The water source for the District of Campbell River, a coastal community of 32,000 people located on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, is the 700 mi2 (1822 km2) Campbell River watershed. Land ownership is a mix of provincial government and private, while land use activities include active forestry, copper and coal mining, recreation, hydroelectric generation and water storage, rural residential and a natural Provincial Park. The district has had very limited influence on land use within the watershed. Historically, the District's source water quality has met the Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines and chlorine disinfection is the only water treatment practiced. The District is planning improvements to the water treatment, but if the source water quality could be maintained to the current levels then a treatment strategy based on ultraviolet and chlorine disinfection could be adopted. If not, then the District would be required to adopt more expensive filtration and disinfection options. There is no single government entity with responsibility to protect the source water quality for drinking water quality purposes. The District strongly believed that development of a watershed management plan was key to identifying methods and processes to protect the water through support, awareness and voluntary action of the stakeholders including the public, landowners and provincial and federal regulators with jurisdiction over various watershed activities. Using a risk analysis approach, the potential threats to the District's water supply were identified and were rated according to the frequency, duration, magnitude and probability of the event occurring. A risk rating was assigned to each activity. Risk reduction measures were identified for the highest rated threats. The result was a series of voluntary recommendations to protect the water quality. Includes tables, figures.
