MORE ON WEST MONTROSE WATER

Well first off I have received an e-mail from Dan Kennalley of Woolwich Township advising me of the timing and availablity of the Staff Report being presented to Woolwich Council on April 14/15. If I were to have a bias towards Dan it would be a positive one due to regularily reading his Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters stories in their monthly magazine. Also he shares a fishing passion with my good friend Richard Clausi. This is the Staff Report dealing with the West Montrose water supply.

I have read the 2014 Region of Waterloo Annual Drinking Water Report for West Montrose. On its' own it appears substantially better than the 2013 Report. The Woolwich chlorine and microbiological Table on page 98 & 99 in the March 24/15 Council Minutes shows zero non-compliance in the West Montrose Distribution system for both 2013 and 2014. Then on page 101 in these same Minutes we have a somewhat different Table presumably produced by the Region of Waterloo indicating a reduction from 12 occurrences of non-compliance in the West Montrose Distribution System in 2013, reduced to two incidents of non-compliance in 2014. How can this be you ask yourself? Whatever the reasoning the Regional Annual Drinking Water Reports are designed by the Ministry of Environment (M.O.E.) to understate issues and indeed hide many while the municipal Reports are even worse. Part of the issue would include the fact that Woolwich are more concerned with the end of the Distribution System and the Region more concerned with both the beginning of the System as well as the raw water.

Taken as a whole and looking at the last eleven years of drinking water in West Montrose I am surprised that there haven't been outbreaks of E.Coli poisoning. Certainly the Boil Water Advisorys in 2004, 2005 and 2008 speak to a water system in crisis. The Region and M.O.E.'s claims of quantity problems only not quality problems in West Montrose are blatant lies. There is a very thick report produced by AECOM Canada Ltd. in January 2013 which is much more forthcoming. It is titled "West Montrose Water Supply Class Environmental Assessment: Project File Report" and is on-line.

The other mitigating factor is the Region bringing in water tankers for years, allegedly to solve water quantity problems alone. In fact this water is helping to dilute both the bacterial problems and the excesses of by-products of disinfection such as THMs, Chloramines, NDMA and Haloacetic Acids. The chloramines measured by the way I believe are monochloramine alone not dichloramine and trichloramine which are also health issues. Despite these tanker loads of water from outside the community, the residents of West Montrose have been and are still being exposed to dangerous levels of carcinogenic chemicals. The lack of testing and reporting of NDMA alone is quite shocking. It's hardly as if the excuse of twenty-five years ago, that nobody had heard of NDMA, is going to fly now.