Safe Drinking Water for All
18% of people in Ontario don’t have sufficient legal protections for their drinking water. That’s over 2.6 million people whose water is at risk of contamination – from sewage works, landfills, manure application, road salt… the list goes on.
Despite passing legislation over 15 years ago that provides the mechanism to protect drinking water, it still hasn’t been implemented everywhere in Ontario. In 2006, the Ontario Legislature enacted the Clean Water Act (CWA), which allows for a multi-barrier approach to protecting drinking water and establishes a process for developing enforceable source protection plans that protect drinking water sources.
But those plans generally only safeguard people who are served by municipal drinking water systems located within source protection areas. Even within those source protection areas, not everyone’s water is protected. Many of the people and communities left out of the CWA’s safety net are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in the province.
CELA continues to call on the provincial government to:
- Develop appropriate CWA reforms to better accommodate or assist source protection planning for drinking water systems serving Indigenous communities.
- Expand the application of the CWA to non-municipal systems, such as private well clusters in settlement areas and domestic wells serving vulnerable persons (i.e. schools, day camps, retirement homes, etc.).
- Substantially improve Ontario’s Regulation 903 (Wells) to provide effective and enforceable provincial standards for establishing, disinfecting, maintaining and decommissioning water supply wells.
Check out our new law reform page calling for Safe Drinking Water for All to learn more about this important issue.