This Victoria Day weekend is a milestone of sorts – the 10th anniversary of the Walkerton water tragedy.
Half the residents of that small Midwestern Ontario town became ill from drinking water contaminated with E. coli, and seven people died. But the impact of the disaster went far beyond Walkerton. It has had a profound effect on how people in North Huron and every other municipality view our water supply, and changed the way municipalities do business.
Municipal water was always viewed as something that was there when we wanted it. All we had to do was turn on the tap and, like magic, a stream of crystal clear drinking water came out. Rural residents with wells were less naïve, especially those who have had to deal with chemicals and dead animals contaminating the water. But even they never imagined an entire town getting sick. No one did.
The inquiry into the tragedy revealed no single cause – a severe rainfall on a holiday weekend, not enough chlorine to destroy the E. coli bacteria that entered the water system, municipal staff without proper training and no one monitoring them. There were failures throughout the system, and without system-wide corrections, a similar tragedy in another community was inevitable.
Many of the recommendations that stemmed from the inquiry have been implemented. We now have requirements in place for training municipal employees in charge of water systems. And there are a host of strict regulations aimed at protecting municipal systems. Source protection for municipal water has been a major project across the province; source water protection plans for the various regions are expected to be in place by August 2012. In essence, municipal water systems will have two levels of protection – regulations to ensure contaminants do not get into the system, and proper treatment of the water in case they do.
The thing that has changed the most is our attitude. One might say that on that Victoria Day weekend a decade ago, we joined the rest of the world in regarding safe drinking water as something precious, to be cherished and protected.
In this part of the world, water – most of it clean and safe – seems to be everywhere. This area is cradled by the majestic Great Lakes, dotted with fish-filled smaller lakes, and crossed by sparkling rivers. We play in the water, throw junk in it, and squander it.
The way we waste drinking water would astound the residents of much of the world. People will walk miles to a rusty tap that produces a trickle of foul-smelling water, every drop of which is used, and consider themselves fortunate. We fill swimming pools with vast quantities of top quality drinking water and flush away huge volumes of it. What one household pours on the lawn on a summer afternoon would provide a good-sized village in an arid region with a week’s supply of water for drinking, cooking and washing.
Our present system in North Huron for protecting municipal water is far different from the one that failed the people of Walkerton. It is vastly improved, although not perfect. Changes will continue to be imposed that may appear to be too expensive or even unnecessary. In truth, some really are overkill – 99.9 per cent of the time. But there is always that one long weekend when it rains so hard the water gushes three feet out of the manholes…
Better to be safe.