MOECC: MINISTER'S ANNUAL REPORT ON DRINKING WATER 2015

"I am pleased to note that 99.8 per cent of more than 533,000 test results from municipal residential drinking water systems met Ontario's strict drinking water quality standards in 2014-2015." That quote is from page two and it is puffery. First off Ontario's drinking water quality standards are not strict. They are outdated. Secondly there are a hundred ways to fudge statistics and professional liars know them all. Or quoting Winston Churchill there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

The MOECC brags about their work with the Great Lakes, climate change, the Great Lakes Protection Act, the Canada-Ontario agreement on Great Lakes water quality..., ending coal-fired electricity generation and more. They brag about water treatment improvements in aboriginal communities as well as allegedly innovative new technologies. Then they move on to Source Water protection. It took them (and others) sixteen years after the Walkerton tragedy and scandal to get the last three source protection plans in Ontario finished. You guessed it, the Grand River plan came in dead last. That's about par for the course.

Emerging issues such as blue-green algae and microplastics and microbeads are involved in this issue. Blue-gree algae is not an emerging issue. It was part of the death of Lake Erie in the 60s and it simply has come back with a vengeance. Mix warmer water tempuratures with nitrogen and phosphorus and you have this toxic algae present. Microbeads are found in personal products such as skin cleansers and washes. Allegedly they are in the process of being banned. Really, here in Ontario where the unholy dollar rules? They will be banned AFTER those making money have found an alternative that makes them more money, not before.

Last spring I presented a report to Woolwich Council regarding significant issues in Woolwich Township's drinking water. They included horrendous raw water problems (Coliforms & E.Coli) in West Montrose amongst others. Council actually embraced them and claimed that they would pass them along to both the Region and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOECC). Problems included a failure to test for and report publicly on many ubiquitous chemicals in our drinking water including NDMA and gasoline compounds courtesy of old, leaking gas stations. Industrial chemicals often have detection limits that are far too high. Glyphosate (Roundup) is one of the worst with a Detection Limit of 25 parts per billion. The list of issues goes on and on. Shame on the M.O.E. for yet again spreading their bullshit far and wide.