By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources
Regional estimateWater quality grade
Good
Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines
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Sault Ste. Marie's drinking water earns Grade B (Good). Hardness is 207 mg/L (very hard), and pH is 7 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.
Lead at 0.7 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
How Sault Ste. Marie 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.
Mixed surface and groundwater
Research confidence: high
Sault Ste. Marie Water Treatment Plant (Gros Cap intake)
Surface plant treating Lake Superior water pumped from the Gros Cap intake; filtration and disinfection. Rated about 40,000 m³/d for primary disinfection constraints.
PUC deep well supplies
Six deep wells (Goulais, Steelton, Shannon, Lorna fields) disinfected and blended into the distribution system; Lorna wells held for higher-demand or emergency use.
PUC Services operates production and distribution for the city PUC. Three reservoirs provide roughly 52 million litres of storage (about 1–2 days of typical use).
All monitored parameters meet Health Canada guidelines.
Health parameters compliant; minor aesthetic factors such as hardness or pH near guideline edges.
Figure 1 · Supply chain
From watershed to tap
Ontario · 123 cities in sample
Provincial average: hardness 178 mg/L · pH 7.5 · lead 0.4 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L
| Parameter | Reading | Health Canada guideline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 207 mg/L | No health limit (aesthetic) | Compliant |
| pH | 7 | 6.5–8.5 | Compliant |
| Lead | 0.7 μg/L | ≤ 5 μg/L | Compliant |
| Fluoride | 0.7 mg/L | ≤ 1.5 mg/L | Compliant |
| Chlorine (free) | 1.2 mg/L | ≤ 4 mg/L | Compliant |
| Turbidity | 0.8 NTU | ≤ 1 NTU (typical target) | Compliant |
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.
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Sault Ste. Marie pairs 207 mg/L hardness with 1.2 mg/L chlorine — taste and scale show up together. Elite carbon for drinking, shower filter for chlorine, strips so you know when you need a softener.
As an Amazon Associate, OpenStats earns from qualifying purchases.
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