PREPARED BY: Environmental Health
DATE: 2025-05-15
SUBJECT: Office of the Auditor General OAGO Special Report - Safety of Non-Municipal Drinking Water
BACKGROUND/PURPOSE
On March 31, 2025, the Office of the Auditor General released an independent auditor’s report on the Safety of Non-Municipal Drinking Water in Ontario. The objective of the report was to assess whether the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), in conjunction with Public Health Ontario (PHO) and local Public Health Units (PHUs) collectively have effective processes and systems in place to support reliable and equitable access to safe non-municipal drinking water across the province.
Non-municipal drinking-water supplies such as small drinking water systems (SDWSs) and private wells are not subject to the same requirements as municipal supplies and serve almost 20% of Ontario’s population. SDWSs are systems that serve six or more seasonal residences or a public facility (i.e., restaurants, cottages). In contrast, municipal water systems serve around 80% of the province’s population and therefore have the strictest requirements for sampling, testing, treatment and inspection frequency compared to non-municipal drinking water systems. For owners of private wells and intakes, there are no requirements for testing as they do not serve the public.
The recommendations in the report were made to MOH, MECP and PHO to address safety of non-municipal drinking water system. There were 10 recommendations that were made to the MOH. One of the main findings in the report found that some small drinking water systems (SDWSs) in Ontario have not been identified, assessed or inspected by PHUs posing a public health risk.
DISCUSSION
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) agrees with all recommendations made by the Auditor General to the MOH. The following four sets of recommendations are of the highest importance to the WECHU since Windsor and Essex County (WEC) currently has 36 SDWSs with the majority located on Pelee Island.
- The OAGO report recommended that the MOH explore and develop strategies to ensure PHUs can inspect SDWSs at the required frequency and make the owners aware of their responsibilities to notify PHUs. It was also recommended that the MOH examine avenues for PHUs to better identify unregistered SDWSs. The implementation of this recommendations would support the WECHU in identifying unregistered SDWSs (often located in remote and hard to access areas) and require owners/operators to notify the health unit on operation status. Currently this is particularly challenging since several owners of SDWSs located on Pelee Island do not reside on the island which poses challenges in assessing and inspecting these systems.
- As identified by the report, there is an opportunity for the MOH to provide clearer provincial direction on when drinking water supplies in short-term rental properties are regulated as SDWSs. The WECHU believes there may be properties that are operating as short-term rental properties (the exact number unknown) using a SDWS. By clearly including short term rental/SDWS properties within the regulations, the WECHU will be better positioned to maintain an accurate inventory to ensure that visitors and tourists frequenting the island are aware of the risks of the drinking water supply.
- OAGO recommended that the MOH resolve issues and modernize the IT software system, Laboratory Results Management Application (LRMA), used by accredited laboratories to upload drinking water results for SDWSs. Currently, the technical issues can cause delays for drinking water advisories to operators and users. The WECHU has experienced IT issues with the LRMA system, and this has led to issues with tracking of test results which are necessary to ensure SDWSs are following sampling and testing requirements.
- The report also recommended that the MOH take the lead to work collaboratively with MECP, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFA), PHO and PHUs to review all educational materials for private wells and intake to improve consistency and minimize duplication. There are many educational resources developed for SDWS and private well owners provided by various PHUs, therefore the MOH should consider adapting existing resources by collaborating with PHUs to minimize duplication of work so that consistent information is provided to operators.