The law

By law, owners and operators of water works must report information to the ministry when industrial and commercial water users take more than 7.3 million litres per year from their works.

Report submission deadline: March 31.

Reporting exemptions

Owners and operators do not need to report non-commercial water users for purposes such as:

  • drinking water for residential purposes (e.g. private residences, apartment buildings)
  • institutional uses (e.g. schools, health care and social services)
  • creating:
    • wetlands
    • reservoirs (non-hydropower)
    • wildlife conservation

Source law

You can find a complete set of rules related to this activity in:

What to report

Owners or operators must report the following information for each industrial and commercial water user that takes more than 7.3 million litres per year from their works:

  • the name of the facility
  • the account number used to charge the facility for its water use
  • the facility address (where the meter is located)
  • the billing address
  • any information the water works has that describes the industrial or commercial purpose for which the facility uses water
  • the amount of water the facility used in the previous calendar year

How to report

To report on facilities that use more than 7.3 million litres of water each year, you should:

  • open the excel document: Water Works Reporting Template
  • follow the step-by-step instructions in the Water Works Reporting Template
  • fill out fields in the template for each record if applicable
    • only enter one record per row, do not add blank rows between records
  • encrypt the final report to protect sensitive information
    1. in the excel template go to the Tools menu
    2. in the tools dropdown choose Options
    3. choose the Security tab
    4. under File Encryption settings for this workbook choose Advanced
    5. select an encryption type then click OK
    6. enter a password under File Encryption settings for this workbook then click OK
  • save the file as:
    MUNCIPALITYNAME_YYYMMDD_Version.XLS
    Example: CITY_OF_TORONTO_20090331_001.XLS

How to submit

There are two options for submitting the Water Works Owner Report:

Online

You can submit your report online to WTRSHelpDesk@ontario.ca.

Mail

You can save your report on a CD or DVD and mail it to:

Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change
Environmental Monitoring and Reporting Branch
WTRS Help Desk
125 Resources Rd
Etobicoke ON  M9P 3V6