Protecting our Water: EPCOR's Source Water Protection Plan

​Protecting our environment means protecting our water:
EPCOR's Source Water Protection Plan

EPCOR works to monitor and protect the environment because it makes our communities a better place to live and is central in the operation of our water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Many realize that Edmonton's drinking water source is the North Saskatchewan River but Edmonton's source water protection area is far broader than that and includes the entire watershed upstream of the Rossdale Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Edmonton, Alberta to the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains. This is because activities in the broader watershed area can have an effect on our specific water source.

How a Source Water Protection Plan works

EPCOR's Source Water Protection (SWP) is part of a multi-barrier approach for water utilities to protect both quality and quantity of water sources.

Prepared by a team of watershed biologists who study our watershed throughout the year, the SWPP works to understand and mitigate potential risks to source water supplies through a watershed and aquifer approach.

The quality of a surface or groundwater source is a direct result of the natural processes and human activities that occur within a watershed or within or above an aquifer. EPCOR is vested in monitoring and protecting the watershed as a healthy, functional watershed with fewer human disturbances is more likely to generate high source water quality.

What's in a Source Water Protection Plan

The SWP plan compiles existing information on the North Saskatchewan River (NSR) and its watershed, and uses this information to identify hazards, assess risks to source waters, and make recommendations on how to manage these risks.

EPCOR recognizes that it does not own land within the watersheds in which it operates, and is therefore committed to working with stakeholders to implement improvements and support science-based management in the watershed to protect its source water and this SWP plan helps with this process. EPCOR has a responsibility to ensure the drinking water provided to our customers does not pose a threat to public health and is satisfactory in its physical, chemical and aesthetic characteristics.