A healthy watershed is central to clean and abundant source water.

• Establishing setbacks, restoring riparian buffer zones along watercourses, and acquiring watershed segments can save money by preventing costly impacts to source water.
• Roads often have the greatest impact on water quality, so they require careful long-term planning.

British Columbia legislation related to source water protection is complicated, and the Government of British Columbia does not have a lead water agency. Local action supported by stable funding and consistent and coordinated approaches is imperative to maintaining source water quality.

Collaboration is essential to protect source waters for today and for generations to come. Our collective efforts will bring cumulative benefits.

We are all downstream.

Clean water – essential and irreplaceable

Drinking water is of paramount importance and concern to British Columbians, and rightly so. Water is central to everything in B.C. – the survival of plants and animals, the well-being of residents, the health of the economy, and the beauty of the natural landscapes. Watersheds and aquifers are wonderfully resilient systems, and will provide quality water for present and future generations if we look after them.

Water suppliers use a multi-barrier approach (MBA) – an integrated system of procedures, processes and tools that collectively prevent or reduce the contamination of drinking water from source to tap – to minimize risks to public health. The MBA includes selecting the best available water source and protecting it from contamination (‘source water protection’), using effective water treatment, and preventing water quality deterioration in the distribution system. Coordinated and collaborative actions upstream of water treatment help communities not only effectively achieve drinking water goals, but also delivers cumulative socio-economic benefits and ecological services. This toolkit provides a road map and tools for source protection, and is intended for the local government, irrigation and improvement district, and First Nations staff who are responsible for providing drinking water to their communities in B.C.

It is important to acknowledge that local governments and water suppliers are operating in the traditional and unceded territories of Indigenous peoples. In the Okanagan, these are the Syilx/Okanagan Nation and the Splatsin territories. Water is a key aspect of reconciliation, and local governments can play an important role in building positive relationships with Indigenous communities based on mutual respect, understanding, and a common vision for the future. Source protection planning processes are strengthened when Indigenous values, knowledge, and leadership are included from the start. The siwɬkʷ (Water) Declaration can help local governments and water suppliers improve their cultural understanding and engagement with Indigenous peoples.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance also recently released their Syilx siwɬkʷ (Water) Strategy. The strategy is a call to action that outlines how the Syilx Nation intends to care for their territory and work to ensure that siwɬkʷ is properly respected and available for all living things.

This toolkit shows that the case is clear: water suppliers have an excellent opportunity to develop and carry out robust, watershed-scale source water protection programs. Most often, these programs are built from the ground up through locally driven initiatives with provincial government support, not the other way around. We can draw from the successes of others, and gain insight from their lessons learned. The benefits of source water protection start immediately, and the long-term dividends are vast.

Let’s get started.

Source water protection is a broad topic, with different purposes, responsibility, and resourcing needs at the local, regional and watershed-scale.

This toolkit was crafted to simplify the source protection planning process, and to inspire a more holistic approach to drinking water management – one where we work together to take care of the land so that it can take care of the water.

Water suppliers in the Okanagan and beyond have taken important steps towards improving drinking water quality over the last 20 years. While enhanced treatment, staff training, monitoring, and reporting have reduced outbreaks, upstream source water protection measures must be added to these actions to meet existing and expected challenges to drinking water quality.

Best management practices and policies that better protect drinking water are already being used in logging, ranching, and recreation, as well as by governments at the provincial, regional, and municipal levels.

Nonetheless, more action is required throughout B.C.’s watersheds, from the headwaters in the mountains, to rural and urban areas, and down to the mainstem lakes. A coordinated, collaborative, and consistent approach is needed.

This toolkit is your guide to getting there.

Good news – you don’t have to read the whole toolkit!

Each section is stand-alone. Refer to Table 1 to see what sections interest you.

Table 1: Guide for using the Source Water Protection Toolkit