THE CAMBRIDGE WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM

Cambridge currently has ten seperate wells spread between Preston, Galt and Hespeler. These wells have shifted over the years with wells "dropping off" for various reasons, usually unexplained. For example wells P6 and P7 were both located years ago in the Dumfries Conservation Area, north of the Grand River. My belief has long been that chemicals from Northstar Aerospace on Bishop St. resulted in the shutdown of both wells despite the Region of Waterloo refusing to ever confirm that. These chemicals would have included TCE, TCA and surprisingly well P6 was long tested for NDMA. Also the Cambridge water system includes wellfields such as Middleton Well System, Pinebush Well System, Shades Mill Well System and the Turnbull Well System. Today we will be looking at the Middleton Well System only. .................................................................................................... It has been my understanding for years that other than the vast costs of treating water taken directly from the Grand River; that the Middleton Wellfield water is the most expensive in the Region due to both the nearby Grand River influence as well as due to large amounts of industrial contamination including Trichloroethylene (TCE). The Middleton System consists of six wells namely G1, G1A, G2, G3, G14 and G15. Most of these are located at the south end of Cambridge, along the Grand River as it's leaving town on the way to Brantford. An expensive Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP) was installed for the purpose of treating the longterm presence (decades) of trichloroethylene. I had long been convinced that Canadian General Tower, on the banks of the Grand River, was the sole culprit of both pthalates in the Grand River and TCE in the Middleton Wellfield across the street. Apparently a nearby dry cleaning establishment has also been implicated regarding TCE spills. ......................................................................................... Unsurprisingly due to the influence of river water, there is one detection of E.Coli in the raw (untreated) water and many detections of Total Coliforms as well in the raw water. Turbidity has been high on a couple of occasions while chlorine levels are acceptable. Sodium levels are far too high at 140 mg/l. Solvents and herbicides have too many high Method Detection Limits (7) that are at greater than 1 part per billion (ppb) which can hide numerous positive detections. Glyphosate (Roundup) has a MDL of 25 ppb which is simply disgraceful. Then we come to trichloroethylene. It has thirteen positive detections (1/month except 2 in July) which vary from 1.16 ppb to 1.44 ppb. While the criteria is 5 ppb and hence these levels are legal, they are not indicative of a good or safe water supply in my opinion. First of all with the millions of dollars of treatment equipment installed why are these levels not zero? Are there variable costs that can be reduced by only treating down to these levels? In other words are these concentrations being deemed "acceptable" in order to save money? They are not acceptable after decades of citizen exposure to TCE and when there are likely numerous other low level solvents and herbicides present in the water. This is simply playing Russian roulette with citizens lives and health and is shameful. This is precisely why I am not a big supporter of the Region of Waterloo's environmental personna. This and their ability to hide the names of and protect the reputation of so many foul industrial polluters throughout the Region.