2021 REGION OF WATERLOO ANNUAL REPORT (Water)

WILLIAM ST. WELLFIELD in Waterloo ............................................................................................................ This wellfield has been problematic for many decades. Personally I blame Seagram's, Canbar and Sunar although what weight or responsibility each should be assigned I do not know. The most obvious horrid contaminant is Trichlororethylene (TCE), the same toxin in both the Middleton Wellfield (Cambridge) as well as in the Bishop St. community (Cambridge) courtesy primarly of Northstar Aerospace with some additional assistance from another nearby industry. ................................................................................................................... The William St. Wellfield consists of four wells namely W1B, W1C, W2 and W3 according to page two of the report. The very next page however we are advised that Well W1C was off-line for one week which could easily have been for annual maintenance. Well W3 however was off-line for 52 weeks last year. That is not maintenance that is a well either shut down for serious contamination or in the alternative "pumping to waste" for the very same reason. "Pumping to waste" is an unfortunately common occurence when you have contaminated groundwater. One well nearest the source may be designated as an Interceptor Well whose purpose is to intercept the bulk of the contamination and pump it to waste i.e. into the nearest sewer, drain or surface water body. This is one of the "management" methods the Region of Waterloo use to stickhandle around proper contamiant remediation. ............................................................................................................................................ The next issue is Sodium. My God but people on low Sodium diets had better not be drinking this tap water. Levels greater than 20 mg/l are reported to the Public Health Department and Ministry of Environment. The William St. Wellfield has Sodium at a concentration of 228 mg/l. Surprisingly to me Nitrates are also high albeit below the criteria of 10 mg/l. Normally Nitrates and Nitrites might be high when cattle, pigs etc. are nearby as in rural areas. William St. is in downtown Waterloo. Regardless the concentrations are higher than most at just over 3 mg/l. ...................................................................................................... Method Detection Limits (MDLs) concern me throughout these Annual (Water) reports. There are eight chemical compounds with MDLs at or greater than 1 ug/l (part per billion) including Glyphosate at a ridiculous 25 ug/l. These high MDLs can hide far too many detections of chemicals that individually may not be toxic but in conjunction with each other are. The science of health effects from multiple simultaneous toxic compounds in drinking water is essentially non-existent. ........................................................................................................................... Then we have TCE. Monthly and more testing shows that it is always present despite minimal treatment. While the results are below the Ontario Drinking Water Standards (ODWS) nevertheless both on its own for a period of decades as well as in conjunction with other low level contaminants, I do not believe that our authorities have a handle on the long term health effects. Lastly chloramines (product of bacteria disinfection) are consistently higher than half the standard prescribed by the ODWS and are thus red flagged. Overall Waterloo residents deserve better than this.