Updates to the Drinking Water Quality Management Standard

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is proposing revisions to the Drinking Water Quality Management Standard (DWQMS).

The DWQMS sets out the criteria (elements) that must be met for mandatory quality management systems established in municipal residential drinking water systems. To learn more about how Ontario regulates municipal residential drinking water systems, visit Municipal drinking water systems: licensing, registration and permits.

Many of the proposed DWQMS updates are administrative in nature and intended to clarify existing requirements. The ministry is also proposing changes that will enable auditing of practices used to summarize monitoring data, where such reports are used to demonstrate compliance with legislated requirements.

Please refer to the attached document Drinking Water Quality Management Standard: draft version 3.0 to guide you in your review of the proposed updates, summarized below.

Changes throughout the DWQMS

• updated ministry name, branch name, address and contact information
• minor updates to capitalization, grammar, and wording, for consistency

Element 7: risk assessment – requires a risk assessment process be documented and implemented

• administrative update of reference to the document titled “Potential Hazardous Events for Municipal Residential Drinking Water Systems”

Element 9: organizational structure, roles, responsibilities and authorities – requires an up-to-date description of the organizational structure of the operating authority including respective roles, responsibilities and authorities

• updated plan c) and d) to identify the role and/or job title of person(s) responsible for undertaking the management review and people having top management responsibilities

Element 10: competencies - requires up-to-date documentation of the knowledge, skills and abilities that personnel whose jobs affect drinking water quality must have, and the activities necessary to ensure that competency requirements are met and maintained

• updated plan a) to specifically include mandatory licensing, certification or training requirements

Element 11: personnel coverage - requires a procedure to be in place to describe how enough personnel who meet the identified competencies are available for duties that directly affect drinking water quality

• updated to identify specific scenarios that must be considered in the procedure for personnel coverage, including periods of routine operations, labour disruptions and emergency situations

Element 12: communications - a documented procedure that describes how the Quality Management System is communicated to others

• updated the structure of this element to better reflect the need for communication on relevant aspects of the quality management system between top management, the owner, the operating authority, suppliers, and the public
• revised to ensure communication on relevant aspects of the quality management system occurs with all external service providers and suppliers

Element 16: sampling, testing and monitoring - requires the establishment and implementation of procedures on how sampling, testing and monitoring for process control and finished drinking water quality is undertaken

• added plan d) to enable auditing of practices used to summarized monitoring data and produce exception reports, where such reports are used to demonstrate compliance with legislated requirements

Element 17: measurement and recording equipment calibration, verification and maintenance – requires a procedure for the calibration and maintenance of measurement and recording equipment to be implemented

• updated to include verification, in addition to calibration and maintenance

Element 18: emergency management – requires the operational plan document a procedure to maintain a state of emergency preparedness and conform to the procedure

• updated to clarify that plan a) should include a list of potential emergency situations or emergency service interruptions
• updated to separate the concepts of emergency response training and testing
• added requirement for procedures to identify the frequency, scope and post-testing review associated with emergency response testing

Element 19: internal audits – requires a procedure for internal audits to be implemented

• removed plan d) to remove duplication with requirements for identification and management of corrective actions in element 21 (continual improvement)

Element 20: management review - requires a procedure for an annual management review, and lists the topics which the management review must cover

• added plan a), requiring that the quality management system policy is considered as part of management review
• clarified plan d), now plan e), requiring that updates to assumptions used in the risk assessment process are considered as part of the management review
• updated plan h), now plan i), and added plan j), to clarify that both raw water supply trends and drinking water quality trends are required to be considered as part of the management review
• updated plan k), now plan m), to specifically include new or updated policies or legislation as items required to be considered as part of the management review
• added DO e), requiring that relevant outcomes of the management review are communicated to operating authority personnel

Element 21: continual improvement – requires that a procedure be developed to track and measure continual improvement of the Quality Management System, and consideration be given to best management practices, utilize corrective and preventative actions.

• updated plan b) ii. to be more consistent with standard processes for identification and management of quality management system corrective actions
• updated plan c) and plan c) i. to clarify the intent of preventive actions