Toronto's Water Supply Bylaw – About
The new Water Supply Bylaw harmonizes practices and procedures, and standardizes fees providing the same, or better, levels of service to all customers across the City without imposing any new service fees. The new Bylaw better defines the roles and responsibilities of both property owners and the City requiring specific measures that will provide reliable metering information, improve operational efficiency and protect the integrity of the water supply system.
The new bylaw also provides a better enforcement mechanism to deal with issues related to a property owner’s failure to fulfill their obligations under the bylaw, generally associated with maintaining the safety of the water supply system and for non-payment of water delivered.
It also allows Toronto Water to achieve cost recovery, when warranted, for those activities beyond the normal level of service.
In addition, a new specific measure requires the installation and maintenance of a backflow prevention device at specific industrial, commercial, institutional, and mixed-use multi-residential properties to prevent the possible migration of contaminants from private property into the public water distribution system.
Other measures include requiring the installation of water meters at all properties to promote water conservation and providing the General Manager of Toronto Water with the authority to issue water restriction orders to maintain sufficient water levels and pressures within the distribution system during extreme peak demand periods or in the event of significant disruption to the water supply infrastructure.