At the end of December (2009) the Ministry of Environment released a document titled Water Supply Wells – Requirements and Best Practices Manual.

This is the finalized version of a draft that was released at the Ontario Ground Water Association (OGWA) Regional meetings last year, and offers comprehensive comments on working with Ontario’s wells regulation, Reg. 903.  Weighing in at a whopping 739 pages (including 90 pages of the Act and Regulation, in both official languages), it represents an enormous effort to assist licensed well drillers and other users of water wells in interpreting the Regulation.

Although lengthy, the manual has been carefully designed to be user friendly.  Each chapter follows the same format, providing a plain language version of the Reg, its key concepts and technical advice on implementation.   Most chapters provide advice on best management practices that exceed the regulation’s requirements to protect groundwater resources.  The manual does not supersede the Reg – if there are discrepancies between the manual and the Regulation, the Wells Regulation takes precedence.

It is important to note that the Best Practices manual is designed for Water Supply Wells.  The boreholes and wells installed for Kodiak Drilling clients are either test holes or dewatering wells, and as such, they are exempt from many sections of the Regulation which apply only to water supply wells.  A Best Practices manual for test holes and dewatering wells is still under construction; when it is released by the Ministry, we will post more news here.

The fifteen chapters of the Manual may be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format from the Ministry:
https://www.ontario.ca/page/water-supply-wells-requirements-and-best-practices

Kodiak Drilling clients may also obtain a CD copy by contacting us directly.