Muskoka Watershed Council

 


Water is critical to all aspects of our lives. Protecting the sources of our water is important to ensure that there is enough safe water for all our uses - now and in the future. Source water protection is simply protecting water resources such as lakes, rivers and groundwater, from contamination or overuse. Bill 43, The Clean Water Act is intended to provide a framework on how best to protect Ontario's sources of drinking water at its sources.

After the Walkerton tragedy, the Ontario government made a commitment to adopt a multi-barrier approach to protect drinking water. Although many Ontarians rely on water treatment to give them clean water, Justice Dennis O'Connor, who led the inquiry into the tragedy, concluded that protecting water at its sources is one of the most effective and efficient means of safeguarding this critical natural resource, calling it the first line of defense.

The Walkerton Inquiry concluded that protection of water resources must be done on a watershed basis. For administrative purposes, the Province has indicated that a watershed region will be created encompassing the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, the Severn Sound Environmental Association and Black River watersheds for Source Water Protection under the Clean Water Act.  The Muskoka River watershed will be a separate watershed region.

 

For More Information

Source Protection in the Muskoka River Watershed

The District Municipality of Muskoka is undertaking a pilot program to determine what further technical work is required to adequately identify and categorize risks to municipal drinking water sources. A scoped source protection planning program will be designed through this process.

The objective of this pilot study will be to undertake a staged evaluation of the 9 drinking water systems within the Muskoka River watershed to determine the methodologies appropriate for defining vulnerable areas and risks to drinking water in a manner appropriate to the geological, hydrogeological, and hydrological environment.

More information about this pilot project is available on The District Municipality of Muskoka website.