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Town receives $125,000 FCM grant, will hire climate change coordinator

February 28, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Mike Baker

The Town of Orangeville will soon add a Climate Change Coordinator to its team at Town Hall.

The municipality has been granted up to $125,000 in funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to help address staffing gaps and increase the Town’s capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change. Orangeville is one of 59 communities across Canada to benefit from this initiative.

Speaking to the Citizen this week, Heather McGinnity, Orangeville’s Manager of Environment, confirmed the municipality would use the money to hire a Climate Change Coordinator on a two-year contract.

The position will come with several key responsibilities, Ms. McGinnity explains.

“The key focus for this position is to develop a climate adaptation policy and adaptation plan for the Town,” she said. “We will be conducting risk assessments on all of our existing infrastructure and how it may be impacted by climate change, while also identifying mitigation measures we can implement to prepare for those impacts.”

When the Town first learned of the opportunity to secure funding last spring, Heather says it was a no brainer to submit an application. 

“We see this as an opportunity to fill a knowledge gap in our infrastructure services. Our staff are busy implementing and maintaining compliance and operations of our systems and, currently, are not able to move forward with initiatives to proactively identify and manage these climate change aspects that we are starting to see, especially with some of these frequent and more intense rainfall events we’ve seen recently,” Ms. McGinnity says.

She added, “Also, we’ve been seeing some regulatory implications for climate change. The previous Liberal government enacted some legislation requiring climate change to be considered as part of our drinking water quality management system. As a result, asset management plans will have to consider that moving forward. (The government) is also looking at requiring climate change to be considered as part of our source protection planning for our drinking water sources.”

While the contract currently only covers a two-year term, Ms. McGinnity confirmed that could potentially be extended should there be sufficient work to continue with the position.

“Basically, it would depend on if there’s enough support amongst Council,” Heather said.

While previously considered something of a provincial and federal issue, Ms. McGinnity says more and more municipalities across Canada are buying into the importance of having a climate change specialist on the books. 

“I would say it’s becoming more popular,” Heather said. “There was quite a bit of interest and success, particularly amongst municipalities here in Ontario, in applying for this grant program. I know the County of Dufferin received some funding, as did the County of Wellington and Huron County. A lot of municipalities are looking to incorporate climate change as part of their infrastructure planning moving forward.”

As well, the new coordinator will be expected to assist with the Town’s Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan, while also contributing to the municipality’s official strategic plan.

“This person will play a key role in helping us move forward on a lot of initiatives over the next two years,” Heather stated.

The cut off for applications has now passed, with Ms. McGinnity saying, in an ideal world, she would like to have somebody in place by April. 

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