MAKE THINGS
DIFFERENT.

Data provided by the Province of Ontario’s new open data site outlines drinking water sources for 204 municipalities in the province. That data, combined with population figures provided by Statistics Canada, show how many Canadians draw upon which water sources to survive. (Wolfe-Wylie, 2012)

The top five drinking water sources in the province are:

• Lake Ontario: 6.3 million people
• Ottawa River: 943,000 people
• Groundwater spread across the province: 657,000 people
• Lake Erie, Lake Huron: 366,000 people
• Detroit River: 284,000 people

The bottom five drinking water sources in the province are:

• Bay Lake: 387 people
• Lost lake: 476 people
• Killarney Channel: 505 people
• St Joseph’s Channel: 566 people
• Tukanee Lake: 607 people

 Canadian drinking water supplies are generally of excellent quality. However, water in nature is never "pure." It picks up bits and pieces of everything it comes into contact with, including minerals, silt, vegetation, fertilizers, and agricultural runoff. While most of these substances are harmless, some may pose a health risk. To address this risk, Health Canada works with the provincial and territorial governments to develop guidelines that set out the maximum acceptable concentrations of these substances in drinking water.  The guidelines set out the basic parameters that every water system should strive to achieve in order to provide the cleanest, safest and most reliable drinking water possible. The Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality deal with microbiological, chemical and radiological contaminants. They also address concerns with physical characteristics of water, such as taste and odour. (Health Canada, 2017)

Microbiological quality guidelines

The most significant risks to people's health from drinking water come from microscopic organisms such as disease-causing bacteria, protozoa and viruses. The guidelines that relate to these microorganisms are stringent because the associated health effects can be quite severe. They can also affect health over the long-term.

Chemical and radiological quality guidelines

Chemical and radiological substances may also be found in some drinking water supplies but these are generally only a concern if they are present above guideline levels and you are exposed to them over a period of years. New science is showing that exposure to some chemical contaminants above guideline levels may be a concern in the short-term as well.

Aesthetic quality and operational guidelines

Aesthetic quality guidelines address parameters which may affect consumer acceptance of drinking water, such as taste, odour and colour. Operational guidelines are set for parameters that may affect processes at a treatment plant or in the drinking water distribution system. (Government of Canada, 2017)

Groundwater

When rain falls and seeps deep into the earth, filling the cracks, crevices, and porous spaces of an aquifer (basically an underground storehouse of water), it becomes groundwater—one of our least visible but most important natural resources. Nearly 40 percent of Americans rely on groundwater, pumped to the earth’s surface, for drinking water. For some folks in rural areas, it’s their only freshwater source. Groundwater get polluted when contaminants such as pesticides and fertilizer to waste leached from landfill make their way into aquifer, rendering it unsafe for human as shown in figure 4.1. Ridding groundwater of contaminants can be difficult to impossible, as well as costly. Once polluted, an aquifer may be unusable for decades, or even thousands of years. Groundwater can also spread contamination far from the original polluting source as it seeps into streams, lakes, and oceans. (Groundwater Contamination, 2019)

Figure 4.1 : The water is polluted due to pesticide contamination that enter through the soil.

Surface water

Covering about 70 percent of the earth, surface water is what fills our oceans, lakes, rivers, and all those other blue bits on the world map. Surface water from freshwater sources (that is, from sources other than the ocean) accounts for more than 60 percent of the water delivered to American homes. But a significant pool of that water is in peril. According to the most recent surveys on national water quality from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, nearly half of our rivers and streams and more than one-third of our lakes are polluted and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking. Nutrient pollution, which includes nitrates and phosphates, is the leading type of contamination in these freshwater sources. While plants and animals need these nutrients to grow, they have become a major pollutant due to farm waste and fertilizer runoff. Municipal and industrial waste discharges contribute their fair share of toxins as shown in figure 4.2. There’s also all the random junk that industry and individuals dump directly into waterways. (Water treatment, 2017)

Figure 4.2: Many industrial dispose there toxic waste into near by lake and rivers.

Ocean water

Eighty percent of ocean pollution (also called marine pollution) originates on land—whether along the coast or far inland. Contaminants such as chemicals, nutrients, and heavy metals are carried from farms, factories, and cities by streams and rivers into our bays and estuaries; from there they travel out to sea. Meanwhile, marine debris—particularly plastic—is blown in by the wind or washed in via storm drains and sewers. Our seas are also sometimes spoiled by oil spills and leaks—big and small—and are consistently soaking up carbon pollution from the air. The ocean absorbs as much as a quarter of man-made carbon emissions. (American Rivers. 2019)

Point source

When contamination originates from a single source, it’s called point source pollution. Examples include wastewater (also called effluent) discharged legally or illegally by a manufacturer, oil refinery, or wastewater treatment facility, as well as contamination from leaking septic systems, chemical and oil spills, and illegal dumping. The EPA regulates point source pollution by establishing limits on what can be discharged by a facility directly into a body of water. While point source pollution originates from a specific place, it can affect miles of waterways and ocean. (Groundwater Contamination, 2019)

Nonpoint source

Nonpoint source pollution is contamination derived from diffuse sources. These may include agricultural or stormwater runoff or debris blown into waterways from land. Nonpoint source pollution is the leading cause of water pollution in U.S.  waters, but it’s difficult to regulate, since there’s no single, identifiable culprit. (Groundwater Contamination, 2019)

Figure 4.3: (A) point source: Wastewater from factories are polluting the water.

(B) Non-point source: runoff water from farm that contain fertilizer travel to nearby waterways.

Transboundary

It goes without saying that water pollution can’t be contained by a line on a map. Transboundary pollution is the result of contaminated water from one country spilling into the waters of another. Contamination can result from a disaster—like an oil spill—or the slow, downriver creep of industrial, agricultural, or municipal discharge. (American Rivers. 2019)

.