The Clean Water Act

Ontario's New Clean Water Act:  Designed to Protect Our Water

The Clean Water Act (Bill 43) is designed to ensure that every Ontarian has access to a safe drinking water supply.  Protecting the water at its source is the cornerstone of this proactive legislation. By eliminating contaminants from getting into sources of drinking water is the first line of defence in the protection of our environment and our water.

The Clean Water Act will:

• Require local communities to look at existing and potential threats to their water supply and set out and implement the actions necessary to reduce or eliminate significant threats.
• Empower communities to take action to prevent threats from becoming significant. 
• Require public participation on every local source protection plan. - - - This means everyone in the community gets a chance to contribute to the planning process. 
• Require that all plans and actions are based on sound science.

This legislation is designed to promote voluntary initiatives but it also requires mandatory action where needed. The legislation sets out a basic framework for communities to follow in developing an approach to protecting their water supplies that works for them: 
 

• Identify and assess risks to the quality and quantity of drinking water sources.
• Develop a source protection plan that sets out how the risks will be addressed. 
• Carry out the plan through existing land use planning and regulatory requirements or approvals, or voluntary initiatives.  
• Stay vigilant through ongoing monitoring and reporting to measure the effectiveness of the actions taken to protect drinking water sources and ensure they are protected in the future.
  
  Northern municipalities will protect their drinking water supplies through a locally-driven, scoped planning process that focuses on specific drinking water threats in specific areas.
   

Investing to prepare communities for source protection
The provincial government is committed to providing the resources to fund source protection planning costs, including groundwater studies, technical assessments and plan development. The government has committed approximately $120 million from 2004 to 2008 to support source protection planning. This includes funding to enable municipalities and conservation authorities to undertake technical studies to provide the baseline scientific information needed for source protection planning. 
 

Helping rural Ontario protect drinking water
The act introduces a new financial assistance program for farmers and small rural businesses for activities that reduce threats to drinking water. Initially, $7 million will be available in 2007/2008 for early action to protect drinking water. 

Implementing Walkerton Inquiry recommendations
The Clean Water Act fulfills a commitment to implement all of the recommendations of the Walkerton Inquiry. The legislation directly addresses 12 and supports the implementation of 22 recommendations of the Walkerton Inquiry on protecting drinking water at its source made in the Part 2 report.
 

Septic Systems can be our biggest threat
A properly designed, constructed and maintained sewage disposal system will function effectively and safely, but a system which is badly designed and located, or badly constructed, or which is not adequately maintained thereafter, can lead to considerable nuisance and expense, and may seriously endanger public health and the environment.
 

The Law and Sewage Disposal
The Environmental Protection Act and (Ontario) Building Code Act specifically requires  that any sewage system or any part thereof shall not emit, dis¬charge or deposit sewage or effluent onto the surface of the ground.
 

• Sewage or effluent shall not emit, discharge, seep, leak or otherwise escape from the sewage system, or any part thereof into a piped water supply, well water supply, a watercourse, ground water or surface water.
• Sewage or effluent shall not emit, discharge, seep, leak or otherwise escape from the sewage system or any part thereof other than from a place or part of the sewage system where the system is designed or intended to discharge sewage or effluent.
• No sewage system or any part thereof shall emit, discharge, deposit or allow the emission, dis¬charge or deposit of micro-organisms of intes¬tinal origin into the natural environment in such a manner as may be a hazard to health.
   

If you suspect your sewage system is failing, or if you are interested in learning more about the various new types of sewage systems available in Ontario, please visit www.canadianshieldconsultants.com to learn more about what you can do to help protect Ontario’s valuable resource.