Draft Source Protection Plan - Executive Summary
This page contains the Executive Summary of our Draft Source Protection Plan (February 
2012).
If you would like to view the entire Source Protection Plan please click here to go to our page where the full plan is posted in pieces (small files suitable for dial-up Internet users).
The Source Protection Plan Executive Summary is also available in French. Please click here to go to our French summary page.
Public open houses are being held in March 2012 to get public input on this plan. Click here for more details.
Background
Source water is the untreated water in lakes and rivers, and in underground aquifers, that people use to supply drinking water systems. It is in a community’s interest to protect the amount and quality of the source water before it is treated, tested and distributed throughout a community. Source protection complements the valuable work of water treatment plant operators to deliver safe and potable drinking water.
Some important reasons for source water protection:
Water treatment is not always enough. Water treatment systems do not remove all contaminants from water, like chemicals such as liquid fuels and solvents.
Prevention saves money. It is much cheaper to protect source water in the first place, rather than having to clean up contamination later. A 2010 spill from a home heating oil tank in eastern Ontario cost about $1 million to clean up. Fuel spills can be prevented through a few preventative changes to the tank and lines that can cost as little as $1,500.
Contamination can ruin a water source forever. Sometimes contamination cannot be cleaned up which means that some water supplies have to be shut down. The community of Manotick, Ontario (near Ottawa) lost access to its groundwater supply in the 1990s when it was contaminated by a chemical spill from a dry cleaning business. After the chemicals were discovered, safe and potable water had to be piped to Manotick from the City of Ottawa at significant cost the municipality.
Source protection has other benefits. Clean and plentiful sources of drinking water also support tourism and recreation, which is very important to our region, as well as providing good fish and wildlife habitat.
The Commission under Justice Dennis O’Connor responsible for investigating the tragedy that occurred in Walkerton, Ontario in May 2000 recommended that sources of drinking water should be protected from contamination and overuse as part of a multi-barrier approach.
This approach includes:
- source water protection
- water treatment
- a secure distribution system
- monitoring programs
- emergency preparedness.
The Ontario government responded by making improvements to all aspects of drinking water including funding an intensive drinking water source protection initiative and by passing the Clean Water Act. The Act lays out the steps required to develop locally driven, science-based assessment reports and source protection plans.The primary focus of the work to-date has been the source water for cities and towns where municipalities provide drinking water to residential users. Further provincial initiatives are directed to the other four barriers in the multi-barrier approach to providing safe drinking water.
There are two local groups responsible for source water protection work.
The Cataraqui Source Protection Authority ensures that the planning process remains on time and on budget, and that documents are made available at appropriate times to municipalities, the public and the Ministry of the Environment. The Authority is also responsible for collaborating with others to implement specific policies in this Plan, and for submitting annual progress reports to the Ministry of the Environment. The Authority includes the 17 members of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority board and a representative from the Township of Frontenac Islands.
The Cataraqui Source Protection Committee coordinated the development of the Assessment Report and Source Protection Plan. The Committee includes a provincially appointed Chair and 15 members who represent municipalities, economic sectors (e.g., agriculture, industry and tourism), and other interests (e.g., environmental organizations and the general public).
The Cataraqui Source Protection Committee prepared this Source Protection Plan under the Clean Water Act. The purpose of the Plan is to address drinking water threats as defined under the Act, to ensure that significant ones cease to be significant through prohibition or adequate management measures, and that low and moderate threats do not become significant, along with monitoring of drinking water threats. As described in its mission statement the Committee aimed to “propose policies in the Cataraqui Source Protection Plan that are appropriate, effective, and economical for local communities.” It also aimed to follow a consultative, open and transparent planning process.
The Plan applies to the vulnerable areas in the Cataraqui Source Protection Area. The Cataraqui Source Protection Area (CSPA) is defined to include the jurisdiction of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority plus the Township of Frontenac Islands and other lands and waters in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River (see figure 2-2). A description of the CSPA can be found in the Assessment Report (June 2011).
The Cataraqui Source Protection Area is located at the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the upper part of the St. Lawrence River. It includes land and water within the jurisdiction all or part of four counties and 12 municipalities. The counties are Prince Edward, Lennox and Addington, Frontenac, and Leeds and Grenville. The municipalities, from west to east, are:
- Town of Greater Napanee
- Loyalist Township
- Township of South Frontenac
- City of Kingston
- Township of Frontenac Islands
- Township of Rideau Lakes
- Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands
- Town of Gananoque
- Township of Athens
- Township of Front of Yonge
- Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley
- City of Brockville.
