THIRTY-TWO YEARS LATER ONTARIO MANDATES NDMA REPORTING FOR WATERLOO REGION

Well I've been calling for many years for increases in the number of contaminants tested for in our drinking water such as toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes and NDMA or N-Nitrosodimethylamine. My suspicion of course has been that these toxic contaminants have been tested for for years (decades), detected and simply not reported in these Annual Reports (drinking water). According to page 9 of the recently released water report for 2021: "Municipal Drinking Water License 012-102 issue April 20, 2021 requires quarterly sampling Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) at the farthest pouint in the distribution system." This is on page 9 of the full on-line report (Region of Waterloo Annual Water reports) and on page 4 of the first report titled "Integrated Urban Water Distribution System (IUS)". ...................................................................................................... Yes NDMA is the contaminant which shut down the Elmira two wellfields in 1989-1990 courtesy of Uniroyal Chemical with likely assistance from Varnicolor Chemical. Just a small part of the political coverup was the plethora of other polluters in Elmira operating under the huge pollution umbrella of Uniroyal Chemical. This included Varnicolor, Nutrite (Yara), gas stations, landfills, and other industrial facilities. Now at first glance I noticed that despite the Order demanding quarterly sampling for NDMA there were only three samples taken last year. Then looking at the April issue date that became clearer versus my thirty years of experience initially indicating to me that the vast majority of environmental laws are routinely ignored and rarely enforced. ..................................................................................................... The criteria for NDMA in drinking water is 9 parts per trillion (9 ng/l or .009 ug/l). The three samples reported were .0014, .0033 and .0027 ug/l which is the same as 1.4, 3.3 and 2.7 parts per trillion. Gosh I wonder what the levels of NDMA throughout the Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge system were thirty years ago? We'll likely never know.