Owen Sound, ON – The Saugeen, Grey Sauble, Northern Bruce Peninsula Source Protection Committee (SPC) has approved the 2023 Annual Progress Report to be submitted to the Province of Ontario. This progress report documents the achievements made together to implement local source protection plan policies that add protection to local municipal drinking water sources. You may view or download this report at home.waterprotection.ca Publications .

The Source Protection Committee commented on 2023 progress, “The great progress to date on source protection plan implementation was made possible with the strong support and direct involvement of municipalities, agricultural and industry sectors, as well as other environmental and health related stakeholder groups. The Committee commends the Ministry for their strong commitment to the program as demonstrated through its 3-year funding allocation, along with recent amendments to the eligible activities that allow for specific technical work to be conducted where warranted. The Committee would also like to see funding for stewardship to keep pace with new technical rules or new areas affected by plan policies in order to get buy-in from landowners in these areas who may not have been eligible during previous years. These stewardship efforts are often a key element to help manage or remove significant drinking water threats within vulnerable areas.

Finally, with respect to education and outreach on best management practices for areas that fall outside existing source protection areas, our Committee would like to again commend the Ministry for the release of the Best Practices Guidance and funding support to help promote the guidance materials locally. Our Committee, is committed to continuing to work with municipalities and local health authorities across the Region to apply similar approaches to protecting private and non-municipal drinking water systems through these guidance materials.”

The following are highlights from the Annual Progress Report for 2023:
• To-date, 174 Risk Management Plans have been completed across the Region.
• There were 85 inspections carried out by Risk Management Inspectors for prohibited or regulated activities, with a 100% compliance rate
• All 21 upper/lower-tier municipalities across the Region have completed or are in the process of completing Official Plan/Zoning By-law updates. Nineteen have fully completed Official Plan updates, 2 are in-progress, a few municipalities have extended their Official Plan/ Zoning by-law amendments into 2024.
• 100% of septic inspections have been completed as required under the Clean Water Act and Building Code Act within vulnerable source protection areas, with an additional 23 septics inspected in 2023 as part of the 2nd round of septic inspections. Septics are required to be inspected once every 5 years within vulnerable source protection areas.
• 100% of the significant drinking water threat policies have been implemented.

For more details on the 2023 Annual Progress Report please visit home.waterprotection.ca or contact those listed below.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Carl Kuhnke, Source Protection Committee Chair, mail@waterprotection.ca

Carl Seider, Project Manager, c.seider@waterprotection.ca or 519-470-3000