Water Facts
The water supply for Strathcona County comes from the North Saskatchewan River that originates at the Saskatchewan Glacier in the Rocky Mountains just South of Edmonton. Then the EPCOR Water centre cleans and purifies the water with its two water treatment plants that can hold a capacity of 530 million litres a day.
Provincial and federal roles
The province licenses the municipality to perform water distribution, wastewater collection and wastewater treatment. It also monitors the County to ensure conditions of the licence are met. The province has monitoring and enforcement control over potable water quality, water delivery systems and drainage and flow of water bodies. The province also has regulatory responsibility for the installation of water wells on private property. The federal government sets national drinking water quality objectives and plays a role with respect to fisheries, transboundary and navigable waters.
Key responsibility for water in Strathcona County
The Alberta Government has the primary regulatory responsibility for water, with enforcement monitoring shared between the province and the municipality. The landowner is the key steward affecting surface and ground water resources on his or her property.
Strathcona County's role
The role of the County is to meet provincial water quality objectives as part of licence agreements with the province for wastewater collection, wastewater treatment and water distribution. Bacteriological and chemical analyses are performed as per the license issued by the province.
The County has direct control over use and development of municipally owned surface water management systems, wetlands, parks, environmental reserves, road rights-of-way and utility lots. The County has direct control over the collection of communal wastewater and acts as the regulator for private wastewater systems. Through negotiations with developers, landowners and the Alberta Capital Region Waterwater Commission, the County is able to influence partners.
County influence is large in determining the content and nature of its public education program but small over public response.
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Brent Gourley |
Dan Harding |
