Dewatering Under the EASR: A Contractor’s Step-by-Step

Forty-eight hours before pumping

The water taking report includes a notice protocol, and it has to be carried out before pumping starts. At least 48 hours before the first taking, written notice goes to any other water users who may be affected and to the ministry's district office, with:

• where the taking will happen, the dates, and the approximate time and duration of each taking;
• the EASR registration number; and
• the name and phone number of someone who can take calls about interference with a water supply.

Keep a copy of every notice and proof it was sent. It is one of the records you must retain.

While the pumps run

• Keep the reports on site. Both reports must be available for inspection on request, on paper or electronically.
• Follow the discharge report. Water goes only by the recommended route. Water discharged to a storm sewer or the natural environment must show no visible petroleum sheen, and within 30 m of a water body its turbidity must not exceed 8 NTU above the receiving water's background.
• Maintain sediment controls. Erosion, flooding, scouring and sediment controls named in the discharge report are run and maintained to the manufacturer's recommendations.
• Act on the plans. Monitoring plans, contingency measures and any shutdown protocol in either report are put into effect when their trigger conditions arise.
• Report complaints. A complaint about the taking or discharge that relates to the natural environment is reported to the ministry immediately.

The daily log

Section 10 lists what must be recorded and kept for five years:

A flow meter on each discharge line, read at the same time every day, makes the rate and volume columns easy. Copies of the two reports are kept for five years as well.

Dates that come later

• Longer than a year. If the taking is intended to run more than 365 days, written notice goes to the upper-tier and lower-tier (or single-tier) municipality and the conservation authority, with the registrant's name, the dates, the discharge method and, for discharge to the natural environment, its location.
• Every March 31. A report to the ministry of the volume taken daily from each dewatered work area in the previous calendar year. A job that ran from October to February has two reports.
• Within 30 days of stopping. File in the Registry that the water taking is complete.
• At demobilization. Remove the sediment controls and dispose of everything they trapped.

When a dewatering job needs a Permit to Take Water instead

Section 7 takes a construction taking out of the EASR in these cases, so it needs a permit:

• the groundwater will be used for human consumption, agriculture or an industrial or manufacturing process;
• the taking would involve a transfer of water out of a basin as described in sections 34.3 and 34.5 of the Ontario Water Resources Act;
• the discharge report recommends discharge to the natural environment inside a WHPA-A, the zone closest to a municipal well.

A groundwater taking also stays under the permit process if its permit was in effect when O. Reg. 66/25 came into force and has not expired or been revoked, or if its permit application was submitted before then and has not been finally refused. If one of these cases is likely, find out before the reports are written, because a permit application involves ministry review and its timing is not fixed. The Permit to Take Water and EASR page explains that process.