MICROPLASTICS ONLY ONE POLLUTANT UNTESTED FOR IN OUR DRINKING WATER

Today's Waterloo Region Recorsd has a front page article titled "Research looks at amount of microplastics in our water supply". "Researchers at the University of Waterloo are working with engineers at the Region of Waterloo to better understand the concentrations of microplastics in our local water supply." The researchers are trying to determine how much microplastics are in our drinking water supply before it's treated, how may are there after treatment and finally how many are being discharged to our waterways from our sewage treatment plants. Concerning our drinking water supply that would include over one hundred groundwater wells as well as the Grand River in Kitchener. I strongly suspect that our groundwater wells should be clear of microplastics whereas likely the Grand River is chock full of them. The fact that they are in the Grand River would seem to be to be prima facie evidence that they are leaving our homes and industries, travelling through the various sewage treatment plants and then being discharged into our surface waterways to possibly be enjoyed yet again in our drinking water. That all depends upon the already horrifically expensive treatment of the Grand River water going into our household taps. ............................................................................................................. The Region of Waterloo's Annual (Drinking Water) Reports are coming out in about eight days. Despite literally thousands of new chemicals being discovered/manufactured and used in our society, the Region and probably other water distributers in Ontario only test for a very limited number of chemicals. They don't test for or at least publish results for NDMA, toluene, asbestos fibres etc. Lead results are tucked away within municipal water results and are less obvious versus the regional reports for each municipality. NDMA was in Elmira's drinking water likely for a couple of decades prior to its' alleged "discovery" in November 1989. It is unconscionable that it still is not routinely being tested for in our regional Annual Reports. There are also other DNAPL chemicals probably in our drinking water above and beyond trichloroethylene (TCE) that are not either being tested for or their results published. The list goes on and on.