BACK TO THE CAMBRIDGE WATER SUPPLY

As mentioned on Friday there are ten separate wells along with four different Wellfields supplying Cambridge's drinking water. On Friday we discussed the most expensive to treat Wellfield namely the Middleton Wellfield. Today we will discuss three of the individual ten wells namely, G4, G5 and G6. ......................................................................................................................... These three wells are found in Galt (i.e. G prefix) and G4 consists of wells G4 and G4A. Strangely these wells do not operate together but with only one operating at a time. Hence G4 was offline for 31 weeks in 2020 and G4A was offline for 20 weeks in 2020. This sounds suspiciously to me like musical chairs i.e. musical wells such that one operates until a contaminant plume has been drawn into it whereupon it gets shut off and then the other one starts up until the plume has been drawn over into it. And so forth. Bacteria levels in the raw water are very low and Turbidity (murkiness) is also low. The higher chlorine levels in the treated water are within a whisker of the maximum allowed namely 3 mg./liter. Sodium levels are high at 96.7 mg/l. Both Nitrates and Nitrites are at very low levels. .................................................................................................... Solvents and herbicides are similar to those discussed earlier with far too many (eight) high Method Detection Limits possibly/likely hiding low levels of these contaminants. Glyphosate is still the prizewinner (booby prize) with a MDL of 25 parts per billion (ppb). There are no results given in this report for Haloacetic Acids (HAA) or Trihalomethanes (THM) and there could and should be. .................................................................................................................... Well G5 consists of two wells namely G5 and G5A and they too only operate one at a time. The other possibility here is that there is a narrow contaminant plume which fluctuates vertically. In other words pumping possibly from one well but at different depths (i.e. different well screens) may be fine for a while until the plume is drawn to it. Then by stopping pumping at that elevation and pumping at the other depth (well screen) may draw cleaner water again for only so long befor the plume has been drawn towards the pumping. Hence again, musical chairs with the pumping. While the Region may view this as "managing" a contaminated water supply, it is still a contaminated water supply and very dangerous to do. Here again the Region are not being transparent or clear with their citizens and water consumers as to what exactly they are doing at this well and others. Similar to well G4 here we have well G5A shut down for 16 weeks in 2020 and well G5 shut down for 37 weeks. Both systems were shut down simultaneously for two weeks in 2020. During times of watering bans and water rationing this seems incongruous unless absolutely necessary for safety reasons and we should be so told. .......................................................................................................................... Sodium levels are at a ridiculous 243 mg/l and more than simply reporting them to the Health Department needs to occur. Nitrates are occasionally high albeit below the criteria. There are similar problems with solvent and herbicide MDLs as well as Glyphosate (Roundup) having a MDL at a ridiculous 25 ppb. Two by-products of disinfection HAAs and THM values are not shown in this report. ...................................................................................................................... Well G6 is on its own and was connected in 2020 to the Turnbull Water Treatment Plant at a cost of $1,200,000. While additional water treatment is rarely an error it does beg the question why. No answer here in these reports folks. Also well G6 was left offline for the entire year. What the heck??? Does Cambridge have excess water that we the public are unaware of or is this well seriously in need of better treatment? Also looking more carefully at the dates for both solvent and herbicide testing, they haven't been done since 2017! Even then they sufferred from the same problems as the rest with too many huigh MDLs and no results for HAAs and THMs. It does not take a full year simply to pipe water from one well to a different treatment system. A $1,200,000 bill for a "connection" to a different treatment system is on the surface, nonsensical. Again far more information needs to be provided to citizens and water consumers by these Region of Waterloo Annual Reports.