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Drinking Water

View Drinking Water Samples

Monitoring drinking water safety

You can stay up-to-date on the safety of your drinking water by:

Viewing the drinking water sample results we track for small to medium-sized community water systems and for selected beaches
Finding out if your drinking water system is on a drinking water advisory
Visiting HealthLinkBC for information about disinfecting your drinking water and other related topics

Drinking water complaints & investigations

If you have concerns about your drinking water, read the steps listed below.

Step 1: Contact your water supplier

If you’re connected to a community water system, contact your water supplier to register your concern or complaint. In many cases, it will be possible to resolve the issue at this point. If your discussion with the water supplier has not produced a satisfactory result, please move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Contact our drinking water program

Contact a health protection office and ask for an environmental health officer.

Step 3: Request an investigation

If you believe that there’s a threat to a drinking water supply, you may request an investigation into the matter. All investigation requests should be in writing using the public complaint report form and include specifics of the alleged threat. An environmental health officer will review the request and consider whether it warrants an investigation.

The person who submits an investigation request to an environmental health officer will be informed in writing:

Whether an investigation has or will be undertaken
The results of any investigation undertaken

Private drinking water safety

Private drinking water is a well or surface water intake that serves only one single-family home. The homeowner is responsible for ensuring the water is safe for drinking, cooking and household sanitation. You should be aware that there is minimal regulatory oversight on private water.

Water from surface water sources and many ground water sources should be disinfected. For more information, visit HealthLinkBC's webpage: Disinfecting Drinking Water.

Surface water and well water sources should be tested and treated. Please see the resource section below on how to test your water and for private water testing labs.