Frequently Asked Questions
Drinking Water Source Protection
What is Source Water Protection?
Source water protection is simply protecting water resources such as lakes, rivers and groundwater, from contamination or overuse. Water is critical to all aspects of our lives, including health, recreation and development. Protecting the sources of our water is important to ensure that there is enough safe water for all our uses - now and in the future.
What is Drinking Water Source Protection?
Drinking Water Source Protection is a derivative of Ontario's Clean Water Act and calls for the development and implementation of locally developed plans that will protect current and future sources of municipal drinking water systems. The municipal systems included in the North Bay - Mattawa plan include Callander, North Bay, Mattawa, Powassan and South River and Trout Creek well cluster.
How do we make sure our municipal drinking water is safe now?
A number of actions are taken to prevent our water from becoming contaminated, ensuring that it is safe and clean from source to tap. These include using up to date water treatment systems, ensuring that the pipes, water mains and storage towers are in good repair, water testing and training water managers.
We have a new water treatment plant in the City of North Bay. Do we really need a source protection plan?
The Source Protection Plan for protecting the source water coming from Trout Lake will assist in keeping both costs and treatment times down. Ensuring the source water is clean will also benefit private surface water users on the lake.
Why does Ontario need a Clean Water Act and how will it protect Ontario’s municipal drinking water?
The Clean Water Act will help reduce risks to municipal drinking water sources by addressing threats to drinking water quality and quantity. It establishes a locally driven, science-based, multi-stakeholder process to protect municipal drinking water sources and promotes the notion of stewardship — the shared responsibility of all stakeholders to protect the integrity of local sources of public drinking water.
What is the proposed scope for drinking water source protection planning?
To a large extent, measures to address significant risks to drinking water sources are expected to be undertaken voluntarily by landowners and municipalities and water users (eg. best management practices). However, when a significant risk to drinking water is identified, the municipality must take mandatory measures to ensure that risk is managed. Those risks could be managed using encouragement or incentives for voluntary action in most cases, while enforcement measures may be required in certain circumstances. The legislation requires local source protection committees to develop plans to protect both the quality and quantity of municipal drinking water sources.
The Act:
Requires local source protection committees to look at the existing and potential threats to their water and set out and implement the actions necessary to reduce or eliminate significant risks to drinking water.
Empowers communities to take action to prevent threats from becoming significant risks.
Provides opportunities for full public participation. This means everyone in the community gets a chance to contribute to the planning process.
Requires that all plans and actions be based on sound science.
Does the Clean Water Act require that private wells be metered?
No. There are no provisions in the Clean Water Act related to the metering of private wells. The provincial government has never stated nor has it had the intention of requiring meters on private, individual wells. Municipalities may decide to require meters for users of municipally supplied water as part of an overall water conservation plan.
Since the plan won't be in effect until 2012, what is the proposed interim approach for significant drinking water threats?
Municipalities, local stakeholders and the province have already undertaken substantial work to protect sources of drinking water (i.e. wellhead protection). Technical studies funded to date by the Ministry have enabled municipalities and conservation authorities to make sound, science-based decisions that protect our surface and groundwater supplies.
It is proposed that if significant threats are identified early on, a local source protection committee will have the power to address them immediately, before the source protection plan is fully in place. Municipalities could act on significant threats to their water supply wells and intakes as soon the assessment report is approved by the Ministry of the Environment.
Municipalities could order any one involved in an activity that is or would be a significant threat in an area identified in the assessment report to develop a risk management plan if a negotiated plan of action can not be agreed to. Orders could only be applied where allowed by provincial regulation.
The plan would detail the site-specific measures that the property owner will take to ensure an activity is carried out in such a way that it is not a significant drinking water risk.
How will existing legislation/policies interact with policies set out in The Clean Water Act to protect drinking water in a source protection plan?
The source protection planning process is an integrated strategy that aims to build upon, rather than replace, the existing work that municipalities have undertaken to protect their drinking water. Source protection should be considered an additional facet of the land use/planning process.
The conflict provisions in the Clean Water Act are focused to ensure that only when there is a conflict between a provision of a source protection plan and a provision in a plan or policy under other legislation, that may potentially affect the quality or quantity of drinking water in a vulnerable area, the provision that provides the greatest protection to the quality or quantity of drinking water prevails. This provision exists to ensure that drinking water supplies are protected. Conflicts are expected to occur very rarely and only where both Acts cannot be met.
Did the Government of Ontario consult with stakeholders before introducing the Clean Water Act?
