From "Source to Tap"... a multi-barrier approach to protecting drinking water

Do you ever think about how your drinking water gets from the lake, river, stream or underground aquifer all the way to the taps in your house? The place where the water originates is called the source. The most effective way to manage drinking water to make sure it is safe for consumption when it gets to your house is to protect it all the way from "source to tap".

Implementing drinking water protection from "source to tap" is called the multi-barrier approach. The multiple barriers are put in place to stop contamination along the drinking water delivery system.

The multi-barrier approach looks at all of the components of a drinking water system and identifies safeguards needed to provide safe drinking water. The components include source water protection, drinking water treatment, and distribution systems. The safeguards include management, monitoring, research, science and technology development, guidelines, standards and objectives, legislative and policy frameworks, and public involvement and awareness.

The multi-barrier approach is an integrated system that prevents or reduces the contamination of drinking water, from source to tap, in order to reduce risks to public health. Isolated, safeguards may not remove or prevent contamination, but together they offer greater assurance drinking water will be clean, safe and reliable.

Case studies

Source water protection is the first barrier in the approach and relies on measures which are generally preventive in nature. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Source to Tap document contains an outline for developing a Source Water Protection Plan. In addition, many examples of source water protection plans can be found on provincial/territorial, municipal and non-government organization websites. Following are five existing case studies that illustrate how the components of source water protection were used in specific Canadian communities, how and why source water protection in the community is working, the lessons learned and improvements recommended, and the limitations of each particular case study.

• Amherst, Nova Scotia
• County of Oxford, Ontario
• Edmundston, New Brunswick
• North Saskatchewan Watershed in Alberta
• Powell River, British Columbia

See also: Source to Tap – Protecting our Water Quality
(Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment) 

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