The North Bay-Mattawa Drinking Water Source Protection Committee (SPC) will now be led by Jeff Celentano, who has been appointed Chair by the Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC).
The local nine-member SPC, in place since 2007, has overseen the identification of potential risks to water quality of the municipal drinking water sources in Callander, Mattawa, North Bay, Powassan and South River, as well as the creation of a Source Protection Plan to address identified risks.
Celentano is a life-long northerner with 34 years of municipal management experience with North Bay and Callander. He retired in 2011 as Callander’s Chief Administrator Officer and Clerk.
Celentano replaces Barbara Groves of Chisholm whose term as chair expired in 2013. Current SPC member John MacLachlan of Laurier Twp has been Acting SPC Chair in the interim.
The source protection program is legislated under the Clean Water Act, passed by the Ontario legislature in 2006 to assist communities with protecting their municipal drinking water supplies at the source. There are 38 source protection areas in Ontario and Conservation authorities were given the responsibility of overseeing the administration and management of the source protection program in 36 of those areas throughout the province.
In this watershed, the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority oversees the administration and management of the source protection program. The SP Committee is comprised of local representatives from municipal, commercial/industrial, agriculture, and transportation sectors as well as the community at large and includes John MacLachlan, Maurice Schlosser, George Stivrins, Dennis MacDonald, Lucy Emmott, Roy Warriner, Bev Hillier, Randy McLaren and George Onley. Sue Miller is the Manager of the Source Protection Program at NBMCA.
To view the proposed plan, visit www.actforcleanwater.ca, email [email protected] or call 705 474-5420.
