NEWS RELEASE
NOTTAWASAGA VALLEY CONSERVATION AUTHORITY
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UTOPIA – Hundreds of new road signs to help municipal drinking water sources are being installed across Simcoe and Muskoka this spring. Many more of these drinking water protection zone signs will be installed across Ontario in 2016.
The signs mark locations where well-used roads cross into zones where municipal drinking water sources are the most vulnerable to contamination.
“The signs alert the public and emergency responders to the sections of road where accidental spills could travel quickly to our public drinking water sources and contaminate them,” said Deputy Mayor Lynn Dollin of Innsifil, who chairs the local source protection committee.
Municipalities in the Counties of Simcoe and Dufferin and the District of Muskoka will install 380 signs over the next month.
This is in addition to signs already present in other communities, including Barrie and the Township of Springwater.
The signs are consistent with those being used across the province.
Installing the new road signs is one of many actions being undertaken to meet the objectives of the South Georgian Bay Lake Simcoe Source Protection Plan.
The plan, developed under Ontario’s Clean Water Act, 2006, directs local efforts to protect and keep the sources of municipal water clean and plentiful.
Municipalities have been working with the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority and Severn Sound Environmental Association to implement policies in the plan since it came into effect in July 2015.
“The source protection plan focuses on prevention – making sure that contaminates don’t get into our municipal drinking water supplies, and protecting the most vulnerable areas,” said Ms. Dollin.
The location of drinking water protection zones is based on scientific research. The policies to protect these zones, set out in the Source Protection Plan, were developed in consultation with local communities to address known drinking water threats.
The initiative to protect sources of municipal drinking water is directed and funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change under the Clean Water Act.
More information about our local source protection plan is available at ourwatershed.ca, or by contacting your local municipality.
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