How the Plan was Prepared
The Source Protection Committee and Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA) staff actively consulted on the Source Protection Plan with municipalities, provincial ministries, affected landowners, local technical experts, the general public, and adjacent source protection regions since January 2011. Consultations on the Plan included:
- 12 community roundtables
- meetings with municipal and provincial stakeholders
- delegations to municipal councils
- collaboration with neighbouring source protection regions
- public open houses.
The Source Protection Plan consists of two volumes:
Volume I. Draft Source Protection Plan: Cataraqui Source Protection Area (February 2012) - The Source Protection Plan sets out policies to address drinking water threats, as appropriate, that were identified in the Assessment Report for vulnerable areas in the Cataraqui Source Protection Area.
Volume II. Assessment Report: Cataraqui Source Protection Area (June 2011) - The Assessment Report pulls together the findings of 15 technical studies about local sources of drinking water and the risks that affect them. Click here to view the Assessment Report.
The Plan is accompanied by an Explanatory Document (February 2012) that provides stakeholders with information that may have influenced the policy decisions made by the Source Protection Committee. Click here to view the Explanatory Document.
Where the Policies Apply
The Source Protection Plan applies to the wellhead protection areas and intake protection zones that surround sources of municipal water supplies, as well as the highly vulnerable aquifers and significant groundwater recharge areas, that are identified in the Assessment Report (June 2011). Maps of these vulnerable areas are included in the relevant chapters of the Plan.
There are vulnerable areas surrounding 12 drinking water systems:
Wellhead Protection Areas
- Cana (Kingston Mills)
- Lansdowne
- Miller Manor Apartments (Mallorytown)
Intake Protection Zones
- Brockville
- James W. King (Gananoque)
- Sydenham.
- Sandhurst
- A.L. Dafoe (Napanee)
- Bath
- Fairfield (Amherstview)
- Point Pleasant (Kingston West)
- Kingston Central.
Highly vulnerable aquifers cover 93 per cent of the Cataraqui Source Protection Area. Much of the area covered by highly vulnerable aquifers is also a significant groundwater recharge area.
What Activities are Addressed
The Source Protection Plan includes policies to address existing significant threats to drinking water, and the most common existing moderate and low threats to drinking water. It also addresses activities that would be significant, moderate or low drinking water threats if they were to become established. These threats were inventoried in the Assessment Report (June 2011).
In the Wellhead Protection Areas, the two most common existing threats to drinking water that pose a significant, moderate or low risk to these sources of drinking water are:
- the handling and storage of liquid fuel
- on-site sewage systems (e.g. septic and holding tanks).
Other notable activities that were included in the inventory are:
- the application and storage of agricultural source material
- the application of commercial fertilizer
- the application and storage of pesticide
- the application of road salt.
The activities that pose a risk to the wellhead protection areas can also impact the highly vulnerable aquifers and the significant groundwater recharge areas since both types are groundwater sources.
In the Sydenham, Brockville and James W. King Intake Protection Zones, the most common existing moderate and low drinking water threats relate to:
- on-site sewage systems (e.g., septic systems and holding tanks)
- the transportation, handling and storage of liquid fuel (mainly for heating purposes)
- road salt application.
In the six intake protection zones along Lake Ontario, the most common existing moderate and low drinking water threats relate to:
- activities involving agricultural source material and non-agricultural source material
- on-site sewage systems (e.g., septic systems and holding tanks)
- handling, storage and transportation of liquid fuel
- road salt application
- handling, storage and transportation of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) and organic solvents.
Policies
The Source Protection Committee discovered early in the planning process that only a small number of the prescribed threats to drinking water are prevalent throughout the CSPA, and that there are limited occurrences of significant threats.
Although there are several types of policy tools available through the Clean Water Act, their applicability varies by threat. These findings are based on the results of the Assessment Report (June 2011), a detailed analysis of the land uses in each of the wellhead protection areas and intake protection zones, and a series of staff-generated background reports on the prescribed and local drinking water threats.
