With an early 20th-century Toronto plagued with water shortages and unclean drinking water, public health advocates such as George Nasmith and Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, Charles Hastings, campaigned for a modern water purification system.
The water treatment plant was constructed on the former site of Victoria Park, a waterfront amusement park that operated from 1878 until 1906. The amusement park was initially served by ferry from York Street until 1895 when streetcar service commenced. After the park closed in 1906, Victoria Park Forest School opened and used the site until 1932. Construction on the plant began in 1932 and the building became operational on November 1, 1941. The building, unlike most modern engineering structures, was also created to make an architectural statement. Fashioned in the Art Deco style, the cathedral-like structure remains one of Toronto's most admired buildings. It is, however, little known to outsiders. The interiors are just as opulent with marble entryways and vast halls filled with pools of water and filtration equipment. The plant has thus earned the nickname The Palace of Purification.
Use
Despite its age, the plant is still fully functional, providing approximately 45% of the water supply for Toronto and York Region. The intakes are located over from shore in of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake. Water is also chlorinated in the plant and then pumped to various reservoirs throughout the City of Toronto and York Region.
Access
The facility grounds have been made available to the public. Despite some concerns of vulnerability to an attack on the water supply since the September 11 attacks, the grounds have remained open to the public, but security has been increased. In the summer of 2007, construction began on the installation of an underground Residual Management Facility allowing processed waste to be removed before discharging into the lake. This construction has since been completed.
Recognition
In 1992, the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was named a national historic civil engineering site by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. It was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1998. The plant appeared on a stamp issued by Canada Post in 2011, in a series showcasing five notable Art Deco buildings in Canada.
In popular culture
The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant has been used in dozens of films and television series as a prison, clinic, or headquarters.
The building of the plant is vividly recounted in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion
The headquarters of "The Man" in the 2002 comedy Undercover Brother
