Clean Water
Drinking water quality has always been an issue of concern for people globally. How will the changing legistlation help consumers?
legislation that arose from the Walkerton incident included the ‘Safe Drinking Water Act’ of Canada in 2002, a set of rules governing the supply of safe drinking water, but fell short of providing strategies on protecting water at the source. These came later in 2004 with an Ontario draft legislation on watershed based source water protection based on Justice O’Conner’s recommendations. The draft can be accessed at http://www.ene.gov.on.ca.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently developed a comprehensive handbook on watershed restoration and protection strategy plans, available at http://www.epa.gov.
EPA has also formulated the Watershed-Based National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permitting Policy http://www.epa.gov.
Source protection plans offer a means to prevent or mitigate point and non point sources of pollution to surface water and groundwater in a watershed. They are ‘preventive maintenance’ schemes rather than applications of treatment solutions. Ontario’s draft legislation mentioned above is based on the ecosystems approach where water quality and resources are not only protected but also enhanced. The EPA’s NPDES permitting policy promotes the use of watershed-based permits by point sources, thus regulating discharge on a watershed scale. All watershed based source water protection plans are holistic and encompass elements such as identifying and regulating pollution sources, water budgeting, federal and provincial funding, and delineating areas of concern.
In spite of the growing awareness on water quality issues, incidents like the Kashechewan First Nation reserve (James Bay, Canada) have occurred. A boil water advisory has been in effect for more than two years at Kashechewan, due to unstable chlorine levels and E. coli contamination. In October 2005, an emergency was declared, all residents were told to stop drinking the water altogether, and were airlifted to a different location.
The need of the hour is implementation backed by strong legislation. Once the latter is in place, funding is typically mandatory. The watershed based approach will help protect our water resources and ensure clean drinking water for generations to come.
Sincerely,
Chitra Gowda, Editor
Original post by Moderator