In preparing this Plan there was a desire to build on existing actions by government, organizations and individuals, and to use more than one type of policy tool to address a drinking water threat, wherever possible and suitable. Education and outreach programs will have an important role in helping implementation bodies and property owners to understand why it is important to protect sources of drinking water through these policies.
The policies were prepared in accordance with the Clean Water Act. They serve to fill gaps in legislation or to address risks to drinking water where there is no current mechanism to adequately manage the risk that is recognized by the Act. They also fill gaps between existing efforts where they have been identified; build on existing protective measures; and improve coordination and information sharing where needed.
They are specifically focused on:
- Promoting responsible decisions about land use and development
- Improving information availability
- Recommending changes to municipal operations
- Enhancing education and outreach initiatives
- Conducting research.
The diagram below illustrates the variety of policy tools that can be used to meet the objectives of the Source Protection Plan, depending on the type of threat being addressed. Each of the policy tools are described in Chapter 2 of the Source Protection Plan.
Activities that would be significant drinking water threats, as established under the Act, if they become established in the future are prohibited in one of three ways, through section 57 of the Clean Water Act, land use planning and/or prescribed instruments.
Existing activities that are significant drinking water threats are addressed through risk management plans under section 58 of the Act, prescribed instruments (e.g., certificate of approval, nutrient management strategy), research proposals, and/or education and outreach programs.
Currently, existing activities that are moderate or low drinking water threats, and those that would be threats if they become established in the future, are managed mostly through land use planning, prescribed provincial instruments, and strategic actions directed to a variety of implementation bodies. Area-wide education and outreach programs are also an important management tool for many threats.
The following is a summary of the types of policies included in the Source Protection Plan. It is not a comprehensive listing. The reader should refer to the plan for specific policy details.
Part IV of the Clean Water Act
Part IV of the Clean Water Act provides municipalities with new tools to regulate existing and future activities that are significant drinking water threats, except for waste disposal and sewage-related activities that are subject to an environmental compliance approval or certificate of approval.
Prohibition is used for activities which cannot be addressed through land use planning (e.g. pesticide application) and where there is no applicable prescribed instrument (e.g. PCB waste storage).
Risk Management Plans will be used to manage existing activities where there is no applicable prescribed instrument and where the risk can be effectively managed (e.g., home heating oil storage).
Restricted Land Uses will be used to flag specific land uses that are associated with activities that are prohibited or that require a risk management plan, in the event that an application is made under the Planning Act or the Ontario Building Code.
The Source Protection Committee determined that the Plan should prohibit those activities, which are or would be significant drinking water threats, for which the Committee believes that risk management would not be sufficient to address the risk to source water.
The Plan also prohibits those future activities that would be significant drinking water threats, and that are not feasible in a given wellhead protection area or intake protection zone based on the land uses permitted by the municipalities, local development patterns, and the physical characteristics of the areas.
Most of the work related to implementing the policies made under Part IV of the Clean Water Act is expected to relate to the establishment and enforcement of risk management plans. The most common activity that may warrant a risk management plan would be the handling and storage of liquid fuel associated with home heating oil.
The balance of the risk management plans would address the handling and storage of liquid fuel for private use in vehicles and equipment (e.g. at a farm or public works yard) as well as agriculture and golf course related drinking water threats. The agriculture-related threats would need risk management plans if the relevant activities are not already regulated through different means such as municipal by-laws, and nutrient management strategies and plans.
Municipal Land Use Planning and Development
Significant drinking water threats that are land uses (e.g. waste disposal sites), and that are generally unlikely to become established in a given vulnerable area, are prohibited using municipal planning tools.
Similar prohibitions using the applicable prescribed instrument complement these policies. These planning tools will also be used to manage moderate and low drinking water threats that could become established in a given vulnerable area (e.g. public works yards that would handle and store road salt).
Municipal Operations
Municipalities are asked to demonstrate leadership by reviewing a number of their operations and programs to address a variety of activities that are a threat to drinking water.
These types of policies are generally not legally binding on the municipalities, except where they address a specific significant threat. An example is the requirement to create or update salt management plans to account for the sensitivity of the vulnerable areas identified in the Assessment Report (June 2011).
Provincial Programs and Procedures
The Source Protection Plan will influence a number of policies, programs and actions of the provincial government. The policies generally prohibit activities that are significant threats to drinking water, and that are generally unlikely to become established in a given vulnerable area through prescribed instruments (e.g. environmental compliance approvals for waste disposal sites).
