Time is running out for landowners to take advantage of a program that provides grants for projects that protect the sources of municipal drinking water.
Grants are available to the end of the year under the Ontario Drinking Water Stewardship Early response Program for a variety of projects, including upgrading private wells or decommissioning unused wells – 80 per cent to a maximum of $4,000 and septic system maintenance or replacement – and 80 per cent of the cost up to $7,000 for a conventional system or $15,000 for an advanced system.
Grants are provided by the Ministry of the Environment to the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) and they in turn deliver them to landowners that may be impacted by source protection plans and address significant threats to municipal water supplies.
“The funds are targeted to projects in municipal well head protection areas and are intended for landowners that want to take voluntary action ahead of source protection plans which are coming into place next year,” said Louise Heyming, a conservation specialist with the GRCA.
Under the Clean Water Act Ontario municipalities and conservation authorities are working together to develop plans to protect municipal water supplies.
The GRCA also has funding available for manure storage project where there are nitrate issues as well as funds for nutrient management planning for fuel storage for those landowners that have oil to heat their homes there is funding for secondary containment for those storage facilities.
The funds have been available since 2008 and the program concludes in December 2012.
“The GRCA provides the funds to landowners that have been identified as having potential significant threats to municipal drinking water supplies,” said Heyming.
One important point to note is that just because something is labeled a ‘significant threat’ does not mean it is causing any problems, said GRCA spokesman David Schultz.
“It is called a significant threat because there is the possibility that if something were to go wrong in the future like a spill or leak that it could harm the water supply. The goal of the source protection program is to develop policies and a program to manage or eliminate the risk so nothing does go wrong,” said Schultz.
There are 19 types of threats listed in the Clean Water Act. Overall, 18 of them have been identified in the source areas for the various Region of Waterloo water systems.
Up to 75 per cent of drinking water in Waterloo Region comes from the ground. Groundwater contamination is something that residents of Elmira and St. Jacobs are all too familiar with after area aquifers became contaminated with chemicals from the Uniroyal (now Chemtura) plant, requiring water to be pumped in from Waterloo since 1992.
Other parts of Woolwich – including Conestogo, Heidelberg, Maryhill and West Montrose – have their own well-based systems, also operated by the Region of Waterloo.
The types of threats in these smaller systems are typical of rural communities and can be found in septic systems, storage and application of manure, handling, storage and application of commercial fertilizers handling, storage and application of pesticides handling and storage of dense non-aqueous phase liquids, the application of road salt and livestock grazing.
For more information contact the GRCA at 519-621-2761.
