OVERALL CONCLUSIONS/CONCERNS RE: 2010 WATER QUALITY REPORTS

At this point in time I've read the water reports for Cambridge and Waterloo in their entirety. I am currently in the middle of the Kitchener water reports. The following five points seem to be common to the vast majority of these reports.

1) The Summary Report with the details of Adverse Water Quality issues is mentioned in all these reports but is not included. This is the Report that I was earlier advised by the Regional water specialist (Peter Clarke) had to be approved by Regional Council before being released to the public. There is a smell in the air about this that I don't like.

2) The sheer number of wells either shut down for short periods (3-8 weeks) or shut down from 11 weeks up to the entire year. On top of this are wells missing in action entirely. Where did they go? Why are they no longer being used? Something is wrong when there are either no explanations or inadequate ones.

3) LEAD and THM's (Trihalomethanes). They are mentioned in the reports but there are no numbers included. Why not? There are numerical health standards for them and they are both huge issues. A partial report gives me zero confidence when it claims that all is well with our drinking water.

4) All the other common and ubiquitous water contaminants whose results are not included. Notice I didn't say which are not tested. NDMA, Toluene, Xylenes and Ethyl Benzene are just such a few of them.

5) Each well or series of wells have their water treatment described. Chlorination and chloramination are the common bacterial disinfectant methods used. What I'm having a little trouble with is the claim that UV (ultraviolet) is used as a disinfectant (bacterial) treatment. Here in Elmira, years ago, we were advised that UV was THE superior treatment for NDMA removal. Combine this anomaly with 4) NDMA results not being listed and you can understand my concern.

These concerns will all shortly be brought to the attention of the Region of Waterloo. Nevertheless they are obvious enough that they should all have been addressed up front in the reports themselves and not require further chasing.