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Drinking Water Quality and Supply

Fort McMurray tap water: Grade A, hardness 162 mg/L

By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources

Regional estimate
A

Water quality grade

Excellent

Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines

Lead within guidelinepH in range
Hardness vs provincial average162 mg/L · prov. avg 178 mg/L
Lead vs provincial average0.2 μg/L · prov. avg 0.3 μg/L
Hardness
162 mg/L
Lead
0.2 μg/L
≤ 5 μg/L
pH
7
6.5–8.5 range
Hardness
162 mg/L
Hard
Lead
0.2 μg/L
Max: 5 μg/L
pH
7
6.5–8.5
Chlorine
0.7 mg/L
Max: 4 mg/L
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Reading this page

Fort McMurray's drinking water earns Grade A (Excellent). Hardness is 162 mg/L (hard), and pH is 7 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.

Lead at 0.2 μg/L is below the 5 μg/L maximum, and fluoride is 0.7 mg/L against a guideline of ≤ 1.5 mg/L.

How to use this page: read the headline metric and provincial comparison first, then supply and treatment notes, then the source footer for the underlying dataset.

Watershed to tap

Supply and treatment

How Fort McMurray draws, treats, and distributes drinking water, from municipal and utility publications. Chemistry grades above come from separate parameter records; this section does not invent plant lab figures.

Source type

Surface water

Research confidence: medium

Source waters

  • Athabasca River

Treatment plants

  • Fort McMurray Water Treatment Plant (RMWB Regional Waterworks)

    Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo plant serving the Fort McMurray urban area and nearby communities such as Anzac, Saprae Creek, and Gregoire Lake Estates; intake on the Athabasca River with raw-water holding reservoirs used when river quality is poor.

Distribution

Treated water from the Silin Forest Road plant feeds the urban distribution system and regional customers. Man-made holding reservoirs allow the plant to pause river withdrawals for roughly two weeks during high turbidity or post-wildfire sediment events.

All monitored parameters meet Health Canada guidelines.

All health parameters meet Health Canada guidelines with comfortable pH, hardness, and turbidity.

Figure 1 · Supply chain

From watershed to tap

Compared to provincial average

Alberta · 51 cities in sample

Hardness (city vs Alberta avg)162 mg/L
pH (city vs Alberta avg)7
Lead (city vs Alberta avg)0.2 μg/L
Fluoride (city vs Alberta avg)0.7 mg/L

Provincial average: hardness 178 mg/L · pH 7.5 · lead 0.3 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L

Full parameters

ParameterReadingHealth Canada guidelineStatus
Hardness162 mg/LNo health limit (aesthetic)Compliant
pH76.5–8.5Compliant
Lead0.2 μg/L≤ 5 μg/LCompliant
Fluoride0.7 mg/L≤ 1.5 mg/LCompliant
Chlorine (free)0.7 mg/L≤ 4 mg/LCompliant
Turbidity0.3 NTU≤ 1 NTU (typical target)Compliant
Alberta water licences

WaterRegister.ca

On a private well or holding an Alberta water allocation licence? Water Register maps EPA licence records, transfer comparables, and watershed context across the province.

Explore WaterRegister.ca →

OpenStats pick

OpenStats picks for Fort McMurray — moderate hardness

Fort McMurray at 162 mg/L is hard enough for kettle scale but often below whole-house softener urgency. Carbon filtration for taste plus hardness strips before you overspend.

As an Amazon Associate, OpenStats earns from qualifying purchases.

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Source · ECCC / municipal open data (seed). Last updated 2026-09-01. Refreshed on the site's automated schedule.