THE REGION OF WATERLOO'S DECEPTION IS COSTING LIVES

Can that above title be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in our court system? I would say yes given two conditions and those are unlimited funding and a scrupulously honest judge. The second condition is more likely than the first. The first I would indeed suggest is impossible.

Yesterday afternoon I had my information sharing sitdown with Woolwich Township. I will admit that I had doubts that the meeting would be valuable especially since the Engineering & Planning Director had reported back to Council at the public Council meeting the evening before. His information was based upon alleged facts given to him by the Region of Waterloo. In attendance were Councillors Mark Bauman and Bonnie Bryant as well as Mr. Kennalley the E & P Director. Both Councillors (especially Mark B.) have been on the receiving end of criticism from me here in the Advocate over the last few years, therefore they knew going in that short of personal exchanges/confidences; everything else was up for public distribution. Both Councillors were informed, serious, concerned and apparently eager for more technical information about the West Montrose water system and associated problems. Neither they nor I were disappointed.

While we focused on West Montrose, other Woolwich Township water problems were at least briefly mentioned. These included the Trichloroethylene contaminated water from the William St. Wellfield in Waterloo coming up to Elmira, chloramines in Maryhill's water, and the longtime presence of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in the natural environment in Heidelberg. Regarding West Montrose I was able to show the Councillors and Director some of the inconsistencies in regional reporting of Adverse Incidents. For example one incident of a high Turbidity (cloudy, discoloured water etc.) reading caused a Boil Water Advisory in West Montrose yet subsequent worse readings over the years weren't even reported as Adverse Incidents. Similarily the language in the Annual Reports is deceptive and not remotely clear or transparent. Even the reporting of Adverse Incidents which specifically refers to contraventions of the Safe Drinking Water Act are not so stipulated. The lack of any drinking water standards means these Reports are not stand alone reports as so much vital information is missing. I pointed out that the E.Coli and total Coliform detections in the raw water are in a class all their own and this is a very bad thing. Also exceedances of the Safe Drinking Water Act by chloramines are minimized by the Region not saying exceedances, not giving the exact numerical value and not telling us what the standard is. I believe all three Township officials left this meeting with a much improved understanding of how we all have been kept in the dark by the Region of Waterloo.

Information from Tuesday's council meeting was shared with me as I was attending a meeting of the Woolwich Bio-En Citizens Liason Committee at the same time as Council was in session. It is stunning. I was well aware that water tankers replenish the water reservoir on Tallwood Dr. in West Montrose. The public were advised Tuesday evening by Mr. Kennalley that the entire West Montrose well system has been shut down entirely for the last month and that water tankers are currently the sole source of water for the community. Nowhere in the Region's Annual Reports for the last ten years does it ever mention the necessity for diluting, supplementing or entirely replacing West Montorse's water supply. These tankers have augmented/diluted the water supply at the rate of four tankers per day during the warmer summer months and two tankers per day during the rest of the year. Further we were advised that while a brand new source of water is two to three years away (from K-W) via a pipeline; the current water treatment system using chlorine and chloramine is being scrapped. In fact a whole new system using Ultraviolet radiation is currently under construction thus necessitating the shutdown. Finally after more than a decade of being in charge of a water system with badly contaminated source water, the Region have gotten serious. Of course the new disinfection system still will be dealing with badly contaminted raw water and of course the Region of Waterloo would rather cut off their own arms than admit to serious and potentially deadly health issues over the years in West Montrose.

In my opinion the lying and deception are of a criminal magnitude. Year in and year out the Region of Waterloo have publicly and repeatedly advised the residents of West Montrose that their water was safe, secure and healthy. All three are blatant lies. Whether via the risk of bacterial contamination or the ongoing exceedances of health standards by the by-products of disinfection; West Montrose residents have been put in harms way by regional officials untruthfulness. West Montrose is not the only community in the Region of Waterloo who have sufferred due to contaminated water but it is decades overdue for all our authorities to tell us the uncomfortable and personally inconvenient truth.