potential liability. “That’s just such a massive figure,” he said.
Steve Willis, the executive director of capital planning, said the costs have escalated “on a pure accounting level, which doesn’t mean the severity is necessarily increasing.”
The NCC report said its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions must also be revised to align with the federal government’s 2013 sustainable development strategy, which aims to reduce the environmental footprint of government operations by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The NCC said in September it was working on a new greenhouse gas reduction plan for its operations covering the 2015-16 to 201819 fiscal years.
Although the NCC fell short of meeting its Rideau Canal Skateway waste-reduction goal, more than eight tonnes of materials were recycled or composted from the skateway in 2014-15 while 14.3 tonnes were sent to landfill — significant improvements over previous years.