Source Protection Update: APGO Responds to Source Protection Committee Reports

By Scott M. MacRitchie, P.Geo.

In November 2003, the Ministry of the Environment announced the formation of a Technical Experts Committee (TEC) and an Implementation Committee (IC) to address technical and implementation challenges of source protection in Ontario. The task of the TEC was to provide recommendations for inventories of threats to water quality and quantity, assessments of vulnerability of drinking water and risk analysis and management. The Implementation Committee was asked to provide advice to the province on tools, approaches and funding mechanisms for source protection.

The TEC and IC reports were released on December 16, 2004 for a 60-day public consultation period. The APGO Environmental Geoscience Subcommittee organized a workshop on February 4, 2005 to provide a response to these reports and was attended by 27 members. The review focused on those aspects of the reports that require the practice of geoscience. We commented on matters relating to the practice of geoscience and identified those recommendations that require the services of a professional geoscientist.

Our primary focus was the TEC report, where the majority of recommendations involved geoscience, although the word “geoscience” is never mentioned. The 320-page report contains 12 sections, 13 appendices, 30 guiding principles and 128 recommendations. Some of the recommendations involving geoscience include:

Threats Inventory and Issues Identification. A total of 27 recommendations addressing documentation of past and present activities that create a pathway to contaminate drinking water through a provincial land use reference database and a local threats inventory database. Also in this section, are recommendations for a water budget to be used to identify quantity sustainability issues, calculate regional contaminant mass loadings from non-point sources, identify sensitive components of watersheds and long-term conjunctive management of surface and groundwater.

Vulnerability Analysis. A total of 37 recommendations for the assessment of vulnerability of surface water intake protection zones, wellhead protection areas, regional aquifers and significant recharge areas.

Risk Assessment. In the 7 recommendations of this section, the TEC recommends the province develop a semi-quantitative risk analysis approach to the identified threats and issues in vulnerable areas.

The remaining 57 recommendations address risk management, ecological protection, data requirements and management, research data and information needs, permits to take water and actions to be taken for drinking water protection by 2008.

The members of the TEC are to be congratulated for their hard work in dealing with very complex issues in such a short time frame.

You can download the reports from:

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Field Notes is published by APGO and is edited by Wendy Diaz, P.Geo. If you have comments or wish to contribute material to this newsletter, please contact Wendy Diaz, P.Geo., Crystal Spekking, Northern Ontario Communications Officer or Oliver Bonham, P.Geo., Executive Director/Registar.

Copyright 2004, Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario (APGO)