Module 7 – Issues – Protect Water

Concerns, Issues and Solutions Module

Module 7 – Existing Source Protection Impacts and Issues: How to Find Solutions

‘Water stress’ will affect two thirds of the human population by 2025 and Canada will have allowed widespread degradation of groundwater and surface water.
– The Water Quality Research Journal of Canada, Volume 138 (1), pp. 3-13, 2003.

Learning Expectations:

By the end of this session you should:

Understand what an ‘issue’ is in terms of water quality and drinking water source protection planning
Identify some of the concerns and potential issues affecting drinking water sources in the Ausable Bayfield Maitland Valley Source Protection Region
Understand the process of Issues and Risk Analysis in drinking water source protection planning
Apply the categories of threat, issue, risk or concern to case studies and examples
Name three main responses to a concern – Evaluate, Discount, Confirm
Name four responses to an issue – Clarify, Evaluate, Rate, Resolve
Define an Issues Inventory

Section One – Module Content

Learning Expectations, Learning Activities to Achieve Expectations

Field Learning

Chapter 4 of the Maitland Valley and Ausable Bayfield Assessment Reports is called Vulnerability, Threats and Risks.

Chapter 7 of the Maitland Valley and Ausable Bayfield Assessment Reports is called Considering the Great Lakes.

Source Protection Plan Chapter 3 is called Establishment of Source Protection Policy Areas.

Choose one of the following tasks:
Do you have concerns that should be studied to see if they are issues? If so, take time to write them down on index cards and return to the facilitator.
Make a list of important water quality items that you think are important for the study of the Source Protection Committee (SPC). Identify whether you think they are concerns, issues, threats or risks. Explain why you have assessed them that way.

For threats please consult the Tables of Threats and Circumstances at Ontario.ca.

For current issues please consult the assessment reports and source protection plans at sourcewaterinfo.on.ca.

Unit 1 – Water Quality: Concerns or Issues?

Unit 2 – Water Quality Issues Analysis

Unit 3 –Issues Inventory, Issues Evaluation, Rating Hazard Levels, Risk Assessment

Unit 4 – Wrapping It Up

SECTION TWO – Priming the Pump: Notes, Definitions, Fact Sheets

SECTION THREE – Handouts, Additional Reading or Sources, Field Learning Assignments, Findings

Activity 1 – Group Activity – Title: Inside/Outside Perspectives on Drinking Water Source Protection

Form into two circles – a smaller circle of half your group’s participants will be on the inside, and the other half of participants will a larger circle on the
outside.

Begin to move when you hear music (‘Singing in the Rain’ or ‘Ferry ’cross the Mersey,’ perhaps) and, when the music stops, you will be facing someone else in the group.

You will be asked to share your thoughts on the following question:

What have you learned about drinking water source protection in local watersheds so far?

The person on the outside will share first, followed by the person on the inside. Then the music will start again and the inside circle will rotate in a clockwise motion while the outside circle will move in a counter-clockwise direction. Then, when the music stops, the inside person will share their thoughts on this question:

What role has good management played in protecting our drinking water quality?
What other reasons might there be for relatively good drinking water quality in parts of the watershed? (e.g., fewer stresses)
What are the challenges for the future to maintain good drinking water quality?

Activity 2 – Group Dialogue – Title: What have we achieved? What do we need to improve?

Last Session Review

Evaluation, Review of Performance Goals, Group Work

Which of your personal learning goals are being met by this program?
Which of your personal learning goals are not being met by this program?

Activity 3 – Small Group Activity ‘Jigsaw’ Expert Groups – Title: Issues: Completing the Puzzle

In small break-out groups look at a section of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Park’s Guidance Module on Issues Evaluation and Threats Inventory.

Each group will have a different piece of the larger module.

Identify some of the main concepts and share with the larger group.

What are some of the main concepts and terms?

