Resources Related to Drinking Water Quality
Check out this interactive infographic about water scarcity:
We have worked with Healthy House on the Block (http://healthyhouseontheblock.com/) to provide a Healthy Drinking Water Tool Box on our website. The Healthy Drinking Water Tool Box includes a general checklist; a maintenance checklist; a private well maintenance checklist & worksheet; a water worksheet where you can track your water softener maintenance, water filter maintenance, water main inspection, and water pressure check; and more.
FIND YOUR COMMUNITY'S WATER QUALITY TEST RESULTS
Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and Yukon Territory also have water quality testing information available online. This can be accessed by following the directions below.
Alberta
http://www.environment.alberta.ca/apps/RegulatedDWQ/Listing.aspx
Find your community in the alphabetical list and click on it. Choose a month from the drop down list and then click on “Get Summary Report”. This report includes testing data for E. coli and coliform bacteria.
British Columbia
Begin by checking the map found here, http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/about-bc-s-health-care-system/partners/health-authorities/regional-health-authorities to see in which Health Authority area your community is located. If you are in the Fraser, Interior, Northern, or Vancouver Island regions then you can follow the directions below.
Fraser Health
https://www.healthspace.ca/Clients/FHA/FHA_Website.nsf/Water-Drinking?OpenPage&
Find and click on your community in the list on the left hand side of this site. This will take you to a list of the water systems in that area, if there is more than one to choose from you should click on the ones that seem most relevant. At this point, you might see a list of inspection types along with their dates. Click on the most recent inspection (unless there is a certain time period in which you have more interest) and read the report.
Interior Health
https://www.interiorhealth.ca/YourEnvironment/DrinkingWater/Pages/WaterSamples.aspx
You can enter your Facility, City, or select your Region from the drop-down menu, then you will see results for E. coli and Total Coliform tests.
Northern Health
http://www.healthspace.ca/Clients/NHA/NHA_Website.nsf
On the left hand side of the page click on Water Sample Results under the Drinking Water heading. Find and click on your community in the list on the left hand side of this site. This will take you to a list of the water systems in that area, if there is more than one to choose from you should click on the ones that seem most relevant. At this point, you might see a list of sampling sites; in which case, you should pick the ones that seem the most relevant. If you keep clicking you will come to a list of the water quality test results for that location, if they are available.
Vancouver Island Health Authority
https://www.healthspace.ca/Clients/VIHA/VIHA_Website.nsf/Water-Samples-Frameset?OpenPage
Click on Water Samples. Find and click on your community in the list on the left hand side of this site. This will take you to a list of the water systems in that area, if there is more than one to choose from you should click on the ones that seem most relevant. At this point, you might see a list of sampling sites and test results. You can see more test results by clicking on NEXT at the bottom of the page or changing how many results are shown per page.
Manitoba
View the Data for Public Water Systems Open Year Round and/or View the Data for Seasonal Public Water System.
Newfoundland and Labrador
https://maps.gov.nl.ca/water/#ComReports
Select your community from the drop-down list and click the “View Community Reports” button. This will bring you to a second drop-down list. The specific information dealing with the quality of your tap water can be found under “Tap Water Nutrients and Metals” and “Tap Water Physical Parameters and Major Ions”.
Northwest Territories
https://www.maca.gov.nt.ca/sites/maca/files/resources/nwt_community_annual_chemical_report_2018.pdf
Search for your community's water treatment plant, then look at the results. Keep checking here: https://www.maca.gov.nt.ca/en/services/drinking-water-nwt/monitoring-and-testing-%E2%80%93-proving-water-safe to see when the Water quality data for 2019 is made available (it was supposed to be made available in 2020).
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Choose a community by using the middle drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the page. Click on Summary Table if you would like to see a table of the data.
Saskatchewan
https://waterquality.saskatchewan.ca/DrinkingWater
On this page select the information you want to see, the location you want to search, and click the “Search” button.
Choose Sample Tests to see the results of a variety of tests that have been done.
Yukon Territory
http://yukon.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2365a4c0b8744f34be7f1451a38493d2
On this page, you can filter sites by a number of different criteria (Sample Type, Status, Water Source, Agency, Network Source, Sub Drainage, and Sub Sub Drainage). You can also click on the dots on the map in order to learn about the different sites.
If you can't find your community's drinking water quality test results
If you can't find your community's drinking water quality test results then you can go to http://www.watertoday.ca/ and search for your community in the upper right hand search box. This will inform you of any boil water advisories in your community.
You can also perform an Internet search for your community's water quality test results, they might be available on your city's website.
You could phone your city's/town's water treatment plant or office and ask whether there are water quality test results available to the public and, if not, why they are not available to the public.
Virtual Water Information on the World Wide Web
ANDREW NIKIFORUK (AND THE UN) SAYS CANADA EXPORTS 272.5 X 109 M3 OF VIRTUAL WATER
He writes in a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives paper, "Canada’s trade economy is deeply dependent on the quality and quantity of its water. Almost every Canadian product exported abroad (cattle, grain, hogs, automobiles, aluminum, electricity, wood or oil) contains enormous volumes of embedded water or what economists call ‘virtual water.’ Canada now exports more virtual water than either China or India in its trade goods. (About 15% of the water used in the world is exported in virtual form, largely because of cheap oil.) In addition, two out of every three litres of the nation’s freshwater withdrawals are used for the generation of electric power, an economic venture that is already threatened by climate change. Given the current volume of Canada’s virtual water exports (272.5 x 109 m3), exports of real water can only adversely affect the economy. University of Western Ontario engineer Slobodan Simonovic has calculated that “water export” from the St. Lawrence River Basin, for example, would reduce ‘the available water for consumption by different water use sectors.’ Exporting water simply means less water at home to create jobs and less water to sustain ecological services provided by rivers and lakes necessary for life.”
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/november-2007-continental-water-follies
GLOBAL WATER PARTNERSHIP SUPPORTS THE VIRTUAL WATER TRADE
In the August issue of 'Scientific American' which focuses on 'facing the freshwater crisis', Peter Rogers, a senior adviser to the Global Water Partnership, writes "Keeping the demand for irrigation water in arid and semiarid areas down while still meeting the world’s future food requirements can be supported by supplying 'virtual water' to those places. The term relates to the amount of water expended in producing food or commercial goods. If such products are exported to a dry region, then that area will not have to use its own water to create them. Hence, the items represent a transfer of water to the recipient locale and supply them with so-called virtual water. The notion of virtual water may sound initially like a mere accounting device, but provision of goods—and the virtual-water content of those goods—is helping many dry countries avoid using their own water supplies for growing crops, thus freeing up large quantities for other applications. The virtual-water concept and expanded trade have also led to the resolution of many international disputes caused by water scarcity. Imports of virtual water in products by Jordan have reduced the chance of water-based conflict with its neighbor Israel, for example. The magnitude of annual global trade in virtual water exceeds 800 billion m3 of water a year; the equivalent of 10 Nile Rivers. Liberalizing trade of farm products and reducing tariff restrictions that now deter the flow of foodstuffs would significantly enhance global virtual-water flows. Truly free farm trade, for instance, would double the current annual total delivery of virtual water to more than 1.7 trillion m3."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facing-the-freshwater-crisis/
NAFTA RESOURCE
The paper 'NAFTA and Virtual Water Trade: An estimation of virtual water trade in livestock and livestock products between Canada and the United States' by Nabeela Afrooz Rahman can be found at
http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/3736/1/Nabeela_Rahman_MESThesis_2008.pdf