The City of Ottawa Canada has rolled out a backflow prevention program to prevent contaminated water from buildings entering the city’s public drinking water system. Under the adopted city by-law number 2013-360, the program went into effect January 1, 2018 and is scheduled to be completely implemented over a 10-year period.

It will require premise isolation or containment protection for all severe and moderate service connections through the installation of premise backflow devices or assemblies. The city currently has about 15,000 industrial, commercial, institutional and multi-residential properties that are classified as severe or moderate risk for backflow incidents which will be impacted by these new rules. Properties with severe risks must have protection installed by December 2020, and properties with moderate risks by December 2025. Notification of all property owners will be complete by the end of 2022.

Between 2018 and 2027, based on severity of the hazard, all affected property owners will be required to hire a qualified person to conduct site surveys every five years to identify risks and report backflow prevention requirements to the city for review. Once the risks are identified the owners will be required to install backflow prevention assemblies for containment protection and then have the assemblies tested on an annual basis. The test results must be then submitted to the city for review.

Qualifications and training needed to conduct site surveys, install backflow assemblies and test assemblies are established in the Canadian Standards Association B64.10 standards.