Activity 4 – Presentation – Title: Benchmarks and Issues

What is a drinking water ‘benchmark’?
What are some currently used drinking water benchmarks?
What is the value of a benchmark in identifying an issue?
What are examples of issues in the Ausable Bayfield Maitland Valley Source Protection Region? (Consult source protection plans and assessment reports at sourcewaterinfo.on.ca)
Discuss the following:

Threats and Issues = Causes

Concerns and Issues = Effects

a) How is this true?

b) How is this not true?

Based on the presentation by the facilitator or other presenter, answer these questions:

Define an issues inventory:
How is an issues inventory conducted?
Describe an issues evaluation:
What is the difference between an issues inventory and an issues evaluation?
Define prioritizing in terms of issues evaluation:
Explain scoping in terms of issues evaluation:
Explain source tracking:
Based on the presentation, what is modeling? Discuss with a partner.
How is modeling used in issues analysis?

Activity 5 – Small Group or Pair Activity – Title: Responses to Concerns and Issues; Threats and Risks

From information imparted by the facilitator or presentation, fill out in the chart below listing the responses required for a Threat, Risk, Concern or Issue.

Notes:

Responses to Water Quality Concerns, Issues, Threats, Risks

Concern

Issue

3) , or;

Threat

1) _____________________________________

2) _____________________________________

3) _____________________________________

Risk

1) _____________________________________

2) _____________________________________

3) _____________________________________

4) _____________________________________

Unit 4 – Wrapping it up

Self-Assessment on Learning Goals

More Help

Do you want more information? Do you want to learn more? Your facilitator is prepared to discuss any topic or question with the goal of helping you move to the next module. Alternatively, write down your thoughts and a facilitator will follow up with you.

Logging and Linking: Next Steps, Continuing Questions, Unresolved Issues

SECTION TWO – Priming the Pump

Notes, Definitions, Fact sheets

Chapter 6 of the Assessment Reports identifies future research needs.

Your local drinking water source protection committee (SPC) works toward the identification of risks to drinking water.

The committee also considers issues relating to water quality or quantity in vulnerable areas (such as municipal wellhead protection areas and surface-water intake protection zones) and implications to the Great Lakes in the context of the international agreements.

In Module 5, Analyzing Threats to Water Quality, we looked at the difference between a drinking water threat and a drinking water risk; between a drinking water concern and a drinking water issue.

Now we are going to go one step further into the exploration of these four concepts and their application in drinking water source protection planning.

Concern

Two main steps to a concern are to:

1) Investigate and;

2) Determine whether it is an issue or a concern.

Issue

Four responses to an issue are to:

1) Clarify;

2) Evaluate;,

3) Rate and;

4) Resolve.

The Issues Evaluation and Threats Inventory process consists of five major
components:

Drinking water issues inventory;
Drinking water threats inventory;
Prioritization and evaluation of issues and threats;
Application of a hazard rating to each contaminant of concern associated with a drinking water threat;
Constructed preferential pathways identification and inventory.

The Issues Evaluation and Threats Inventory is produced by teams of representatives from the watershed community (e.g., landowners, municipalities, conservation authorities, and water users).

The team works at the local level, and representation on the team will vary depending on local needs.

How is an issue evaluated?

In the drinking water issues evaluation, the team relies on existing information to identify contaminants presently interfering with a drinking water source, prioritize them for assessment and attempt to link land use activities (drinking water threats) to these issues. The drinking water threats inventory identifies those threats in delineated vulnerable areas.

The preliminary inventory of issues and drinking water threats compiled in the Watershed Characterization can be used as a starting point for developing the inventory required in this Guidance Module.

This guidance focuses on drinking water issues and threats from a water quality perspective, including cases where water quantity influences water quality.

What is prioritizing and scoping?

Health Canada defines ‘scoping’ as “a process of prioritizing, reducing a long list of possible issues to a short list of potentially significant ones. This exercise should include any … issues to be assessed. It usually results in the preparation of terms of reference for the scope of the assessment, the methods to be used and the roles and responsibilities.”

