A new report finds significant gaps in Ontario's inspection and testing of non-municipal drinking-water systems servicing nearly three million people living primarily in rural and remote communities.
In a report released Monday, Auditor General Shelley Spence notes that over 98 per cent of samples taken from non-municipal drinking water meet Ontario quality standards. However, Spence also notes that “not all water is tested.”
Responsibility for the testing of non-municipal water is split between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP), while the owners of private wells and intakes from surface water are responsible for collecting their own samples and sending them to public health units.
The MOH is responsible for seasonal residential systems like cottages, as well as public facility systems like hotels, churches and community centres. The MECP is responsible for year-round residential systems and those servicing facilities like child-care centres, schools, hospitals and shelters.
The auditor general found that MECP has “effective processes to monitor and enforce compliance with sampling requirements, but lacks capacity to regularly inspect all MECP-regulated non-municipal systems."
About 34 per cent of systems regulated by MECP had not been inspected in more than five years, the auditor found. About nine per cent had not been inspected in more than seven years.
“Many of the drinking-water systems that had not been inspected in over five years each supply water to over a hundred people,” Spence wrote. “One of the systems that had not been inspected for over seven years serves a community college that, while deemed lower risk by MECP, provides drinking water to 2,500 people.”
MECP considers risk-based factors in determining systems to inspect in a given year, which means higher-risk systems may be inspected more often. Spence said this was an “appropriate approach," but “even systems deemed to be lower risk should be periodically inspected to ensure they are operating properly.”
The report also noted the number of inspections declined 45 per cent between 2012-13 and 2019-20. Spence said this happened after the government expanded the workload of water compliance officers to include additional responsibilities like municipal sewage and stormwater systems — areas that must be given priority over non-municipal water systems.
The MECP has agreed with all recommendations made by the auditor general, and says it “will review and consider the initiatives put forward to improve the procedural efficiencies of municipal drinking-water system inspections.”
Public health units report lack of staffing
The auditor general also found that public health units did not have effective ways of identifying small drinking-water systems that have not properly self-reported, and there was a lack of guidance from MOH on whether short-term rentals would be encompassed within their responsibility.
“Because of this, visitors to short-term rentals may drink or cool with water from an unregulated water supply that may or may not have been tested by the owners, thus creating a potential health risk,” the report noted.
The report also suggests that 52 per cent of public health units with non-municipal drinking-water systems did not inspect all systems due to staffing and/or resource challenges, as well as backlogs dating back over five years.
The auditor general said that data from five public health units found that 56 per cent of small drinking-water systems had not provided a testing sample in the past five years. Of those, about 20 per cent had missed an entire year of samples while five per cent had missed multiple years.
Missing information or samples appears to be a theme with non-municipal drinking-water systems, with an internal MECP report estimating about half of submitted records from owners of private wells are incomplete or inaccurate. The ministry also had a backlog of about 73,800 records as of August 2024.
“MECP staff do not review submitted well records to verify whether the work performed complies with the required technical specifications,” the report said. “This creates a risk that MECP will fail to identify improperly constructed wells, which increases the risk of water-safety issues.”
About 1.3 million Ontarians rely on private wells, which have little regulation and oversight, said the auditor general, who added there is no province-wide program focused on increasing awareness of the rules or informing owners they can get free testing.
Spence noted the MOH created a new webpage with information about operating small drinking-water systems during the course of her audit, but “this webpage and its resources are only informative to system owners who are made aware of them.”
“A 2021 Statistics Canada survey found that less than one-third of Ontario households that rely on private wells had tested their water in the previous 12 months,” the report said.
“Water testing helps detect contamination and deter consumption of unsafe drinking water, which can reduce illnesses and their associated health costs from doctor visits and hospitalizations.”
Private owners are also not properly being informed when there is a threat to their source water. Of the 115 notifications MECP sent to public health units regarding chemicals, only one meeting between the two agencies was held. Only four public health units notified private well owners about potential chemicals in their water.
Reasons provided included a lack of information on how to identify who is impacted by the potential chemicals and a lack of staff experts who could assess and determine levels of risk.
“Many of the MECP notices during this period were for populated areas with numerous drinking water wells,” the report said.
About 61 per cent of public health units with non-municipal water sources were conducting epidemiological analysis. The MOH, the auditor found, does not provide direction or track work completed, creating “a risk that drinking-water threats that cause illness or disease may go undetected.”
PHUs reported a lack of training and resources, as well as a lack of information on private wells and intakes, were obstacles in conducting such work.
Enforcement efforts are also a challenge, with public health units arguing it’s too costly and therefore rarely used.
The auditor general added that MECP is enhancing its processes to better address repeat non-compliance, with 14 convictions in the past five years.
