From Source To Tap - The Multi-Barrier Approach To Safe Drinking Water

Public Involvement & Awareness

As mentioned above, it is essential to maintain appropriate levels of partnership and communication among stakeholders. In addition, the public has expectations of government transparency and the availability of public health information. It is important that the public be aware that they can report concerns to the appropriate authority.

Drinking water programs can involve the public and increase awareness of drinking water quality issues by:

• Informing the public about its impact on source water quality and about available pollution mitigation measures.
• Informing the public about health risks and providing educational materials on issues such as water disinfection, guidelines, conservation issues, and costs of providing service.
• Making monitoring results or summaries available and relaying information about what the authority is doing to address the risks.
• Issuing regular reports about drinking water systems, including improvements and areas that need further attention.
• Incorporating public consultations into decision-making processes that have an effect on public health, such as the development of new guidelines and regulations.

Providing additional information to owners of private drinking water systems (groundwater or surface water) is very important as they are responsible for regularly testing the quality of their water. Owners need to know what to do in case of microbiological or chemical contamination of their drinking water. Well-owners need to know how to maintain their wells and how to arrange to decommission wells that are no longer safe or needed.

All landowners should be encouraged through community awareness programs to implement best management practices such as protecting stream banks, providing buffer strips, and subsidizing tree planting and fencing works.