Ontario reviews its post-Walkerton drinking water activities

Pipe swabbing effectiveness shown at OWWA workshop - Rehabilitation of Walkerton's Drinking Water System, May 30, 2001. Photo - GAP EnviroMicrobial

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment undertook an extensive remediation project in Walkerton where an out-break of E.Coli O157:H7 killed seven people and sickened thousands. Walkerton's water supply has undergone one of the most extensive remediation and monitoring programs ever undertaken on a communal water system in Ontario. This was an extraordinary situation that demanded - and received - extraordinary action, including:

• Providing $15 million to the Municipality of Brockton to restore a safe supply of water.
• Overseeing the Ontario Clean Water Agency's efforts to clean and disinfect the distribution system.
• Completely flushing the water distribution system, effectively removing bacteria and loose sediment from the system.
• Swabbing 31 kilometres of large diameter pipes a minimum of four times, effectively removing and reducing accumulated biofilm.
• Replacing five kilometres of watermains that could not be swabbed.
• Disinfecting the plumbing in each of the 1,816 buildings in Walkerton, including traditional plumbing fixtures and appliances that made use of the municipal water supply.
• Disconnecting and examining all cisterns and private wells to remove the risk of cross-connection contamination of the municipal water supply.
• Installing a water filtration system.

Many of these measures were described in detail by various expert speakers at the Ontario Water Works Association seminar in May (see ES&E's June issue at: www.esemag.com).

Operation Clean Water

In August 2000, the Ontario government launched Operation Clean Water, the most comprehensive strategy ever undertaken in Ontario to ensure safe drinking water and the protection of public health. The objectives are:

• Tough and clear standards and requirements to improve and protect the quality of drinking water.
• Effective inspection and enforcement to put a stop to non-compliant activities that threaten water quality.
• Tough penalties for non-compliance.
• Strategic investments and efficient, innovative delivery practices to ease potential burdens associated with complying with the necessary requirements.

Some highlights of Operation Clean Water include:

1. Drinking Water Protection Regulation

This regulation establishes strict and mandatory requirements for large waterworks. Large waterworks are described as those that: Serve six or more private residences; or supply more than 50,000 litres of water daily on any given day; and have the capacity to supply 250,000 or more litres of water per day.

The Regulation requires:

• Regular and frequent testing for a wide range of parameters, including total coliforms, fecal coliforms or E. coli, chlorine residuals, lead and arsenic.
• Disinfection of all drinking water entering distribution systems to kill disease-bearing organisms (waterworks that use surface waters as their source must also use chemically-assisted filtration or other, equally effective technologies).
• Clear reporting requirements for situations when drinking water does not meet Ministry standards and must be reported to the Ministry and the Medical Officer of Health.
• Owners of large waterworks to provide free quarterly reports on the state of their drinking water.
• Owner to place notices in clearly visible public locations if water does not meet standards.
• Water quality analysts to obtain a new, mandatory licence to perform a wide range of water tests.
• Laboratories that test drinking water to be accredited for the tests they are conducting.

In addition, the Ministry will annually inspect all 645 municipal water treatment systems and require corrective action where necessary.

2. OSTAR

The Ontario government has committed $240 million under the SuperBuild's Ontario Small Town and Rural Development (OSTAR) Infrastructure Program to help Ontario's smaller towns, cities and rural areas to upgrade health and safety infrastructure, including municipal waterworks. In addition to investments under programs such as OSTAR, the SuperBuild Corporation will guide development of a long-term investment and financing strategy for water and sewer infrastructure.

3. Small Waterworks

Small waterworks supply water for services like campgrounds, retirement residences, schools, restaurants, hotels, trailer parks and arenas, usually located in rural areas. The Ministry is developing testing and reporting requirements for small waterworks. A discussion paper was released in August 2001, asking how small waterworks should be regulated. The submissions provided by individuals or organizations are being considered in developing options for small waterworks.

4. Protecting Ontario's Groundwater

Recognizing that municipalities use groundwater, and that thousands of residences and businesses use private wells to draw groundwater for their own use, the Ontario government is developing a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary range of actions, linked together as part of a groundwater strategy. The government is also developing a provincial groundwater monitoring network to provide accurate information.

The Ministry of the Environment will work with Conservation Ontario, its member authorities and municipalities across the province. The network will provide an early warning system for changes in water levels caused by climate conditions or human activities and information on regional trends in groundwater quality. Agreements have been signed with 25 conservation authorities and monitoring stations have already been established in a number of them.

5. Nutrient Management

On June 13, 2001, the Ontario government introduced legislation to address land-applied materials containing nutrients. This includes provisions for the development of strong new standards for all land-applied materials containing nutrients, a proposal to ban the land application of untreated septage over a five-year period, and proposed strong new requirements such as: the review and approval of nutrient management plans, certification of land applicators, a new registry system for all land applications and strong enforcement.

Enhancements to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment

The government has embraced the vision contained in the Managing the Environment Report as the future direction for environmental protection in Ontario. The report recommends a number of shifts from a traditional regulator toward a strategic approach to managing the environment:

• From a primary reliance on traditional investigation, enforcement and abatement tools to a comprehensive, flexible set of regulatory and non-regulatory compliance tools and incentives.
• From a reliance on government to do it all, to an approach based on shared responsibility with the regulated community, NGOs, the public and the scientific/technical community.
• From one ministry having sole responsibility for environmental protection to a high-level, government-wide vision and goals with implementation shared across different departments.

In addition, the government has established a Cabinet Committee for the Environment, and also created a unique position, Associate Deputy Minister, to lead implementation of this vision from within the Ministry of the Environment.

The government is increasing resources for environmental protection. The 2001/2002 operating budget for the Ministry of the Environment has increased to $215 million. This comes in addition to $32 million in funding added previously - most of which was for Operation Clean Water and Environmental SWAT Team activities.

The government has increased the ministry's operating funding by 51% since 1997/1998.

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