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On February 23, 2011 Toronto City Council approved a number of changes to the City's Water Efficiency Plan originally approved in 2003. Please see the Staff Report (PDF) for details.

Did you know that in the City of Toronto, the average residential water use is about 253 litres per person per day? With every litre of water pumped weighing 1 kilogram, that's a tonne of water needed for a family of four each day. Compare that with the 1.23 billion litres per day of water that must be supplied to all residents and businesses in the city. With a population of 2.59 million residents, that amounts to 77 million toilet flushes a day.

At our present rate of water consumption, and taking population and employment growth into account, residents and businesses in the City of Toronto will need so much more water in the future that production capacity will have to increase. The cost of this expansion would be hundreds of millions of dollars.

So the City of Toronto has developed a comprehensive Water Efficiency Plan that allows us to reduce current water use to accommodate the population and employment growth at one-third the cost of infrastructure expansion. The plan, which will be implemented, on a City-wide basis over the next 10 years, contains a detailed implementation schedule with a set of sector specific water efficiency measures to help reduce water use, water loss, and reduce wastewater flows in the most cost-effective way.

You can review the Water Efficiency Plan online. Click below to read the chapters of the plan in PDF file format. Or visit one of the libraries listed below to view the plan.

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• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Chapter 1 - Developing a Water Efficiency Plan
• Chapter 2 - The Water System
• Chapter 3 - Forecasting Water Demand
• Chapter 4 - Water Efficiency Measures
• Chapter 5 - Analysis of Water Savings & Costs
• Chapter 6 - Implementation and Monitoring
• Chapter 7 - Summary and Recommendations
• Chapter 8 - Conclusions
• Appendix A - Facts and Figures
• Appendix B - Program Descriptions
• Appendix C - Current Water Efficiency Activities
• Appendix D - Factors Affecting Water Demands
• Appendix E - List of 70 Water Efficiency Measures
• Appendix F - List of 21 Water Efficiency Measures
• Appendix G - Peer Review, Public Survey and Public
• Consultation Activities
• Appendix H - Best Management Practices
• Appendix I - Measures not for consideration at this time

A copy of the Water Efficiency Plan can also be viewed at the following libraries:

North	South
North York Central Library 5120 Yonge Street Tel: 416-395-5535	Toronto Reference Library 789 Yonge Street Tel: 416-395-5577
Fairview Library 35 Fairview Mall Drive Tel: 416-395-5750	Toronto City Hall 100 Queen Street West Tel: 416-393-7650
York Woods Library 1785 Finch Avenue West Tel: 416-395-5980	John Robarts Research Library University of Toronto Harbord at St. George Street Tel: 416-978-8450
Scott Library York University 4700 Keele Street Tel: 416-736-5150
East	West
Albert Campbell Library 496 Birchmount Road Tel: 416-396-8890	Albion Library 1515 Albion Road Tel: 416-394-5170
Cedarbrae Library 545 Markham Road Tel: 416-396-8850	Brentwood Library 36 Brentwood Road North Tel: 416-394-5240
Malvern Library 30 Sewells Road Tel: 416-396-8969	Richview Library 1806 Islington Avenue Tel: 416-394-5120

For more information about the City of Toronto's water efficiency programs, please contact:

Water Efficiency Programs
Toronto Water
275 Merton St
Toronto, ON M4S 1A7
Tel: 416-392-7000 (General Inquiry Line)
Fax: 416-392-7001
Email: savewater@toronto.ca

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