Since the release of the White Paper in February 2004, the ministry has consulted on source protection with over 300 stakeholder groups and individual Ontarians. Since Bill 43 was introduced in December 2005, the ministry has facilitated round table discussions with: NGOs and environment groups, agriculture, Industry and developers, Northerners, municipalities, and Conservation Authorities. Both the proposed Clean Water Act and the regulations were posted on the Environmental Registry for public review and comment.
Under The Clean Water Act, what role will municipalities play in the source water protection framework?
Municipalities already have extensive authority for the delivery of municipal drinking water and land use planning within their boundaries and are therefore in the best position to determine what protections are required for their sources of drinking water.
The Clean Water Act has been designed to build on existing municipal responsibilities in the protection of drinking water.
It is anticipated that municipalities will play a crucial role bringing forward policies in a source protection plan for the source protection committee's consideration. Where work is assigned in a Terms of Reference to a municipality, subsection 100 (3) would require the SPA to provide assistance to the municipality.
Does the Clean Water Act give new powers to Conservation Authorities (CAs)?
The Clean Water Act does not give CAs power to regulate, or enforce matters related to drinking water. One of the central principles of the Clean Water Act is that the Source Protection Plans are locally developed and locally implemented. Conservation Authorities will play a coordinating role throughout the watersheds. The Act does not give the CAs new regulatory or enforcement powers. Municipalities will retain their traditional role in developing local solutions to local issues.
What role does Source Protection Authorities and Source Protection Committees play in the source water protection framework?
Source Protection Authority (SPA)
The Act calls for each Source Protection Authority establish a multi-stakeholder Source Protection Committee (SPC). The SPAs are primarily responsible for overseeing and coordinating the planning process and providing administrative, technical and scientific support to the Source Protection Committee. SPAs have no approval role in the legislation – they can merely provide comments on a Terms of Reference, Assessment Report and Source Protection Plan before it is submitted to the Ministry. The Assessment Report and Source Protection Plan must be submitted to the MOE by the SPA. SPAs cannot make decisions on behalf of a municipality or undertake decisions that would compel a municipality to undertake certain actions without a municipality’s consent.
Source Protection Committee (SPC)
The SPC is responsible for preparing the Terms of Reference, the Assessment Report and the Source Protection Plan and must ensure that stakeholders and the public in the watershed are consulted throughout the process. Through the SPC, municipalities will work across the watershed, identifying, assessing and addressing risks to drinking water within their municipal wellhead and intake protection areas. Stakeholders such as local property owners could also participate through working groups, supporting and consulting on the work of the SPC.
How does the legislation apply to First Nations communities in the province?
Provision of drinking water to First Nations is a federal responsibility. The province will continue to work with the federal government and First Nation communities and representatives to develop a voluntary process for protecting drinking water sources in areas under federal jurisdiction. First Nations communities will also have the opportunity to be represented on the multi-stakeholder Source Protection Committee (SPC). The province has been in discussions with First Nations and the federal government on how to address threats to First Nations drinking water supplies.
What are the costs associated with source protection planning?
Neither local taxpayers nor industry will bear the burden of source water protection planning costs – the province has committed to providing the resources to fund remaining planning costs, including consultation, groundwater studies and technical assessments. The costs of source water protection have been minimized due to the substantial work that the province and other stakeholders have taken in the past to protect drinking water sources. Source water protection plans will be built on this work and many communities are well on the way to completing components of plans (i.e. groundwater protection strategies), thereby reducing future costs. To date, the province has invested heavily in basic studies, investing $20 million in recent years for groundwater and technical assessment studies (97 studies funded). On November 29, 2005, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources announced funding of $67.5M over the next five years for source protection planning activities. Specifically, $51 million in future funding for municipalities and their conservation authority partners for scientific studies and planning activities and $16.5 million in current (2005/06) funding for Conservation Authorities. The province also provided $12 million to Conservation Authorities in 2004/05.
Is the provincial government going to fund source water protection implementation?
The actual costs of source protection implementation will be quantifiable once technical studies and risk assessments for source protection plans are complete and local watershed characteristics and implementation needs can be determined.
The protection of drinking water sources is a shared responsibility, therefore the costs of source water protection implementation (i.e. protection measures / responses) will be borne across many sectors (e.g., industry, agriculture, landowners) not just municipalities.
How will areas outside CA jurisdiction with significant threats be funded? Who will pay for implementation?
If a community or group of communities outside a Conservation Authority is concerned with possible threats to their drinking water system, they can enter into an agreement with the MOE to develop a scoped source protection plan. Funding will be made available for scoped planning in these communities. Implementation will be the responsibility of the local community.
The province recognizes that there may be “hardship” cases, and is proposing to develop a comprehensive approach that will clearly articulate what constitutes the need for assistance and will address situations where costs are prohibitive on a case-by-case basis.
Facts and Fiction
