Rural water safety from the source to the on-farm tap

Abstract

For those Canadians who live in metropolitan areas, good quality water for domestic use and consumption is readily available, and perhaps taken for granted. However, for over 4 million Canadians who rely on private water supplies, access to water that is safe for consumption and suitable for domestic use is a very real issue. This is also true in the agriculture and agri-food sector. Many of these private water supplies are in rural areas, where water is taken from surface or ground sources. These supplies may be of naturally poor quality, or may have had their quality affected by municipal, industrial, or agricultural activities. Options to protect and enhance the quality of private water supplies include source protection using best management practices (BMPs), source enhancement, and water treatment using innovative small-scale systems. With funding from the Canada-Saskatchewan Agri-Food Innovation Fund, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has conducted applied research into effective and affordable BMPs (remote livestock watering, low-drift nozzles for spraying farm chemicals, methods to reduce agro-chemical runoff or leaching, etc.). Source enhancement strategies were studied using aeration for farm ponds or preventive maintenance procedures for ground water wells. Various water treatment technologies were adapted to the small-scale needs of farms, including coagulation, biological sand and biological carbon filtration, membrane filtration using microfilters, nanofilters or reverse osmosis processes, and disinfection systems using chlorination or ultra violet light. Each research project included a technology transfer component, to ensure that the knowledge gained from the research was available to those that needed the information, and to help decision makers address rural water quality problems.