Taste and Odour - Ontario Water Works Research Consortium

Collaborative Study to Protect Lake Ontario Drinking Water

Background

In November 2005, the government of Ontario announced that it would be providing funding for technical studies in support of source protection planning under the Clean Water Act, 2006. Through the Source Protection Technical Studies Grant Program, municipalities and others were able to apply for funding to complete the following tasks:

Intake Protection Zone Delineation and Vulnerability Assessments,
Threats Inventory and Issues Evaluation, and
Water Quality Risk Assessment for drinking water systems.

Municipalities/utilities and Conservation Authorities from Niagara around Lake Ontario to Prince Edward County submitted a joint application to undertake the necessary source water protection work. Municipal partners in the Collaborative Study to Protect Lake Ontario Drinking Water (also referred to as 'the Collaborative') include:

Region of Durham
City of Toronto
Region of Peel
Region of Halton
City of Hamilton
Niagara Region
Town of Cobourg
Municipality of Port Hope, and
Prince Edward County.

The Collaborative's Conservation Authority (CA) partners include representatives from:

CTC (Central Lake Ontario CA, Toronto and Region CA, Credit Valley CA)
Trent Conservation Coalition (Kawartha Conservation, Crowe Valley CA, Ganaraska Region CA, Lower Trent Conservation, Otonabee)
Halton-Hamilton (Conservation Halton, Hamilton Region CA)
Quinte Conservation (Moira River, Prince Edward Region, Napanee Region), and
Niagara Peninsula CA

The Collaborative has retained the Ontario Clean Water Agency to provide project coordination and project management.

Collectively, the Collaborative partners operate 20 drinking water systems with 33 Lake Ontario intakes. They provide water to critical businesses, institutions and over 6 million people.

This study adopts a phased approach with the assistance of external consultants and technical experts in government and research institutions to undertake specific assignments identified in phase 1 and phase 2 on an as needed basis. This approach builds upon an existing foundation of working relationships at three levels of government with conservation authorities and other key partners. The various technical aspects required to complete this study are being undertaken by the OWWRC's research partners at Environment Canada's National Water Research Institute (NWRI), the Ministry of Environment's Environmental Monitoring and Reporting Branch and collaboratively with other supporting partners.

Phase 1 of the study includes a detailed analysis of existing information, the identification of hazards and threats, the preliminary delineation of intake protection zones (IPZs) for all the Ontario municipal drinking water intakes in the western basin of Lake Ontario and an initial assessment of lake-wide interactions between pollutant sources and intakes.

The objectives of phase 2 of the study involve the refinement of the preliminary IPZs, an inventory and analysis of drinking water threats and a water quality risk assessment. The phase 2 work also includes a watershed pollutant loadings sub-study and the development of a pathogen monitoring plan.

Collaborative Overview Presentation

Back to top