POST WALKERTON CHANGES KEEP COMING

On January 11/12 the K-W record carried a story titled "Region poised to approve flood of water rules". On the exact same subject is an Opinion piece in today's (dated tomorrow) Woolwich Observer titled " New "downloading" - paying for useless rules". The differences in these storys are quite remarkable. Essentially the Region while suggesting that they were on top of things anyways believe that the overall idea of more water rules and regulations is O.K. because it will assist in water protection across the Grand River watershed and with provincial backing and authority. Steve Kannon of the Observer and Dave Brenneman of Woolwich township are much less pleased. They feel that many of these changes are knee jerk, superficial rules which penalize the majority of municipalities that were doing a conscientous job in the first place in regards to their water protection and treatment.

Perhaps this is a typical "slam the gate closed after the horse has bolted" scenario. I do know from reading I've done that the Walkerton disaster was a perfect storm. It was a result of provincial failures (M.O.E.) to enforce the rules on the books. It also was a failure in oversight by the Municipal authorities responsible for water safety in Walkerton and finally it was a horrid failure of individuals in Walkerton who were incompetent and grossly negligent. Finally it was also a failure decades earlier when the offending wells were drilled. They were in a ridiculously vulnerable location and warnings given at the time were both ignored and finally forgotten. What was needed was not more rules but more enforcement, competence and common sense. None were available.