You can have confidence in the quality and safety of the drinking water provided by the systems we regulate. The Ministry of the Environment has created a drinking water safety net that protects water from source to your tap, and includes legislation, province-wide standards, and regular and reliable testing. Your drinking water is tested against 158 health-based standards, to make sure it’s healthy for you and your children to drink.

You can find out more about drinking water in your municipality and the drinking water safety net at the Ministry of the Environment’s Drinking Water Ontario website.

While your municipality, the province, and the federal government all work together to make sure the water from your tap is safe to drink, it’s all of our responsibility to make sure our source water—the precious resource in our lakes and rivers—is safe and clean. What does this mean?

• Never pour anything down the drain that you would not drink. Toxics end up in our lakes unless we dispose of them carefully. Bring them to your municipal hazardous waste facility.
• Wash your car at the car wash. They dispose of waste water properly, instead of letting it go down our storm drains, which feed our lakes and rivers.
• Reduce stormwater runoff with rain barrels and permeable paving. Learn about stormwater.
• Don’t waste water!