The third job of the Mississippi-Rideau Source Protection Committee is to prepare Source Protection Plans – policies to protect sources of drinking water from contamination and overuse.
What is a Source Protection Plan?
A source protection plan is a series of mandatory and voluntary policies to be developed in consultation with the local community to protect drinking water sources – primarily municipal drinking water sources. Policies will range from encouraging people to undertake best management practices (public education and incentive programs) to requiring people to implement best management practices (zoning by-laws, approvals). In specific cases a particular activity could be prohibited if strong rationale can be provided.
The Source Protection Committee will engage the public in the policy development process which will weigh the scientific data, assess the threats to drinking water sources and identify the best methods of reducing risks. The Clean Water Act requires that the whole community have a chance to participate in the process. The province will not accept a plan that has not had full consultation with municipalities, farmers, businesses, industries, property owners, First Nations, community groups, health officials, provincial ministries and the public.
Source protection planning will build on the work many municipalities are already doing to protect drinking water. Municipalities are responsible for the safe delivery of municipal drinking water and land use planning within their boundaries. They will have a key role in implementing source protection plans in all areas under municipal jurisdiction.
Getting Involved?
Anyone involved in an activity that poses a threat to drinking water or may be affected by the source protection plan will be contacted directly and encouraged to become involved early in the process.
Broader public consultation across the watersheds will take place in late 2011 and in 2012 at three key stages: initial draft policy concepts, then draft Source Protection Plans and finally proposed Source Protection Plans. There will be multiple opportunities for everyone to provide input at various stages.
Where Will Policies Apply?
Source Protection Plans must contain policies to address significant drinking water threats. For an activity to be considered a “significant drinking water threat” it must be taking place in a vulnerable area around a municipal well or a vulnerable area upstream of a municipal water treatment plant intake pipe.
Vulnerable areas where Source Protection Plan policies will apply, were identified and mapped in the Assessment Reports. Less than 2% of the Mississippi-Rideau region is included in the vulnerable areas where significant threats are possible. This means the vast majority of property owners will not be subject to the policies in the Source Protection Plan. Maps of the 12 vulnerable areas where significant threats are possible are below: (maps coming soon).
- Almonte
- Britannia – Ottawa
- Carleton Place
- Carp
- Kemptville
- Lemieux Island - Ottawa
- Merrickville
- Munster
- Perth
- Richmond
- Smiths Falls
- Westport
Policies to address low or moderate threats in broader areas can also be included (this is optional content in Source Protection Plans). Most low and moderate threat policies will be voluntary in nature and will focus on public education and incentives programs to encourage best management practices.
What Activities Will Policies Affect?
Within these vulnerable areas, the Ministry of the Environment decided which land use activities would be considered a “drinking water threat”. These are activities that involve a type or quantity of chemical or pathogen that if released into the environment (e.g. a spill, leak or runoff) could contaminate the nearby source of municipal drinking water.
Click below to view the full list of drinking water threats. These tables indicate where and when each activity poses a significant, moderate or low threat.
All the drinking water threats in these tables fall into 13 main categories:
- Waste disposal sites
- Sewage collection, storage, transmission, treatment or disposal
- Agricultural source material (e.g. manure) storage, management or application
- Non-agricultural source material (e.g. biosolids) storage, handling or application
- Farm animal pasturing, grazing, outdoor confinement areas or farm yards
- Fertilizer storage, handling or application
- Pesticide storage, handling or application
- Fuel storage or handling
- Dense Non-aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPLs) storage or handling
- Organic solvents storage or handling
- Road salt storage, handling or application
- Snow storage
- Airplane de-icing
The term “drinking water threat” does not mean an activity is contaminating water quality or is likely to in the future. It simply indicates that an activity involves a chemical or pathogen and therefore has the potential to cause contamination if there were to be a spill or leak. Many “drinking water threats” are currently well regulated and are at little risk of causing contamination. The reason source protection policies are being developed for these activities is to take a proactive, precautionary approach to ensure all activities with the potential to cause contamination are managed safely.
Developing a Source Protection Plan?
Source Protection Plans must be submitted to the Province for review and approval by August 2012. The Ministry of the Environment developed a regulation which outlines what information must be included in a Source Protection Plan (what types of activities require a policy, what types of policies can be developed and who the policy implementers can be). In accordance with the regulation, Source Protection Committees must then work with local communities and stakeholders to decide what policies to develop to protect drinking water sources.
Consultation:
The Committee has begun drafting preliminary policies in consultation with municipal staff and sector experts. These preliminary policy concepts will be provided to potentially affected people and the public for review and input. The Committee will consider this input when refining or changing the policies they include in their Draft Source Protection Plans. Plans will then go through two rounds of public consultation in early 2012 before being submitted to the MOE in August 2012 for review and approval. Visit this website or join our mailing list to learn about opportunities to review and comment on policies.
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