MONTHLY TCE TESTING & HIGH MDL's

Out of all the drinking wells in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and the Townships, the following wells are the only ones routinely tested monthly for Trichloroethylene (TCE): Middleton Wellfield (thank you Cnd. General Tower), Well P6 Dumfries Conservation Area (thank you Northstar & Rozell (G.E.)), William St. Wellfield Waterloo (thank you Sunar & Canbar). The one other at a minimum that should be tested monthly is Well G9 (thank you Allen-Bradley) because it is annually detecting TCE and should be tested monthly like the others. Although three out of four wells in this list are Cambridge wells which speaks poorly for their water quality, the fourth is Waterloo which is of direct consequence to those of us in Elmira and St. Jacobs getting our water via pipeline from Waterloo.

Swinging back to Cambridge two wells there have unusually high Method Detection Limits (MDLs). These are Well P16 near the border between Kitchener and Cambridge and Well P6 again near Bishop St. Interestingly enough Well P16 was shut down for the entire year ie. 2010. Over the years I have been told by private hydrogeologists as well as M.O.E. employees that high MDLs are usually the result of substantial concentrations of other chemicals (contaminants) in the groundwater and apparently their presence makes it more difficult to determine the identity of the chemicals being tested for. Therefore a higher MDL is required to positively identify them. In regards to Well P6, although they to date aren't detecting TCE it makes we suspect that there are other contaminants from Northstar and Bishop St. present such as 1,1,1 TCA , NDMA which aren't being reported but are raising the MDLs for other chemicals.