FIDDLING WHILE WEST MONTROSE BURNS

The fiddling mentioned above did cost $150,000. An Ultraviolet (UV) Disinfection System was installed in January 2015. I've reviewed the Region of Waterloo's ANNUAL (Drinking Water) REPORT for the last three years and there are improvements. I would suggest that their drinking water has moved from third world grossly contaminated raw water being overdosed with chlorine to third world raw water being better treated at the end of the pipe. It still has too high chloramines and Trihalomethanes (THMs) but not nearly as bad as it was in 2013. The problem is still the highly bacteria contaminated raw water in the four West Montrose wells.

It is this high bacteria counts including Total Coliform and E.Coli that are the problem. E.Coli killed seven and made a couple of thousand people very sick in Walkerton in 2000. For the last two years I have been posting here and going to Woolwich Council warning the public about the West Montrose drinking water. The Region have claimed that the high bacteria counts are solely due to the influence of the nearby Grand River. While surface water does have higher bacteria counts than groundwater normally; commonsense would indicate that West Montrose's homes being on septic systems are also the culprit. This leachate from the tiles in the septic system flows with the groundwater, you guessed it, directly towards the wells down by the Grand River.

Justice O'Connor preached in his final Report from the Walkerton Inquiry that drinking water requires a multi barrier approach. These barriers, literally from groundwater to your kitchen sink, are to ensure redundancys in the drinking water system. In other words even only a short term breakdown or bypass in treatment will not have catastrophic results similar to Walkerton. West Montrose for years has been a catastrophe in waiting. Either human or mechanical failure and the highly bacteria contaminated water will be in your body with possibly fatal results or longterm permanent damage.

If bacteria are the short term acute issue then THMs and Chloramines are the longterm health issue. There are studies indicating higher rates of cancer in water systems with high chloramines and THMs. The scary part in West Montrose is that both are present. Normally by using sodium hypochlorite and ammonium sulphate to produce chloramine versus straight chlorine this tends to reduce the formation of THMs which are a by-product of chlorine and organic compounds in the raw water. I can only believe that the presence of both is caused by the high doses required to kill all the bacteria in the raw water.

The only solution is a new water source for West Montrose and while I do not agree that eventually hooking them into the Integrated Urban Supply (IUS) via St. Jacobs is necessarily the best solution, it will get them less bacteria contaminated water. Meanwhile these ANNUAL REPORTS still don't mention how much water the Region are trucking into West Montrose each year, month or day. While these Reports are bad news is it possible that they are bogus? Could the Region be trucking in enough water to make these reports simply an academic exercise? Why are the public and West Montrose still in the dark regarding this life and death matter?