Photo: Chris Donovan
The Grand River Source Protection Plan is now being updated to include new policies to protect Centre Wellington’s municipal water. A public consultation period is open now with a deadline of Monday, March 8. Source Protection Plans were put in place by the Province to protect municipal drinking water. For Fergus and Elora, the threat is not so much water quality as water quantity. Science has shown that this community has a significant risk level for water quantity, primarily because of the population growth that has been allocated here. The single factor driving this risk level is increased municipal water taking. Ontario’s Clean Water Act states that removing water from an aquifer without returning it to the same aquifer is a drinking water threat. This threat is the primary risk to the Fergus and Elora wells. It includes taking water for water bottling. The science is clear. Now we know what we have to do. Township and County staff translated this specific threat into new updated policies to protect municipal water. We have to conserve water better. We have to optimize our water system. We have to manage our aquifers by being diligent about new activities that would remove groundwater. To strengthen support for these new policies for Centre Wellington, please email comments to the Grand River Conservation Authority here: comments@sourcewater.ca You can review the updated policies here, in chapter 7: www.sourcewater.ca/GR-SPP-Update