Ontario Clean Water Agency

The Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) is a Crown agency of the Government of Ontario that provides operation, maintenance and management services for more than 450 water and wastewater treatment facilities in the province.

OCWA was created in 1993 by the NDP government of Premier Bob Rae under the Ontario Capital Investment Plan Act[1] and initially took over provincial ownership of 153 water-treatment plants and 77 sewage-treatment facilities.

[3] In October of that year, the Progressive Conservative government under Premier Mike Harris, which came to power in 1995, announced its plans to turn ownership of the facilities over to the municipalities and privatize OCWA as an environmental consulting firm.

[5] By 2000, OCWA operated and maintained more than 300 municipally-owned water and sewage treatment facilities on behalf of about 200 Ontario municipalities.

[6] In May 2000, an outbreak of E. coli contamination occurred in the water system of Walkerton, Ontario.