2010 ANNUAL WATER QUALITY REPORTS

These reports are produced by the Region of Waterloo as mandated by the provincial Safe Drinking Water Act. Although there is certainly useful information in them nevertheless I've found them to be unnecessarily obtuse. For example there is absolutely no reason not to have the Ontario Drinking Water Standard value for each specific chemical included . This would give us for example a better idea as to whether values for Glyphosate at < 25 ppb (less than 25) are a worry or not. Also actual values are always better than "the less than" character (<). Being told that Picloram is less than 1.5 ppb is not as helpful as knowing that there is 1 ppb Picloram for example. Another huge complaint I have are the number of common solvents and chemicals which are not included. Toluene, xylenes, NDMA, Dioxins, Ethyl Benzene and many more should be included. Finally the MDL's or Method Detection Limits are far too high. Too many of these chemicals have MDL's of 1 ppb or higher. This is a concern because ten chemicals present in the water at part per trillion levels could be of greater concern than 1 chemical present at 1 ppb. With high MDL's we will never see these low level detections. Over the coming weeks I expect to study these reports in more detail and give further comments on them.