Water treatment in Canada has been applied for decades. Even so, there are still too many improper installations, misapplied equipment, and sales being made when there isn’t a need for treatment.
The lack of knowledge surrounding private wells at the consumer level can be an issue for water quality experts. Consumers may have just purchased a home in the country and moved from the city and know nothing about dealing with a well and the possible contaminants or issues that may be lurking. Some believe all well water is fine; others are diligent in getting it tested for pathogens and bacteria but forget about contaminants such as arsenic, lead, manganese, and uranium, to name a few. Health Canada and the provincial governments try very hard to help educate the consumer on well water and what is in tap water, but typically, that education comes down to the water treatment professional to test, select, install and service the equipment to ensure that the end-user doesn’t get sick.
That water treatment supplier needs to have the education and credentials to properly assess the need for water treatment. The end-user needs to have confidence in the professional to put the right piece of equipment that is sized properly to meet the needs of the family or the business. Many businesses depend upon water treatment for their processes or hospitals to ensure water is safe for kidney dialysis or pure water for electroplating. There are many different water treatment needs and processes besides treating water in the home.
Better safer than sorry
Let’s take a stab at defining water treatment. As an umbrella term, water treatment can be defined as any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate and safe for a specific end-use. Water treatment means removing any of the contaminants previously mentioned or any undesirable components that might be found. This can be done, and should be done, at any level of the building market — residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional levels. Collectively, water treatment is the process that makes water more acceptable for an end-user, which may be used for drinking, cooking, bathing, or industrial processes.
The processes involved in treating water for drinking purposes may include solids separation using physical processes such as precipitation, settling, and filtration, chemical processes such as ion exchange, disinfection, and coagulation, or membrane filtration.
Water purification is the removal of contaminants from untreated water to produce drinking water that is safe enough for the most critical of its intended uses — usually for human consumption. Substances that are removed during the process of drinking water treatment include suspended solids, bacteria, algae, viruses, fungi, minerals like calcium, iron, manganese and sulfur, and other chemical pollutants.
The Guidelines for Canada Drinking Water Quality, published by Health Canada in August 2024, establishes the health-based parameters for drinking water quality that the provinces and territories use to establish their own standards or objectives. These guidelines need to be the manual that anyone involved in providing water treatment can readily use as a reference and/or a learning tool. Find the resources out there and use them to elevate everyone’s knowledge.
Public drinking water systems use various methods of water treatment to provide safe drinking water for their communities. Water is treated differently in different communities depending on the quality of the water in that area.