Buckingham Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

Buckingham's drinking water is managed by the Ville de Gatineau (Buckingham is a former municipality now a district of Gatineau), drawing from the Rivière du Lièvre — Buckingham is a historic pulp-and-paper mill town on the Rivière du Lièvre east of the main Gatineau urban area, a former francophone working-class industrial community now a residential district of Gatineau serving the Outaouais region. Water undergoes coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, UV disinfection, and chloramination, meeting all Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality (GCDWQ) requirements. Hardness measures 119 mg/L (6.9 gpg) — classified as hard by Health Canada, harder than the main Gatineau Ottawa River supply (~104 mg/L) and reflecting the Rivière du Lièvre source character.

Buckingham draws from the Rivière du Lièvre — a major north-flowing tributary of the Ottawa River rising from the Laurentian Shield south of the Mont-Tremblant plateau. The Lièvre watershed drains the Laurentian Highlands through mixed Precambrian metasedimentary and granitic terrain — similar to the main Ottawa River supply but with a slightly higher mineral content at 119 mg/L, reflecting the specific Lièvre watershed geology and its passage through some carbonate-influenced foothills terrain east of the main Gatineau corridor. The 119 mg/L is consistent with the session's Outaouais regional reference (~104 mg/L for the main Ottawa River zone, with east-corridor variations up to 119 mg/L).

At 119 mg/L, Buckingham homes experience moderate scale deposits — cleaning every two months is advisable. Hot water tanks benefit from periodic inspection and flushing. Water quality information is published following Ministère de l'Environnement standards. Health Canada lead precautionary guidance applies to Buckingham's substantial pre-1975 industrial-era working-class housing stock in the old mill-town centre.