Secret list cites 120 water woes

By SUSAN BOURETTE

July 18, 2000 Web posted at: 3:37 PM EDT (1937 GMT)

In this story: Lessons learned? Problem widespread RELATED STORIES

TORONTO, Ontario (Toronto Globe & Mail Online) -- A secret watchlist prepared by Ontario's Environment Ministry pinpoints 120 cities, towns, seniors' residences, schools and campsites across the province that have problems with their water supply.The list has been kept hidden from the public despite calls on Premier Mike Harris to release the information in the wake of the Walkerton tragedy.

The report -- parts of which have been obtained by The Globe and Mail -- offers the first glimpse into just how far-reaching water problems are across the province.

The Environment Ministry has refused to comment on the document. There is no indication as to whether drinking water poses a health risk to citizens in many of the affected communities, although public-health officials say they are working to fix any water problems in the province.

Some believe the situation is far worse than suggested by the ministry's own study.

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From Toronto to Thunder Bay and scores of communities in between, the 57-page "privileged and confidential" report chronicles everything from gasoline contamination to the presence of the cryptosporidium parasite or E. coli bacterium.

In the Thunder Bay region, for example, public-health officials are so concerned by the presence in lakes and rivers of the dangerous parasite giardia that they have issued boil-water orders and advisories for 700 camp sites and four neighbouring municipalities.

Some of the orders have been issued as a preventive measure in areas where officials believe water-filtration systems wouldn't be able to cope with an outbreak of the parasite.

Giardia causes a disease commonly known as beaver fever, because it can spread to humans through contact with water containing beaver excrement.

"There's a beaver on every other rock up here," said Dr. Peter Sarsfield, medical officer of health for the Northwestern Health Unit in Kenora, Ont.

He said that his office has received numerous reports of giardia.

"Some people would say we're just covering our asses after Walkerton. We're not waiting for the falling bodies. If we know there is contamination in the source and that the filtration system doesn't have the capacity to fix it, we're issuing a boil-water advisory."

At least seven people have died and 2,000 others have fallen ill since the water supply in Walkerton became contaminated with a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria in mid-May.

Residents were subsequently advised to bring water to a rolling boil for five minutes.

Meanwhile, Liberal Opposition Leader Dalton McGuinty reiterated his demand that the government release the full report in the interests of public safety. But he also questions the thoroughness of the study, given that festering problems in northern communities such as White River and North Bay are not mentioned in the document.

"I'm suspicious, given that problems that we know of aren't even on the list. It's very troubling," Mr. McGuinty said Friday in an interview from White River, a community just north of Lake Superior, where he met with officials to talk about foul water in their town.

The town has launched a lawsuit against the government after repeated pleas for help in fixing a faulty chlorination system fell on deaf ears. The Environment Ministry installed the system itself 15 years ago, and it has never worked properly, local politicians say.

"The people here are very frightened and angry that the government isn't drawing any lessons from Walkerton," Mr. McGuinty said.

He said he finds it particularly galling that Mr. Harris has kept details of Ontario's water problems as dirty secrets -- particularly since Mr. Harris himself called on previous governments to release such information.

In November of 1994, dissatisfied with government disclosure on problems at water-treatment plants, Mr. Harris admonished Bud Wildman, then environment minister in the New Democratic Party government: "Never have I heard a more holier-than-thou attitude. You're the Minister. People in Ontario are entitled to know."

Meanwhile, worry rippled throughout the Premier's hometown of North Bay last week. The Environment Ministry released a report that said the community's water was "hopelessly inadequately treated" and posed a serious health risk. But the region's medical officer of health denounced the ministry study, assuring North Bay residents the water is safe to drink.

Mike Bragg, director of Public Health and Planning for the Oxford County Board of Health in Woodstock, Ont., said the Environment Ministry appears to be scrambling to keep on top of the province's water problems.

"I think it's really good that everyone is sharing information now because it's been a real struggle for public health units in the past to get information," Mr. Bragg said. "If anything, we're being overnotified by the ministry right now."

A large swath of southwestern Ontario has been identified in the report. About 75 percent of private wells in the Oxford area, for example, have been found to have E. coli or other coliform contamination.

"That's a terrible, nasty number," Mr. Bragg acknowledged.

The community of Innerkip has been particularly hard hit because of torrential downpours this spring. A nearby apartment complex where 30 seniors live in Princeton, Ont., was also included in the report. It has been operating for years without a chlorination system. One is now being installed, Mr. Bragg said.

No part of the province appears to be unaffected. In the Blue Mountains near Collingwood, Ont., the Pinery Plaza, which contains a restaurant and a Becker's store, has been issued with a boil-water advisory after E. coli and other coliform bacteria were found in the mall's drinking water. A nearby condominium project, where 200 people live, received the same advisory.

The report cited other communities for problems that stretch back several months.

Craig Cullen, superintendent of local utilities in Russell, Ont., near Ottawa, said the Environment Ministry was first alerted to problems with the town's drinking water last year. Mr. Cullen shut down one of the town's two wells in the fall, cutting off 50 percent of the water supply, after it was found to be contaminated.

With little money in its own kitty, the municipality applied to the province for emergency funding to fix the system, but was refused. The town eventually piped in water from a neighbouring municipality at a cost to the community of about $700,000.

"The government said 'There's no money' . . . It's just not right." Mr. Cullen said. "People's lives were being put at risk. We would have been in a lot of trouble if there had been a fire because we wouldn't have been able to put it out. The government didn't give a damn about it.

"It's something that's still in the back of my craw. The community is still furious."

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