What is source protection?
Source protection is the first barrier in a multiple-barrier approach to protecting drinking water. As Justice O’Connor stated in the Report of the Walkerton Commission of Inquiry, “keeping contaminants out of drinking water sources is an efficient way of keeping them out of drinking water.” A multi-barrier approach starts with the protection of the drinking water source, and is followed by treating the water effectively, monitoring its quality and taking action when problems are found. Justice O’Connor recommended that protection of drinking water sources be carried out in an ecologically meaningful way — at the watershed level. A watershed is an area of land drained by a river and its tributaries into a particular body of water such as a lake or an ocean. Source protection is not a new idea. Several other jurisdictions have already incorporated it into their drinking water regimes. The United States’ Safe Drinking Water Act requires that all states prepare a source water assessment
