Download the CTC Proposed Source Protection Plan or Explanatory Document and Summary of Comments Received here. 

The Credit Valley, Toronto and Region , and Central Lake Ontario (CTC) Source Protection Committee is pleased to announce the submission of the Proposed Source Protection Plan to the Provincial Minister of the Environment. The Plan outlines how threats to sources of drinking water in the Region will have to be managed, or eliminated if they can’t be managed.

Protection of drinking water sources stems from the incident at Walkerton, Ontario in 2000 where seven people died, and thousands became ill due to the contamination of the town’s drinking water. The subsequent commission lead by Justice Denis O’Connor recommended protection plans be developed for drinking water sources around the province. The province responded with the Clean Water Act that enshrined drinking water source protection into law.

The premise of source water protection is to protect water sources before they become contaminated.  How drinking water sources are protected is determined by the Source Protection Plan.

Over the past five years, the CTC Source Protection Committee, a group of local stakeholders, has been working on developing this plan to make sure the incident at Walkerton is never repeated. The committee is made up of representatives from the public, municipalities and local industries.

The first step was the development of science-based Assessment Reports that show where areas vulnerable to contamination exist in the Region. These Assessment Reports also determined what kind threats to drinking water exist, and where they are located in these vulnerable areas.

Using the results of the analysis in the Assessment Reports, the Source Protection Committee was required to develop policies that will reduce the threat level of activities deemed “significant” in the Assessment Reports. The policies use a number of different tools to ensure protection of drinking water: land use planning, risk management plans, and, in some cases, prohibition to name a few.

Download the CTC Proposed Source Protection Plan or Explanatory Document and Summary of Comments Received here.