EXACTLY HOW MANY YEARS HAS THE GREENBROOK WELLFIELD BEEN SHUT DOWN SINCE 2000 ?

 

This is but one of the retreaded wellfields that Waterloo Region are reopening in their desperation to keep builders and developers happy. Don't worry they do the risk calculations and theoretically at least while your risk of getting cancer will certainly rise with all these contaminated aquifers being put back in service; the numbers may be tiny such as an increase from 2 or 3 "excess" cancers in a million to a marginally greater 4 "excess" cancers in a million. No worries there especially as hardly any of us have friends, colleagues or relatives suffering cancers, past cancers or fatal cancers. Right?

 The Greenbrook Wellfield wells, K1, K2, K4B, K5A and K8 were all on standby status from at least 2003 until 2007. Newspaper accounts also advise us that that situation has continued during the 2020s whether from a chlorine/ammonia screwup and explosion or from the 1,4 dioxane contamination that came from the Ottawa St. Landfill. Now there have also been well redrills and replacements in this wellfield as the current wells are now known as K1A, K2A, K4C. K5A and K8.  These machinations if you will are common practice for the Region when they have "problematic" wells and examples in Cambridge for example include drilling past and through a contaminated zone of a well in order to pump water from a deeper less contaminated or uncontaminated zone.   

It is my opinion that this Grand River Source Protection Area Assessment Report Chapter 8, July 29, 2025 is unnecessarily thick and inflated with data that is at best filler or meant to make reading difficult and tedious. That said with enough patience and tenacity and overall knowledge a serious person can find much to be concerned with regarding this wellfield. Firstly the chances of 1,4 dioxane being the only toxic contaminant to reach the Greenbrook Wellfield from the Ottawa St. Landfill is somewhere between zero and nil. Look for benzene, chlorinated solvents and all the usual array of industrial solvents that were dumped there including by Elmira industries such as Varnicolor Chemical and if I might hazard a guess probably Uniroyal Chemical as well back in the day. Paper restrictions were strong whereas physical restrictions were not.

Other issues include high chlorides and high sodiums maybe from road salt but also common from industrially contaminated aquifers. Also I should applaud at least a couple of the Figures in this report as they do identify the Total Number of Significant Threat Activities as well as the Total Number of Properties with Significant Threats. Those numbers are huge (630, 379). They also indicate both High Unadjusted Intrinsic Vulnerability levels for this wellfield as well as High Adjusted Intrinsic Vulnerability threats to water quality. 

Waterloo Region are desperate to keep the water flowing and in my opinion they are risking your and my health for their own benefit. What else is new when it comes to water protection.