The Toronto Monitoring Hub is a community-based water monitoring program that has been routinely overseeing the Lake Ontario shoreline since 2016. The Toronto Hub is one of many Swim Drink Fish Community-based water monitoring hubs across Canada. The purpose of the Toronto Hub is to advocate for the restoration of Lake Ontario and to support the growing recreational water community by providing water quality information for under-monitored areas.

We would like to acknowledge that the land on which Toronto Monitoring Hub exists and the staff and community scientists who participate in this work live is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. This place is also now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Peoples.

The Toronto Monitoring Hub’s work is inspired by the long history of indigenous land stewardship and waterkeeping in the region. The First Nation communities that live in the Great Lakes region have been taking care of and fostering a relationship with the water since time immemorial. Perhaps best exemplifying this environmental ethic is the Dish with One Spoon concept, which reminds us that it is our shared responsibility to take care of the land and water we depend on so that the health of all beings (human and non-human) is maintained for perpetuity.

The Toronto Hub was the first water monitoring hub at Swim Drink Fish and was created following concerns about the impact of combined sewer overflows in the Toronto Harbour. Over the years, we discovered that routine monitoring at recreational sites has a special power to connect people to water and restore and protect places they love.

in 2018 Swim Drink Fish received funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada to establish and support recreational water quality monitoring hubs in 6 communities along the Great Lakes following the model that the Toronto Hub had already created. This project helped define the goal of the Great Lakes Monitoring Hubs, which was to bring low-cost, reliable water quality monitoring to under-monitored and underrepresented sites across the Great Lakes. Our Water Monitoring Hubs now extend across Canada and continue to expand each year.

There are multiple ways you can get involved and support our work! We offer volunteer opportunities to help people learn about their local waters and become environmental advocates themselves.

Click here to learn more about Volunteering.