They also manage activities that are moderate or low threats that could become established in a given vulnerable area (e.g., the application of agricultural source material to land).
There are also policies that recommend programs be updated where improvements can realize greater source water protection (e.g. update provincial spill response plans), and that research be conducted to fill technology or knowledge gaps (e.g. most effective method for disposing of water softener backwash).
Education and Incentives
The Plan contains a number of policies that are intended to raise awareness in our local communities about intake protection zones, wellhead protection areas, highly vulnerable aquifers and significant groundwater recharge areas; and demonstrate how we can work together to protect our sources of drinking water.
For example, pairing education and outreach with significant threat policies; and co-ordinating the efforts of local partners to deliver programs that include drinking water source protection information that is relevant to their individual programs.
Data and Research
These policies are intended to improve our collective technical understanding of sensitive regional groundwater sources and the impact of climate change on sources of drinking water in the Cataraqui Source Protection Area.
An example includes a cooperative effort to assemble data about groundwater in the region to form a more comprehensive understanding about the state of these resources.
Monitoring and Reporting
There are monitoring policies associated with most of the policies in order to understand how well the plan is being implemented on-the-ground to protect sources of drinking water. The monitoring results must be shared by the Cataraqui Source Protection Authority each year in a progress report to the Ministry of the Environment.
The monitoring policies generally request that the implementing body report to the Source Protection Authority on a one-time or recurring basis regarding the status of policy implementation.
One example requests that municipalities provide the Cataraqui Source Protection Authority with a copy of all approvals under the Planning Act for specific types of applications in the vulnerable areas.
Legal Effect
The Clean Water Act requires municipalities, local boards (e.g. health units) or source protection authorities to comply with any obligations imposed on it to address a significant drinking water threat, regardless of the particular tool or approach used in the policy.
The Act requires decisions under the Planning Act and Condominium Act, 1998 to conform to policies on significant threats, and to have regard to policies on moderate and low threats. It also requires decisions related to prescribed instruments (e.g., environmental compliance approvals) to conform with policies on significant threats, and to have regard to policies on moderate and low threats.
Persons carrying out significant threat activities must conform with policies that use Part IV powers under the Clean Water Act.
Public bodies designated in the source protection plan to carry out monitoring required by the Clean Water Act must conform with the obligations set out in the monitoring policies.
Other types of policies that, while the Committee has determined are important to achieving the Plan’s objectives, are not given legal effect by the Act. These include:
- Policies on significant, moderate and low threats to be implemented by bodies other than municipalities, local boards or source protection authorities and which do not rely on Part IV, prescribed instrument or Planning Act tools.
- Other permitted policies governing:
- Incentive programs and education & outreach programs, including for systems not in terms of reference
- The update of spills prevention, contingency or response plans along highways, railways or shipping lanes
- Transport pathways in wellhead protection areas and intake protection zones.
Implementation
The Source Protection Plan specifies who will implement specific policies, and by which date the policy must be implemented.
The cost to the organization responsible for the policy will depend on the level of effort and resources required to implement the policy, and future levels of provincial funding for Plan implementation.
The Cataraqui Source Protection Authority is required to report annually to the Ministry of the Environment on the implementation of the Source Protection Plan and its effectiveness in protecting source water.
The Source Protection Plan and You
As mentioned above, it is in a community’s interest to protect the amount and quality of the source water before it is treated, tested and distributed throughout a community. This is true whether or not activities that are significant threats to drinking water can arise based on the vulnerability score assigned to a given area.
The Source Protection Committee hopes that thinking about how our activities might impact the sources of drinking water for communities and individuals will become second nature for everyone, just like wearing seatbelts and recycling cans.
Municipalities and provincial ministries are not the only bodies that can take action to protect drinking water. Here are some things that you as a home or business owner can do to help protect your source of drinking water.
- Maintain your well and septic system.
- Have a professional plug wells that you are not using.
- Have your heating oil tank inspected every year, and fix any problems that are identified.
- If you own or operate a business that stores, handles or transports chemicals consider how you would respond to a spill or other emergency.
You are encouraged to take part in education and outreach programs, and take advantage of incentive programs, that might be offered in your area to help you accomplish these actions and many more.
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