Backgrounder

December 3, 2007

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR RURAL SOURCE PROTECTION EFFORTS

The McGuinty government is flowing $7 million to help farmers, property owners and businesses in rural Ontario learn about the Clean Water Act and implement measures now to help protect municipal drinking water sources. This funding is part of the new Drinking Water Stewardship Program under the Clean Water Act. An additional $21 million will also be invested over the next three years to allow for outreach, education and early action to protect drinking water sources across the province.

Supporting Drinking Water Protection Activities

Of the $7 million available now, $4 million is for use by farmers, rural property owners, small/medium-sized business owners and facilities located within a 100-metre radius of a municipal wellhead and/or a 200-metre radius of a municipal surface water intake for the following purposes:

• Decommissioning abandoned wells and upgrading existing drinking water wells to prevent them from becoming pollutant pathways to municipal drinking water sources.
• Repairing, upgrading or replacing faulty or malfunctioning septic systems.
• Constructing and/or restoring buffer strips and riparian zones to protect municipal drinking water sources from runoff contamination and soil erosion.
• Pollution prevention reviews of small and medium-sized businesses that manufacture, handle, store and dispose of materials to identify threats to sources of municipal drinking water and how they can be reduced or eliminated.
• Land conservation measures to protect municipal wellhead and water intake areas.

The funding for these activities is being delivered to land owners through the local conservation authorities and to farm owners by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association. Up to 70 per cent of the costs of implementing measures such as upgrading wells and septic systems, runoff and erosion controls and land conservation could be covered. Assistance received from this program may be combined with other funding programs to increase cost recovery.

Education and Outreach

$2 million is dedicated to promoting awareness of the measures individuals and businesses can implement to help protect drinking water sources and the funding available to them.  For example:

• The St. Lawrence River Institute is developing an interactive learning kit on water quality and its importance for students in grades seven through twelve.
• Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, London, Hamilton, Peterborough, and Ottawa region conservation authority staff will be going door to door to talk with property owners in vulnerable areas about the goals of the Clean Water Act, water protection activities and this funding program.
• The Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association is meeting with farm owners in identified source protection areas to tell them about the funding for improving their wells and septic systems and for installing runoff and erosion controls. The association has also prepared a brochure outlining all the cost-share opportunities that are available to the farm community. 
• Pollution Probe is partnering with a number of water management agencies to develop a web site to give water managers and the public access to water management data, including innovative mapping and graphing applications.

Special Projects

The remaining one million dollars is going to special projects including projects that:

• promote and support the principles of source protection in the Clean Water Act,
• demonstrate a new or innovative approach to protecting municipal drinking water sources protect sources of municipal drinking water outside of Source Protection Areas; or,
• are carried out by First Nations to protect sources of municipal drinking water drinking.

This funding includes money allocated to developing and designing a free pollution prevention review program for businesses and training conservation authorities on how to conduct the reviews.

The Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act, 2006, which came into effect in July 2007, sets the legal framework for communities to develop plans to protect the sources of municipal drinking water. Communities will decide what measures are needed to protect their water supplies and how best to carry them out. Source protection plans will be prepared and delivered locally under the leadership of local source protection committees. Source protection planning is currently getting underway now that the chairs of all the local source protection committees have been named.

Further information on the Clean Water Act and source protection planning can be found on the Ministry of the Environment website at:
www.ontario.ca/cleanwater.

Further information on funding for land owners can be obtained from local conservation authorities at:
http://www.conservation-ontario.on.ca/source_protection/otherswpregionsindex.htm.

Further information on funding for farm owners can be obtained from the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association at: http://www.ontariosoilcrop.org/.

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Contact information for media:
Patti Munce Minister Gerretsen’s Office 416-314-6736	John Steele Ministry of the Environment 416-314-6666
Contact information for the general public: 416-325-4000 or 1-800-565-4923/ www.ontario.ca/environment

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