BULLSHIT BAFFLES BRAINS

Whose bullshit? Mostly the Region of Waterloo and a little of the Min. of Environment. Whose brains? Yours, mine and all the public. 36 questions were asked, 11 of them I had marked on my copy as barnburners. Of these eleven key questions the Region responded to three questions with direct, specific answers. Five of the questions they absolutely waffled, stickhandled and did not answer. The remaining three they answered by saying that neither the province nor the legislation requires them to provide that important data in their Annual Reports . In yesterday's posting I mentioned one "idiotic" answer by the Region. Upon rereading their answer I have put it into the above non-answer, waffle group of five questions. Their response of "The statement is for information only" actually is a gutless way of saying "NO" that the neither the Safe Drinking Water Act nor Ontario Regulation 170/03 make any reference to "short term on-line analyser spikes".

The overall score for the Region's answers is thusly: there were 18 out of 36 responses directly related to the question.
Of those 18, six of the responses were that they didn't supply the requested information in their Annual Report because they didn't have to. Six more responses directed me either on-line or back to the Township for the answer. Keep in mind it is understandable that based upon the Region's overall performance here I have little confidence in the answers they did give which directly related to the questions I asked.

For me what are the biggest issues, answers and non-answers? The above first paragraph indicating that the Region and M.O.E. have joined forces to interpret chloramine exceedances as being "short term" without either party indicating some backup in the legislation (SDWA or O.Reg 170/03). Then the M.O.E. advising that they are going to remove the obligation for the Region to continue reporting these in their Annual Reports is bizarre.

Neither the Region nor the M.O.E. answered my question as to whether the Ministry has given the Region permission to operate the West Montrose wells with Turbidity (cloudiness etc.) above guidelines or standards. The Region claims that "filtered water effluent is consistently below the regulatory reportable limit when water is directed to the consumer.". That did not answer my question. Turbidity is measured prior to consumer distribution for a very good reason. It affects the abilty to disinfect bacteria etc. from the water. The guidelines I have and which the Region refused to state their guidelines, indicate that Turbidity is too high both in raw water and in cartridge filtered water.

They refused to answer three other urgent questions namely : "Is it essentially impossible to remove 100% of all E.Coli and Coliforms from West Montrose wells without exceeding 3 mg/l of chloramines on a regular basis?"
"Is NDMA formation by chloramines increased in the presence of dimethylamine which is ubiquitous in municipal and septic wastewaters?"
"Up until 2013 the Region included the actual chloramine readings. Now they simply show the greater than symbol ie. > for exceedances. Why the change?

Last but not least is NDMA levels not being reported in the Annual Reports. Shame on the province , shame on the Ministry of the Environment and shame on the Region of Waterloo. Put that and much more in your Annual Reports or don't bother wasting our time with more sham, mickey mouse reports that are more for show than clarification.