What?

Most of the population of Ontario gets its drinking water from the Great Lakes. As part of the Source Water Protection process, studying the potential threats to this source of drinking water is ongoing. Because there are a number of Source Protection Regions who have intakes in Lake Ontario, a group called the "Lake Ontario Collaborative" was formed in order to study the these intakes. Instead of each Source Protection Region doing it individually, this collaboration minimizes duplication of work and allows us to study the lake in a more comprehensive manner.

Who?

All the Source Protection Committees with Lake Ontario based drinking water sources are involved and are overseen by a management committee (chaired by the chair of the CTC SPC), and a steering committee (this is the committee directing the technical work) chaired by the Region of Peel.

Presentation from Rodney Bouchard on the Lake Ontario Collaborative, given to the IWA 2010 entitled:  "Protecting Drinking Water In Lake Ontario – 10 Years of Utility Led Research" for download in .pdf here

What work is underway?

There are a number of pieces of work that the collaborative is undertaking, including:

1. Communications Plan
2. Data Management Plan
3. Phase 2 Work
4. Pathogen Monitoring Plan – Lake Ontario
   Winter Sampling
5. Watershed Pollutant Loading
6. Phase 3 Municipal Data Compilation and Inventory and Issues Evaluation
7. IPZ-3 Delineation, Spill Simulations and Threats Assessments