Water
Ontarians deserve access to clean, safe water. This means keeping water free of pollutants and contaminants that could harm the environment and human health.
The Government of Ontario is moving forward on a series of initiatives to preserve water quality, including new legislation, regulations, standards and requirements.
This section contains information to help educate the public about the importance of clean, safe drinking water. It also helps those responsible for water quality understand the rules, regulations and standards currently in place.
Many of the Ministry of the Environment clean water initiatives are based on recommendations from Commissioner Dennis O’Connor’s Report of the Walkerton Inquiry. Click here for more information on the Walkerton Inquiry or on the links below to review MOE’s progress on these recommendations.
All Ontarians depend on clean, safe drinking water. If you don't get your water from a private well, odds are your water is supplied by a "regulated drinking water system."
A regulated drinking water system may be anything from a large municipal water treatment plant to a single water well servicing a campground. All regulated systems are required by law to ensure that they are taking measures to protect the quality of their water.
Regulated systems must treat their water to prevent contamination and must test their water quality regularly.
This section describes some of the requirements for operators of water and sewage treatment systems and laboratories that test drinking water. Click here for more information on whether your source of drinking water is a regulated system.
| Resources |
| Chief Drinking Water
Inspector |
| The Chief Drinking Water Inspector’s role is
to ensure that drinking water systems meet Ontario’s stringent standards
for protecting the quality of the province’s drinking water.
Learn more about the Chief Drinking Water
Inspector |
| Act and Regulations |
| Regulated systems must meet the requirements of Ontario's
Safe Drinking Water Act and its regulations. Most notably, the Drinking
Water Systems Regulation sets out treatment and testing requirements for all categories
of regulated water systems, including small non-municipal and seasonal operations |
| Drinking
Water Legislation in Ontario This page contains links to the Safe Drinking
Water Act and other acts and regulations related to Ontario's drinking
water. All acts and regulations located on the e-Laws Web site. |
The Safe
Drinking Water Act, 2002 and Sustainable
Water and Sewage Systems Act, 2002 Information
page |
Drinking Water Systems
Regulations
The
Drinking Water Systems Regulation O. Reg. 170/03
Information page
Regulation
for non-residential and non-municipal seasonal residential
systems that do not serve designated facilities
(Ontario Regulation 252/05) |
Information for
Drinking Water Systems Owners and Operators |
|
Information
for the owners and operators of Municipal Drinking Water Systems (O. Reg. 170/03) |
Information
for the owners and operators of Non-Municipal Drinking Water Systems (O. Reg. 170/03) |
Information for the owners and operators of Non-Residential and Seasonal Residential systems that do not serve designated facilities (O. Reg. 252/05)
|
Certification and Training
The Water and Wastewater Operator
Certification Program
|
| Laboratory Licensing |
| Laboratory
Licensing information and documents The Safe Drinking Water Act, 2002 (SDWA)
and the Drinking Water Testing Services Regulation (O. Reg. 248/03) require any
laboratory that performs drinking water testing to obtain a licence effective
October 1, 2003. In addition, the SDWA
requires owners and operating authorities of drinking water systems regulated
under the Drinking Water Systems Regulation (O. Reg. 170/03) to use a licensed
laboratory for drinking water testing. |
| Monitoring and Compliance |
| Drinking water systems are required to monitor their
water quality to ensure it meets provincial standards. This usually involves sending
water samples to laboratories specially licensed to test drinking water.
An ‘adverse water quality incident’ (AWQI) happens
any time a water system or water testing lab detects levels of a contaminant in
a water sample that exceed a standard. An AWQI does not necessarily
mean that the water is contaminated: sometimes an AWQI is the result
of a sampling error. Additional tests are ordered to confirm initial results. |
| Overview of the Ministry
of the Environment Municipal Drinking Water Inspections Protocol The Ministry
of the Environment (MOE) has developed the Municipal Drinking Water
Inspections Protocol (the Protocol) to guide its drinking water inspections. |
| DWIS - Drinking Water
Information System Web site |
| Adverse Drinking
Water Quality Incidents Reports |
| Environmental
Compliance Reports This site provides information about non-compliant discharges
- discharges of contaminants to air and water that exceed legal allowable limits
- from industrial and municipal facilities that are regulated by the Ministry
of the Environment. |
| Related Water
and Sewage Treatment Links |
| Drinking Water Treatment
Service Providers |
| Stormwater Pollution
Prevention Handbook The goal of the handbook is to provide municipalities,
conservation authorities, community groups, businesses, and individuals with practical
information on implementing pollution prevention and flow reduction programs for
stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows. |
| Septic
Systems and Hauled Sewage Regulation Changes (June 1998) |
| Technical Brief : Ontario
Wastewater Systems Licensing of Sewage Works Operators Regulation [HTML] |
|
Advisory Council on Drinking Water Quality and Testing Standards
Recommended by Justice O'Connor in the Part Two Report of the
Walkerton Inquiry, and created under the Safe Drinking Water
Act, the Council's mandate is to advise the Minister of the
Environment on drinking water standards, legislation, regulations,
and issues, to protect the water that Ontarians drink. For more
information, visit the Advisory
Council on Drinking Water Quality and Testing Standards website.
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act, 2005 was introduced for First Reading on December 5, 2005.
Sourcewater protection is the first barrier in a multi-barrier approach to protecting the water in Ontario's lakes, rivers and underground aquifers. Source protection complements water treatment by reducing the risk that water gets contaminated in the first place.
