Sherbrooke leads in drinking water conservation

The City of Sherbrooke is now boasting that it is has become a Quebec leader in terms of conservation of drinking water, as the most recent data indicates the City has clearly surpassed government objectives and well below the Quebec average. This enviable performance also places Sherbrooke among the top ten cities in Quebec.

Council has adopted the 2016 results from the Quebec Strategy for Drinking Water Savings. indicating that water consumption per person per day was 395 liters in Sherbrooke last year, while the government target set the bar at less than 622 liters and the Quebec average was 573 liters in 2015.

In Sherbrooke, leakage and loss in the water system accounted for 6.6 per cent of total drinking water production in 2016, or 4.8 cubic meters per day per kilometer of pipe. These results are three times lower than the targets set by the Quebec government and are well below what is found in some large Quebec cities, where not less than one-third of drinking water is lost due to leaks and losses.

"We have something to be proud of. Despite a relatively large increase in the population served by the water system in recent years, our total drinking water production is decreasing year by year. These results are the envy of other municipalities, "said Mayor Bernard Sévigny.

This enviable performance is due in particular to sustained efforts to detect leaks and the implementation of processes to limit losses. It is also due to the cooperation of citizens and industry, business, and institutional stakeholders (ICI) in terms of saving drinking water.

To meet government objectives, the City will have to spend an extra $1 million per year to expand its drinking water treatment plants, treat drinking water and wastewater, and repair leaks of its aqueduct network.

In addition, according to the 2015 drinking water consumption data of the ten major cities in Québec in the City of Sherbrooke stands out in several respects:

- Only three cities use less water per person per day than Sherbrooke;

- No other city has water losses, based on the percentage of production and network length, lower than those of Sherbrooke;

- Loss of drinking water in the Sherbrooke water system is significantly less than that of other cities.

It should be noted that the adoption of the 2016 results report of the Québec Drinking Water Strategy is a requirement of the Government of Québec to have access to the various water and sewer infrastructure subsidy programs managed by The Department of Municipal Affairs and Land Occupancy.