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Protecting Peel's water

We protect and ensure a sustainable water supply for Peel's residents, beginning at the source

Water from private wells

Property owners are responsible for the construction, maintenance, and abandonment of private wells.

If you're concerned about your water quality or you're not getting enough water from your private well, email us or call 905-791-7800, ext. 4685.

If you want to replace well water with regionally-treated water for your home, refer to Connecting your property to Peel's drinking water system.

Protecting municipal drinking water sources

Source water protection is the first step in safeguarding our lakes, rivers, and aquifers.

Source water protection involves:

For details, visit drinking water source protection.

Protecting Lake Ontario

Water plays a vital role in how well an ecosystem stays the same as conditions change around it. Water is also important for recreation, agriculture, and industry.

Lake Ontario is an essential part of everyday life in Peel Region. It's a place for leisure activities, but more importantly, it's the drinking water source for Brampton and Mississauga and parts of Caledon.

A watershed is an area or region that's drained by a river, river system, or other body of water. All the major watersheds within Peel Region drain into Lake Ontario, making it a crucial resource we must protect.

Lake Ontario is the 14th largest lake in the world. While its surface area is the smallest of all the Great Lakes, its drainage area is over 90,000 km2.

Nearly 25% of Canadians live near Lake Ontario and rely on it as their water resource.

Initiatives and strategies for protecting Lake Ontario

Peel Region participates in international, national, provincial, inter-regional, conservation authority, and area municipal initiatives that protect Lake Ontario's water.

These initiatives include the Ontario's Great Lakes Strategy and other initiatives to safeguard, improve, and restore the quantity and quality of water resources.

Protecting, improving, and restoring is important for Lake Ontario's supply of drinkable water as well as its aquatic (water-based) ecosystem and shoreline.

Discover the initiatives, strategies, committees, and commissions dedicated to protecting Lake Ontario:

Other information

Peel's Water Resources team jointly leads the Oak Ridges Moraine Ground Water Program (ORMGP) with the municipalities of York, Durham, and the City of Toronto.

Established in 2001, the ORMGP continues to be a leading source for ground and surface water data.

The ORMGP was founded in response to development encroaching on the Oak Ridges Moraine. These municipalities understood the magnitude a program to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine and its connected aquifers, and Peel continues to be a long-standing funding partner.

ORMGP mandate

The ORMGP's mandate is to provide a multiagency, collaborative approach to collecting, analyzing, and distributing water resource data. The ORMGP builds, maintains, and shares a geological and hydrogeological context with partner agencies for ongoing groundwater studies and management initiatives.

Visit Oak Ridges Moraine Groundwater Program for:

  • A map of borehole, climate station and surface water flow station maps.
  • Journal articles.
  • Conference papers about partner agencies' watersheds.

Peel Region administers the groundwater monitoring program for Peel’s municipal wells. We monitor water levels and quality in accordance with the Permit to Take Water (PTTW) conditions for our municipal wells. If you require access to groundwater monitoring reports, email us.

'Water taking' is withdrawing new or increased amounts of groundwater from a water source.

Our Water Resources team ensures that any water takings for construction projects, municipal wells and lake-based systems are tracked and reported to the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) every year by March 31.

In some cases, monitoring and discharge plans are also enforced by the Ministry to ensure that water takings have little or no impact on the surrounding natural environment.

The 2 types of permits that allow for water takings are called Permits to Take Water (PTTW) or Environmental Activity and Sector Registry (EASR).

The MEPC grants and approves these permits before any water takings that exceed 50,000 L of dewatering per day can begin.

For more information about PTTWs and EASRs, visit MECP Permit to Take Water or MECP Environmental Activity and Sector Registry.