COCKTAILS STILL IN ELMIRA DRINKING WATER

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment and the Region of Waterloo have played us for fools over the last twenty years plus. The only local, allegedly independent citizens they have spoken the truth to; are the very few who agreed up front, in exchange for future access to private meetings, to keep key information confidential. This key information is that Elmira's "NEW" water supply in 1992 was also badly contaminated with industrial chemicals from local K-W factories.

Three separate groups of reports covering the time period of 1998 to last year paint a squalid picture of our drinking water. The least squalid (and truthful) reports are the Region of Waterloo's Annual Drinking Water Reports that can be found on line under Region of Waterloo. They repeatedly show TCE (trichloroethylene) at about half the current drinking water standard while subtly ignoring all the other detections.

The other two sets of reports are via the the provincial M.O.E, under the Drinking Water Surveillance Program (DWSP). These older reports encompass 1998- 1999 and 2000- 2002. There are numerous detections of Trihalomethanes and Haloacetic acids. These are known as disinfection byproducts and are a toxic addition to our water, in order to remove bacteria via chlorination. Then there are another dozen toxic industrial chemicals, solvents and pesticides. Oh and less I forget, there's even a detection of NDMA in Waterloo water. These chemicals are both in the raw water and in the treated water as the Region focuses on bacteria treatment not industrial chemicals. These chemicals include TCE, TCA, PERC, DCE, DCA, Xylene, Styrene, Vinyl Chloride and Phenathrene. Some are only at trace levels while others are higher.

This is the chemical cocktail we've switched to. Now I understand why certain CPAC members have given up on cleaning Elmira's groundwater. Their focus is air because they know that pure drinking water no longer exists in industrialized, urban areas.