Since water doesn’t obey human made boundaries and borders Source Protection Plans should be developed at the watershed scale. A watershed is an area of land that drains into a common river or stream and considering Source Protection in this way accounts for the movement water makes through our human borders. Surface water and groundwater sources are vulnerable to contamination from upstream activities and land uses; by protecting source water on a watershed scale we consider all upstream activities.

Developing a Source Protection Plan for a watershed identifies steps that should be taken to protect our local sources of drinking water. Our Source Protection Plan will be an agreement among the municipalities and the people within a watershed about how they will protect their local sources of drinking water. These plans aim to keep source water clean and encourage wise water use.

As part of the Clean Water Act the Ministry of the Environment has created the Ontario Drinking Water Support Program to help landowners, such as farmers and small businesses, take action to reduce threats to local drinking water sources. For more information on this program visit our section on the Ontario Drinking Water Stewardship Program.

Each of use has a role to play in protecting our source water. For information on what you can do to help in your community visit our section on What Can You Do To Protect Drinking Water?.