What is source tracking?

Source tracking is a method of identifying sources of contamination which impact water – the contaminants which might be tracked could be bacteria or fecal matter.

What is modeling?

A model in drinking water source protection planning is an assembly of concepts in the form of mathematical equations or statistical terms that portrays a behavior of an object, process or natural phenomenon.

Model calibration is the process for generating information over the life cycle of the project that helps to determine whether a model and its analytical results are of a quality sufficient to serve as the basis of a decision.

Model evaluation is a comparison of model results with numerical data independently derived from experiments or observations of the environment.

Model validation is a test of a model with known input and output information that is used to adjust or estimate factors for which data are not available.

Model verification is the examination (normally performed by the model developers) of the numerical technique in the computer code to ascertain that it truly represents the conceptual model and that there are no inherent numerical problems with obtaining a solution.

Sensitivity Analysis evaluates the effect of changes in input values or assumptions on a model’s results.

How is modeling is used in issues analysis?

When determining risk there needs to be an agreed-upon approach.

Quantitative microbial risk assessments are one way to determine if a pathogen issue is occurring at an intake.

Semi-Quantitative risk analysis describes an approach or methodology that uses measurable or ranked data, derived from both quantitative and qualitative assessments, to produce numerical values to articulate results.

Threat

The potential effects of threats on water quality could be cumulative, e.g.., The consequence of multiple threats sources, in space and time, which affect the quality of drinking water sources.

Threats to our drinking water need to be assessed and the draft guidance documents provide two tiers of Threat Assessment:

Threat Assessment – Tier 1

Preliminary examination of a drinking water threat based on readily-accessible information.

Threat Assessment – Tier 2

Advanced examination of a drinking water threat through accessing more detailed information, interviews and perhaps when warranted, additional monitoring, modeling or studies.

Three main responses to a threat are to:

1) Identify;

2) Evaluate;

3) Rate.

Risk

Aggregate risks are when there are multiple risks in a municipal water supply protection area that are considered together relative to the overall risk to drinking water sources.

There may be water quality risks and water quantity risks – a water quantity risk is the likelihood that the threats to water quantity may render an existing or planned drinking water source impaired, unusable or unsustainable.

Risks may include:

Chemical – A substance used in conjunction with, or associated with, a land use activity or a particular entity, and with the potential to adversely affect
water quality.

A hazard, as defined in draft guidance modules, is equivalent to a contaminant and pathogen threat.

A Hazard Rating is the numeric value which represents the relative potential for a contaminant of concern to impact drinking water sources at concentrations significant enough to cause human illness. This numeric value is determined for each contaminant of concern in the Threats Inventory and Issues Evaluation of the Assessment Reports.

Four main possible responses to a risk are to:

1) Rank;

2) Manage;

3) Reduce or;

4) Eliminate.

SECTION THREE

Handouts, Additional Readings or Sources, Field Learning Assignments, Findings

Reading, Viewing and Listening Resources:

Read Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks’ Guidance Module 5, Issues Evaluation and Threats Inventory

Read Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks’ Guidance Module Six: Water Quality Risk Assessment

Your Evaluation of This Session

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Group Performance Goals

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Group Goal Achievement

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Do you have any other feedback, input, concerns, questions or comments about the working group performance or process?

Thank you for your important feedback.
A summary assessment will be completed and a report will be presented to the group at the beginning of next session.

Field Learning Assignment

Record the results of your field learning task here.

Do you have concerns that should be studied to see if they are issues?

If so, write them down.

Make a list of important water quality items that you think are important for the study of the Source Protection Committee (SPC).

Identify whether you think they are concerns, issues, threats or risks.

Explain why you have put them in that category.

Information here is provisional, subject to change, and posted for local information and education purposes. For current information visit Ontario.ca and sourcewaterinfo.on.ca. We would like to acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario. Such support does not indicate endorsement of the contents of this material.