Water Protection Regulation
What is the Drinking Water Protection
Regulation?
On June 12, 2003 the Province of Ontario introduced legislation to improve the quality of drinking water throughout the province. Provincial Regulation 170/03 requires that public water quality reports be produced annually by large municipal drinking water systems. The regulation focuses on the treatment and testing of drinking water including specific provisions for public access to information, and notification of adverse results.
Water quality is reported annually in compliance with Ontario Regulation 170/03. These annual reports must include:
- a description of the water supply system
- the water treatment process
- quality assurance methods
- measures taken to comply with the regulation; and
- a summary of water quality analyses for the year.
Reports must be completed no later than 60 days after the end of the calendar year, and submitted to the Ministry of Environment. Water supply owners must advise their consumers of the report, and ensure that copies are available free of charge upon request. In addition, all waterworks serving more than 10,000 people must post their reports on the internet.
The City of Thunder Bay is dedicated to providing citizens with a safe drinking water supply. Residents can have confidence that their water treatment plant has highly effective water treatment and quality assurance processes in place to ensure the absence of harmful substances and disease-causing bacteria such as E.Coli in tap water.
In December 2005 the MOE introduced Bill 43, Clean Water Act. The purpose of this Act is to protect drinking water at is source as recommended by the Walkerton Inquiry. 
The Clean Water Act became law October 2006. It requires communities to create and carry out a Source Water Protection Intake Zone Study to protect the sources of their municipall drinking water. The City of Thunder Bay, in conjunction with the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority is undertaking an Intake Protection Zone (IPZ) study at the Bare Point Water Treatment Plant. A constultant was hired to carry out the study and the report on their findings was due in April 2008.
For more information on the Clean Water Act, Source Protection Planning visit the MOE website at www.ene.gov.on.ca under the Clean Water Act heading.
For more information on the quality of Thunder Bay's drinking water, see the City's Water Quality Annual Reports.
Additional information about the Ontario Drinking Water Regulations is available at the Ontario MOE website at www.ene.gov.on.ca - follow the drinking water links.
For more information about backflow prevention legislation visit our Backflow Prevention page.
