Decision on Policy:

The Clean Water Act requires the development of a science based assessment report to support the development of source protection plans. The contents of the assessment report are set out in regulations and Director’s Technical Rules. These technical rules stipulate the contents of the report and various methodologies that can be applied in drafting the report, and allow for the consideration of local conditions. A decision was made to proceed with the amendment of these technical rules to provide more clarity with respect to the contents of the assessment report and to provide more flexibility to source protection committees to address local conditions.

Comment(s) Received on the Proposal: 8

Public Consultation on the proposal for this decision was provided for 30 Days, from August 24, 2009 to September 23, 2009.

As a result of public consultation on the proposal, the Ministry received a total of 8 comments: 7 comments were received in writing and 1 was received online.

Additionally, a copy of all comments are available for public viewing by contacting the Contact person listed in this notice.

Effect(s) of Consultation on this Decision:

Stakeholder consultation
The 8 comments are in fact submissions containing a multitude of comments received through the Environmental Registry. These, together with comments received or compiled during 5 focused consultation sessions held with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture/Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, key municipalities, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and the source protection Conservation authority project managers and committee Chairs, amounted to a total of 75 comments.

Effect of consultation:
All comments related to the proposed technical rules were considered for the purposes of finalizing them. Many comments were received supporting the amendments to the rules. The following summary reflects the topic areas for which the most comments were received and the way those comments were addressed in the final technical rules:

• Stakeholders identified concerns around the impact of changing rules given the tight timelines for assessment reports. The rules amendments include the ability to request the use of an alternative method or approach under rule 15.1. Source protection committees that have completed work under the previous rules can approach the Director about using the former methods, if appropriate, and seek approval.
• A variety of comments were received around road salt application and how to determine where this activity is a significant, moderate or low drinking water threat. Given the variety of options to evaluating this method, the rules were left as they were, but advice has been provided that any SPC wanting to apply a local method to quantify this activity can request approval of their method through the Director. This approach allows for local considerations when determining whether road salt is a threat to drinking water.
• Stakeholders requested clarification on the rules around highly vulnerable aquifers and vulnerability scoring. The language in the rules was amended to provide clarity and a technical bulletin is being prepared to explain the application of this rule.
• Stakeholders requested clarification around managed lands and livestock density. Changes were made to the proposed amendments to provide clarity and a technical bulletin has been drafted with additional materials on the application of the rules.
• Agricultural stakeholders and associations questioned why the delineation of the IPZ-2 allowed for the consideration of the time of travel within urban stormwater management works but not within transport pathways created through agricultural land uses. Further amendments to the rules were made to allow the consideration of time of travel within these transport pathways.
• In the Tables of Drinking Water Threats, errors were noted around fuel storage and Dense Non Aqueous Phased Liquids. These have been corrected. In addition, minor corrections were made within the Tables of Drinking Water Threats, and the numbering system for threats has been updated. The updated tables include a summary of changes in reference numbers between the original rules posting and the updated tables.
• Minor typographical and grammatical corrections were made to address questions and comments from multiple stakeholders.
• An additional change to the rules to address conditions as drinking water threats to recognise the difference in tools available to manage conditions under the Clean Water Act and other legislation. With this change, where conditions exist within a property, and there is evidence that the contamination has not and will not move off site, these conditions would receive a hazard score of 6 making it a moderate or low threat in vulnerable areas.

These rules are in effect as of the date of this Notice and will be located here. A copy of the rules marked with revisions has also been posted with the final rules to provide information on how the rules have been changed compared to November 2008 and from the policy proposal posted in August 2009.

View the original posting to the Environmental Registry here.