Watershed-based planning takes the natural boundaries of surface and groundwater into consideration, rather than man-made lines drawn on a map.
| Resources |
Watershed-based source
protection planning
The Ontario government is developing legislation that takes a watershed-based
approach to source protection and addresses all sources of drinking water. |
| Permits to Take Water |
| The province’s water taking rules have been overhauled
to ensure tough reviews of water taking permits and stronger conservation measures.
New or expanded takings that would remove water from watersheds that already have
a high level of use will no longer be allowed.
Read more about Permits To Take Water |
| Nutrient Management |
| Plant nutrients found in both manure and chemical fertilizers
are essential to a farm operation. When applied in proper quantities and at appropriate
times, the nutrients will aid in achieving optimum crop yields. However, improper
use of nutrients can lead to soil-nutrient imbalances and can cause water quality
problems both locally and downstream. The objective of nutrient management is
to use nutrients (mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) wisely for optimum
economic benefit, while minimizing impact on the environment.
The Ontario government introduced the Nutrient Management Act in
2002. Under this act, farms must develop nutrient management plans to deal with
animal waste and other substances that are kept on farm properties or spread on
fields. Nutrient management plans help ensure that farms are managed in an environmentally
responsible way to prevent contamination of lakes, streams and groundwater. |
| Learn more about Nutrient
Management |
| Groundwater
Studies |
| The Ministry of the Environment has funded a series
of groundwater studies to help measure the quantity, quality and location of water
in underground aquifers. These studies help improve our understanding of how much
groundwater we have and how quickly it gets replenished once water is removed
from an aquifer. Studies also show how quickly water and contaminants can move
through different types of underground rock and soil. |
| Groundwater
Studies |
| Report: Groundwater
studies in Ontario - Mapping a hidden treasure |
| A Groundwater
Monitoring Network and Partnership for Ontario |
| Inland Lakes and
Rivers programs - Publications Catalogue |
Provincial Groundwater Monitoring
Information System (PGMIS)
The Provincial Groundwater Monitoring Information System (PGMIS) is a web-driven
application that assists the Ministry of the Environment and its partners to monitor
the state of the Province's groundwater resources. |
| Water Wells |
| Over three million Ontarians rely on groundwater for
their drinking water. There are hundreds of thousands of water wells across Ontario,
providing drinking water to municipalities, industries and private residences.
Wells providing water to small businesses, common spaces and residential communities
may qualify as "regulated systems"
Private wells are not regulated systems, but there are new rules in place for
constructing or decommissioning (abandoning) a well. See Ontario's
Wells Regulation (Reg. 903) for more information. |
| Wells Information and
Documents |
| Water Wells and Groundwater
General Interest - Publications Catalogue |
| Directory of Licensed Water Well Contractors in Ontario |
| Municipal/Industrial Strategy
for Abatement (MISA) |
| MISA Information
and Documents |
|
This section will help you find publications and reports issued by the Ministry of the Environment and its partners.
| Resources |
| Drinking Water Surveillance Program Reports |
|
|
|
The Ontario government remains firmly committed to rehabilitating, protecting and conserving the Great Lakes. The province recognizes that the cleanup of the lakes is a gradual and cumulative process based the efforts of a wide range of partners. Ontario is focusing its efforts on actions that will benefit the people of Ontario and future generations.
Certificates of Approval and Licensing
The Ministry of the Environment approvals program has been designed to ensure
that all undertakings requiring approval are carried out in accordance with legislation
including the Ontario Water Resources Act, the Environmental Protection Act, the
Pesticides Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Bill of Rights,
the Safe Drinking Water Act and associated regulations. Certificates of Approval
are required for facilities that release emissions to the atmosphere, discharge
contaminants to ground and surface water, provide potable water supplies, or store,
transport, process or dispose of waste. Proponents of these types of activities
are required to obtain Certificates of Approval to ensure that the environment
will not be adversely affected.
Certificates of Approval web page
The Ministry of the Environment is planning to implement a new approvals program - Municipal Drinking Water Licensing - to replace the existing Certificate of Approval process for municipal residential drinking water systems, in response to recommendations made in the Part II Walkerton Report.
In order to obtain a Licence for a municipal residential drinking-water system, an Owner must have:
- a Drinking Water Works Permit (DWWP);
- a permit to construct or alter a drinking-water system that will replace Certificates of Approval for treatment and distribution, and will be simpler and more flexible
- an accepted Operational Plan;
- the Plan will document the quality management system (QMS) and how the requirements of the Drinking Water Quality Management Standard (DWQMS) are met
- an accredited Operating Authority;
- a third-party audit of the QMS will be the basis for accreditation
- an approved Financial Plan;
- for the purposes of issuing a Licence, this requirement will be deferred until the regulations under the Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act are developed
- a Permit to Take Water (PTTW).
- no anticipated changes to the current PTTW program for the purposes of issuing a Licence
On October 30, 2006, the Ministry posted five notices related to Municipal Licensing to the EBR Registry, including:
Policy Decision Notice
- Drinking Water Quality Management Standard
Policy Proposal Notices
- Drinking Water Quality Management Standard Guidance Document
- Director’s Direction for Operational Plan Submission
- Accreditation Protocol for Operating Authorities
Regulation Proposal Notice
- Prescribed Dates Regulation for the Municipal Drinking Water Licence Program
Written submissions on the proposal notices may be made between October 30, 2006 and December 29, 2006.
View Municipal Licensing backgrounder
|
|
4449e01
Technical Support Document for Ontario Drinking Water
Standards, Objectives and Guidelines
