Water and Wastewater Operational and Resourcing Structure Review

Project Overview

The Town of Penetanguishene is undertaking a review of its water and wastewater operational and resourcing structure to address ongoing labour challenges and ensure the long-term sustainability of these essential services.

Currently, water and wastewater services operate as separate teams with dedicated resources. While limited structural changes were implemented earlier in 2025, continuing with a dual‑team model is no longer considered sustainable. Factors such as staffing pressures, operational resilience, and long-term viability have prompted the Town to explore alternative service delivery models.

Two primary options will be presented to Town Council:

1. Full amalgamation of Water and Wastewater operations under continued Town management – Combining Water and Wastewater operations under the Town, creating one cross-trained, consolidated team to address staffing challenges and increase resilience.
2. Outsourcing to a third-party organization – Outsourcing water, wastewater or both combined operations to one external provider. Under this potential model, the third-party organization would determine its required staffing levels.

Our goal with this process is to enhance service quality, address province-wide labour shortages, improve response times to customers, and share workloads among resources. Financial impacts will be assessed during the review, however, minimizing taxpayer impact remains a priority for the Town and our Council.