The Provincial Health Oficer, Dr. Perry Kendall has released a report on the activities to protect drinking water in B.C. since the Drinking Water Protection Act came into effect in May of 2003. The report covers till the end of March 2005.

In the report, Dr. Kendall notes Health Authorities were given extra funding to hire professionals as specialized drinking water officers. According to the report, Northern Health had 5.68 FTE's in that category. The Province says funding has since been provided for an additional 20 new positions throughout  B.C.

The report says there are several areas where improvements can be made, among the 18 recommendations, are calls for improved data collection and improved monitoring of impacts from resource activities.

This year, the province says it  will focus on building a comprehensive reporting framework that will surpass any previous initiative in B.C.

One of the challenges facing water quality safety in B.C. is the fact most public water systems in the province are small, in fact 71% of the public water systems are considered very small and that doesn't include the water systems on First Nations reserves. 

1.    Provincial and federal government commitments to the Environmental Farm Plan Program should remain a priority, with a target of all farms participating in the program.

2.    The Ministry of Environment should continue to expand its activities to support drinking water officers in meeting government’s source protection commitments and report out to the public on its activities. Staff at the regional level should have a clear understanding of their role in providing support to water suppliers and drinking water offi cers in their source protection activities

3.    To ensure comprehensive management of BC’s drinking water sources, especially where water quantity is threatened, government should introduce legislation requiring the licensing of groundwater extraction and restricting access to groundwater where aquifers are being over-used. Groundwater licensing should complement surface water licensing.

4.    Government should improve monitoring of the impacts of resource activities on drinking water sources to ensure adverse impacts on water quality can be identified. Clear responsibilities for monitoring need to be established and the parties responsible for adverse impacts on water supplies should be held accountable.

5.    The Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Agriculture and Lands should work to gain a better understanding of how different land use practices can influence drinking water sources

6.    Government should complete the process for water management plan development to include groundwater and surface water source areas. This process should accommodate formal planning under both the Water Act and the Drinking Water Protection Act, as well as planning occurring outside of a statutory decision. Where source water assessments show drinking water sources to be at risk from land use, or where source contamination has led to water quality advisories or identifi ed outbreaks, watershed management plans should be developed.

7.    The systematic collection of better information about drinking water quality conditions in the province is needed. The drinking water information management project needs to be completed to ensure drinking water officers and the Provincial Health Officer have ready access to all data needed to administer and report on activities under the Drinking Water Protection Act. These data include those needed to hold water suppliers,drinking water offi cers and the government accountable through public reporting.

8.    Where government activities affect the safety of drinking water, the decision makers responsible for the activity must ensure that they involve the appropriate health offi cials, either within the Ministry of Health or within the regional health authority

9.    All ministries and government agencies should regularly review their activities in the context of government’s commitment to an integrated approach to drinking water protection.

10.    All government policy decisions related to land use or water management which could have an impact on the province’s drinking water program should be taken to the Assistant Deputy Ministers’ Committee on Water to ensure that policy direction is consistent with the Action Plan for Safe Drinking Water in British Columbia. The work of the Committee should be made more transparent; its decisions should be made publicly available.

11.    All water suppliers need to undertake thorough assessments of their systems and develop assessment response plans. Health authorities need to ensure that all water suppliers have established time frames to complete the assessments. In evaluating assessment response plans health authorities should require water suppliers relying on surface water sources to plan for treatment capable of achieving 99.99 per cent reduction in virus levels, 99.9 per cent reduction in protozoa levels and turbidity levels below 1NTU, through treatment processes involving at least two barriers, unless there is good justification, acceptable to the Drinking Water Officer, for not achieving those levels.

12.    Government should consider options to improve access to funding support for public water supply systems that are currently ineligible for federal/provincial infrastructure assistance

13.    Based on the needs identifi ed by assessments and the requirements stipulated on operating permits, water suppliers should implement or expand treatment performance monitoring to include variables such as CT,32 filtration performance, turbidity, UV performance, pH and pressure regimes as appropriate.

14.    To ensure all public water supply systems have improved access to laboratory testing of water samples, a broader network of approved laboratories should be encouraged

15.    Government should undertake to develop an accurate inventory of BC’s small public drinking water supply systems and obtain all of the data identifi ed as part of the drinking water information management project core data set. The drinking water information management project must be completed to ensure ready access to relevant information, as appropriate.

16    Strategies should be developed to prevent the creation of new small water supply systems where other supplies could be expanded or existing supplies amalgamated. These strategies should include regulatory amendments that:

• a. Prohibit the creation of multiple small water supply systems where one larger system could be developed.
• b. Facilitate extensions of local government boundaries to allow expansion of local government-owned water supply systems.
• c. Provide authority to require developers to connect new properties with existing adjacent water supply systems.

17    To follow up on the Action Plan for Safe Drinking Water in British Columbia, public drinking water system suppliers should engage their customers in fiscal planning for maintaining and upgrading their systems over the short and long-term. In addition, small water supply systems should be offered assistance to develop revenue streams to fund assessments, response plans and system upgrades.

18    Rates for drinking water should reflect the true, long-term, costs of water treatment, distribution and water system operation, aintenance and monitoring. Revenue generated from charges for water should be reinvested in programs that promote awareness of water quality and quantity, protect water quality, improve public health and encourage sustainable water use to promote healthy communities.