CAMBRIDGE - MIDDLETON WELLFIELD (RMOW REPORT) & MUNICIPAL REPORT

Well it's not getting any better. The huge expense for the Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP) several years back certainly has not removed all the trichloroethylene (TCE) from the treated drinking water. My guess would be that the Region however do not have to dilute the treated water from those wells with other water as much as they used to. My interpretation of the expenses listed leads me to continue to believe that after the massive treatment costs associated with treating Grand River water, that the Middleton Wellfield remains the second most expensive to treat water in the Region of Waterloo.

The municipal report for the City of Cambridge covers all the water from many, many different wells and wellfields. There are significant issues including a very high maximum Heterotrophic Plate Count (HPC) of 260 Coliform Units per 100 ml of water. HPC counts while an indicator of overall bacteriological presence in the water are not necessarily hard and fast determinants of unsanitary water. Nevertheless they are used by water treatment managers and their systems and while there is not a hard criteria or guideline I did see the suggestion on-line of 10 CFU being achievable by all municipal water systems. Also I might add that to date in looking at Waterloo and Woolwich water, none of them are even close to a maximum CFU (Coliform Forming Units) of 260.

Sodium at 138 mg/l is also far in excess of the recommended 20 mg/l guideline. Also there were 5 exceedances for lead of 117 samples taken in individual plumbing systems.

Getting back to the Regional report on the Middleton Wellfield, it is clear that those wells are under the influence of Grand River water. There was one detection in the raw water of E.Coli as well as twenty detections (raw water) of Total Coliforms. The maximum HPC count was a stunning 220 which tells the tale both as to how large the percentage of Cambridge's water comes from the Middleton Wellfield as well as how poor the quality of the raw water can be at certain times. Only to add to these problems is a Sodium concentration of 140 mg/l which exceeds the recommended 20 mg/l guideline.

Similar to all the other water systems in the Region we have ten industrial/agricultural chemicals with high Method Detection Limits with Glyphosate (Roundup) leading the pack with a MDL of 25 parts per billion (ppb).

By the way the highest trichloroethylene (TCE) concentration found in our drinking water in 2019 was 1.89 ppb which while below the current provincial criteria of 5 ppb is still much too high both on its own and when you look at all the other issues and problems in the water. It is my belief that the day will come when science is able to prove major adverse health effects in drinking water today that we the public have been assured is of good quality.