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The Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) is a
OCWA was created in 1993 by the
"Walkerton Water Crisis Follow-up"
/ref>
Ontario Clean Water Agency
{{Authority control Crown corporations of Ontario Ontario government departments and agencies Water supply and sanitation in Canada Health in Ontario Food and drink in Ontario
Crown agency
A crown agency was an administrative body of the British Empire, distinct from the Civil Service Commission of Great Britain or the government administration of the national entity in which it operated. These enterprises were overseen from 1833 ...
of the Government of Ontario
The government of Ontario (french: Gouvernement de l'Ontario) is the body responsible for the administration of the Canadian province of Ontario. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown—represented in the province by the lieutenant governor†...
that provides operation, maintenance and management services for more than 450 water and wastewater treatment
Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environme ...
facilities in the province.
History
OCWA was created in 1993 by the NDP
NDP may stand for:
Computing
* Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol
* Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP
* Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language
Government
* National ...
government of Premier Bob Rae
Robert Keith Rae (born August 2, 1948) is a Canadian diplomat and former politician who is the current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations since 2020. He previously served as the 21st premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, leader of the ...
under the Ontario ''Capital Investment Plan Act'' and initially took over provincial ownership of 153 water-treatment plants and 77 sewage-treatment facilities. It also operated 116 municipally owned water and sewage facilities.
By 1996, it had 800 employees and held contracts to operate 429 facilities in the province, comprising 25 per cent of Ontario's water-treatment plants and 57 per cent of the wastewater-treatment plants. In October of that year, the Progressive Conservative government under Premier Mike Harris
Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. During his time ...
, which came to power in 1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
, announced its plans to turn ownership of the facilities over to the municipalities and privatize
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
OCWA as an environmental consulting firm.
Ownership of the facilities was transferred to the municipalities, but OCWA was not sold. It was transformed into a management services organization and in 1998 won what was then Canada's largest water and wastewater operations and maintenance contract—a 10-year, $213 million deal to operate the South Peel system. By 2000, OCWA operated and maintained more than 300 municipally-owned water and sewage treatment facilities on behalf of about 200 Ontario municipalities.
Walkerton tragedy
In May 2000, an outbreak of ''E. coli
''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...
'' contamination occurred in the water system of Walkerton, Ontario
Walkerton is a Town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located within and governed by the municipality of Brockton, Ontario, Brockton. It is the site of Brockton's municipal offices and the county seat of Bruce County, Ontario, Bruce County. I ...
. In the aftermath of the disaster
A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...
and the ensuing reforms to water treatment, the OCWA was put in charge of the cleanup of the water supply system of the town. This included a complete flushing of all the pipes in Walkerton, including those located in every building in the town.''The Canadian Encyclopedia'',"Walkerton Water Crisis Follow-up"
/ref>
See also
*Water supply and sanitation in Canada
Water supply and sanitation in Canada is nearly universal and generally of good quality, but a lack of clean drinking water in many First Nations communities remains a problem. Water use in Canada is high compared to Europe, since water tariffs ar ...
Footnotes
External links
Ontario Clean Water Agency
{{Authority control Crown corporations of Ontario Ontario government departments and agencies Water supply and sanitation in Canada Health in Ontario Food and drink in Ontario