General News

Township working hard to maintain quality drinking water

February 18, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
Editor

King is maintaining a clean record in providing quality drinking water to its residents.
Council received the 2025 Drinking Water Annual Summary Report from staff, that noted there were zero Adverse Water Quality Incidents in 2025.
The Township received re-accreditation as an operating authority, under the Drinking Water Quality Management Standard.
New Municipal Drinking Water License and Drinking Water Works Permits were issued to each drinking water system.
Current operational performance and the on-going implementation of the Township’s Quality Management System for drinking water, is effective, staff pointed out.
King received a 100% compliance rating from the Dec. 2, 2023, to Jan. 28, 2025, Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks (MECP) Water Inspection.
The Township of King owns and operates four (4) municipal drinking water distribution systems in King City, Schomberg, Nobleton and Ansnorveldt.
All treated water is supplied by York Region, which is responsible for source water, treatment, and storage facilities, while the Township maintains the local distribution networks.
The municipality must exercise the level of care, diligence and skill in respect of a municipal drinking water system that a reasonably prudent person would be expected to exercise in a similar situation.
All four municipal drinking water distribution systems operated in full compliance with all regulatory requirements during the reporting period. This includes but not limited to operational checks, sampling and monitoring. In addition, there were zero adverse water quality incidents in any of the drinking water systems.
Staff said the most recent MECP inspection cycle covered Dec. 2, 2023, to Jan. 28, 2025. The ratings were 100% in all four systems, demonstrating “exemplary operational performance, effective maintenance practices, and compliance with regulatory requirements.”
There were 10 watermain breaks and repairs during the reporting period, listed below. Of those, seven occurred within King City, two in Nobleton and one in Schomberg. The location of both watermain breaks in Nobleton have now been replaced with a new watermain, as part of the Water Capital Plan.
In 2025, the Township logged 162 inquiries that were assigned a subject related to drinking water in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. After investigation, only 23 inquiries were confirmed as directly related to municipal drinking water operations, while the remainder were attributed to non-operational issues such as internal plumbing.
Operational complaints primarily involved water colour/appearance, with most occurring in the Nobleton distribution system. This issue is linked to source water characteristics, and York Region is implementing system improvements to address it. No operational complaints were reported for the Ansnorveldt system.
Staff noted the low number of operational complaints highlights effective system performance and reinforces the importance of clear communication and public education regarding water quality and service expectations.
Nobleton resident Nancy Hopkinson wasn’t convinced that her drinking water is up to par.
“All is definitely not well with Nobleton’s water and has not been well for years,” she said. “We in Nobleton have been complaining for years and getting the brush off with reports like this.”
She even brought her kettle from home to show councillors the amount of hard water staining.
She asked council to convince York Region to remove iron and manganese from Nobleton’s three wells sooner than 20028.
She pointed out that the accepted Canadian aesthetic level for iron is 0.3 mg/L. “We have been exceeding that level for years and the level seems to be increasing. The reading in 2025 (second quarter) was 0.787 mg/L This is more than twice the accepted level.
“How would you like to offer people a drink of Nobleton’s water when it comes out brown? My kettle constantly gets iron sediment in the bottom and needs to have vinegar to get it working again.”
The iron level, she said, never gets mentioned in York Region’s reports for the Township.
“Why not? They obviously test for iron. When you Google Nobleton drinking water iron level, you can find the results. We are more than double the acceptable level for iron.”
In correspondence from Township staff, it was noted that Nobleton currently utilize sodium silicate to sequester or keep iron in solution with limited effectiveness. The planned upgrades will remove sequestration or sodium silicate from two of the three well sites and replace it with natural green sand filters.
The Region’s planned operational strategy once the upgrades are complete is to use the two well sites with iron removal to meet the day-to-day requirements of the Nobleton system. The well site that will continue to use sequestration will only be brought online on as needed basis to meet demand, provide system redundancy and ensure the well site remains functional. There are design considerations in the planned upgrades to allow the remaining well site using sodium silicate to be brought online in future if the water yield or amount of water produced from the well remains stable or viable.
The current completion timelines for the project are Q3 – 2027 for one of the three well systems and Q1 – 2028 for the additional well site that will be brought into the removal works as part of the current project. The timeline was recently revised due to unexpectedly long lead times in obtaining major pieces of equipment necessary to upgrade the works.

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