The Cataraqui Source Protection Plan make under the Clean Water Act is now approved and it became effective on April 1, 2015.
The Plan is part of a provincial initiative to provide clean and plentiful drinking water and compliments the efforts of water treatment plant operators. Source protection is all about keeping pollution from affecting our drinking water, now and in the future. Some types of pollution are very difficult and expensive to clean and treat. In some cases, drinking water sources can be ruined forever. Keeping drinking water clean is the best course of action to ourselves safe.
Required actions and recommendations in the Plan focus mainly on municipally-owned drinking water systems that serve residential populations, but regionally sensitive groundwater is also considered. The map below shows all the areas covered by the Plan.
Wellhead protection areas and intake protection zones have been determined around municipal well supplies (green arrows in the figure below) and intakes (purple arrows). Specific actions are outlined in the Plan to reduce the risk of these drinking water sources becoming polluted.
As you can see, more than 90% of the Cataraqui Source Protection Area is either a highly vulnerable aquifer (yellow) or a significant groundwater recharge area (orange) (i.e. regionally sensitive groundwater areas). Municipalities, provincial ministries, the Cataraqui Source Protection Authority and others are responsible to put the Plan into action. You can learn more about the actions that are required or recommended for your community by visiting cleanwatercataraqui.ca. The site also hosts information about the steps you can take to reduce the risk of polluting drinking water supplies.