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Drinking Water Quality and Supply

Merritt Drinking Water Quality

By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources

Direct municipal data
C

Water quality grade

Fair

Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines

Lead within guidelinepH in range
Hardness vs provincial average117 mg/L · prov. avg 162 mg/L
Lead vs provincial average0.5 μg/L · prov. avg 0.4 μg/L
Hardness
117 mg/L
Lead
0.5 μg/L
≤ 5 μg/L
pH
7
6.5–8.5 range
Hardness
117 mg/L
Moderate
Lead
0.5 μg/L
Max: 5 μg/L
pH
7
6.5–8.5
Chlorine
1 mg/L
Max: 4 mg/L

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Reading this page

Merritt's drinking water earns Grade C (Fair). Hardness is 117 mg/L (moderate), and pH is 7 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.

Lead at 0.5 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 Merritt 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

Groundwater

Research confidence: high

Source waters

  • Merritt Aquifer (shallow unconfined aquifer recharged by Nicola and Coldwater rivers)
  • Kengard Aquifer (deeper confined aquifer via Kengard well)

Treatment plants

  • City of Merritt well pumphouses (Voght Park, Fairley Park, Collettville, Kengard)

    Five municipal wells (30-150 m deep). UV reactors (ETS-UV Spectra) and chlorination at each pumphouse since 2019 commissioning.

Distribution

Six reservoirs store 12.2+ million litres; ~70 km of distribution mains (100-350 mm).

Health parameters meet Health Canada limits; turbidity above the 1 NTU typical target.

One or more parameters exceed a Health Canada drinking water guideline or turbidity target.

Figure 1 · Supply chain

From watershed to tap

Compared to provincial average

British Columbia · 58 cities in sample

Hardness (city vs British Columbia avg)117 mg/L
pH (city vs British Columbia avg)7
Lead (city vs British Columbia avg)0.5 μg/L
Fluoride (city vs British Columbia avg)0.7 mg/L

Provincial average: hardness 162 mg/L · pH 7.6 · lead 0.4 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L

Full parameters

ParameterReadingHealth Canada guidelineStatus
Hardness117 mg/LNo health limit (aesthetic)Compliant
pH76.5–8.5Compliant
Lead0.5 μg/L≤ 5 μg/LCompliant
Fluoride0.7 mg/L≤ 1.5 mg/LCompliant
Chlorine (free)1 mg/L≤ 4 mg/LCompliant
Turbidity3.8000000000000003 NTU≤ 1 NTU (typical target)Exceeds guideline
Alberta water licences

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