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Drinking Water Quality and Supply

Vancouver 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 average113 mg/L · prov. avg 162 mg/L
Lead vs provincial average0.1 μg/L · prov. avg 0.4 μg/L
Hardness
113 mg/L
Lead
0.1 μg/L
≤ 5 μg/L
pH
7.6
6.5–8.5 range
Hardness
113 mg/L
Moderate
Lead
0.1 μg/L
Max: 5 μg/L
pH
7.6
6.5–8.5
Chlorine
0.6 mg/L
Max: 4 mg/L

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Reading this page

Vancouver's drinking water earns Grade C (Fair). Hardness is 113 mg/L (moderate), and pH is 7.6 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.

Lead at 0.1 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 Vancouver 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: high

Source waters

  • Capilano Reservoir
  • Seymour Reservoir
  • Coquitlam Reservoir

Treatment plants

  • Seymour Capilano Filtration Plant

    Metro Vancouver plant treating Capilano and Seymour source water (filtration and UV); Canada’s largest drinking-water filtration plant.

  • Coquitlam Water Treatment Plant

    Metro Vancouver plant treating Coquitlam source water with ozone, UV, and chlorine; typically unfiltered because of historically low turbidity.

Distribution

City of Vancouver purchases wholesale treated water from Metro Vancouver (Greater Vancouver Water District) and operates the local distribution system of mains, reservoirs, and services within city limits.

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)113 mg/L
pH (city vs British Columbia avg)7.6
Lead (city vs British Columbia avg)0.1 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
Hardness113 mg/LNo health limit (aesthetic)Compliant
pH7.66.5–8.5Compliant
Lead0.1 μg/L≤ 5 μg/LCompliant
Fluoride0.7 mg/L≤ 1.5 mg/LCompliant
Chlorine (free)0.6 mg/L≤ 4 mg/LCompliant
Turbidity3.4 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.