Canadians used to be complacent about the purity of their drinking water. Then came the wake-up call at Walkerton.
by Gary Nyp "Reprinted with permission from the University of Waterloo Magazine, Fall 2000."
Until recently, Walkerton was a tranquil southwestern Ontario town, a friendly, vibrant tourism hotbed known for its quaint shops, nature trails, and canoe trips along a serpentine Saugeen River abundant with trout, bass, and salmon.
But today, in the daunting aftermath of a water-borne E. coli bacteria outbreak that killed six people and made nearly 2,000 sick, Walkerton has become eerily synonymous with an issue few would have thought possible in a country like Canada.
Of course, Canadians are well aware that water contamination is a too-common occurrence in developing countries where water supplies are often scarce. Few Canadians, whose country boasts the most ample supply of fresh water in the world, would be surprised to learn that 50 per cent of the population in such nations suffer from afflictions related to contaminated water or food, according to UN University's International Network on Water, Environment and Health.
But the Walkerton crisis has brought all that home. Suddenly, Canadians who never gave a second thought to the ready supply of water pouring from their taps are asking serious questions. Where does our water come from? How safe is it? What's being done to make sure it stays safe?
"Until the Walkerton tragedy I would have ranked the quality of Canada's drinking water among the best in the world," says Robert Gillham, a University of Waterloo researcher and hydrogeologist. "Most Canadians consider safe and ample drinking water their birthright, so Walkerton was very sobering. And there's sufficient evidence now to think that maybe our water quality isn't as good as we once thought it was."
Not that Canada's water is unsafe. Experts say our water quality is still comparable with that of any developed country and is vastly superior to that of developing nations.
Still, researchers have long been wary of the increasing risks of water contamination in a country where the preservation of natural resources has traditionally remained a low priority. They point to the proliferation of fertilizers and industrial chemicals, farm run-off, and septic tanks, and increased demand resulting from a burgeoning and rather wasteful population.
Back in 1992, mounting concerns about the risk of groundwater contamination from various sources, as well as growing reliance on lower-quality surface water due to rapid population growth in larger communities, prompted the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to establish a multi-million-dollar research chair on water treatment. Waterloo civil engineering professor Peter Huck, a widely renowned expert on water treatment who researches problems of contamination from uranium mining effluents, has served as chairholder since its inception.
Around that same time a report by a task force of scientists and engineers appointed by the Canadian Geoscience Council warned about increasing risks of water contamination due to a scarcity of research and an inability to recognize and solve groundwater problems before they reach dire and expensive proportions.
And just this summer, an Ontario environment ministry inspection blitz of 240 water treatment facilities across the province found deficiencies in almost two-thirds of them. Although there were no claims that any of the water flowing from these plants was unsafe, the inspectors nevertheless found problems ranging from inadequate monitoring to insufficient chlorination. In 72 cases, field orders were issued for immediate remedial action.
"The problem is that we don't know if we actually have a worsening situation," Gillham says. "There are many coliform bacteria in our water but many in small numbers are no threat. We have just gone through a very traumatic experience in Walkerton. And now we've become very concerned about every bacterium that shows up. But, on average, are things getting worse? Or is Walkerton an isolated incident?"
That, for government officials, researchers and, of course, consumers, is the burning question.
A resource that has historically been taken for granted in Canada is undergoing unprecedented scrutiny these days. Already, the Ontario government has come out with stringent new measures to bolster the monitoring, testing, and treatment of water and to ensure better and more timely reporting of any problems that arise.
Which is lauded by people like Huck, who say Canada's regulatory system has always lagged well behind that of the United States.
"The U.S. has a much more rigorous approach to regulating the levels of treatment and monitoring than we do," Huck says. "Some of us have felt it would be very beneficial if we could come close to what the U.S. is doing and there's a sense that this may now be happening."
About 25 per cent of Canada's water flows from the ground, from wells filled by nature-fed-and-replenished sand and gravel aquifers. Central Canada uses about 40 per cent of that groundwater. The rest of our water comes from surface sources such as lakes, rivers, and streams.
Whatever the source, the water works its way through municipally run distribution systems and facilities where the water is treated with chlorine and sometimes ozone to kill bacteria and chemicals. Ideally, the water is regularly tested and monitored by qualified technicians to ensure that it meets government-set safety guidelines.
But a lack of financial resources, particularly in smaller, rural areas, has sometimes created significant shortfalls in that regard. In many of these communities, Huck points out, less-than-qualified technicians are forced to juggle a number of responsibilities that include the testing and monitoring of water. Often, they lack the training and expertise to respond appropriately when problems or concerns ariseò.
Susan Andrews, a Waterloo civil engineering professor who has conducted extensive research in the area of water treatment, believes the economic realities faced by rural communities remain a major concern when it comes to the provision of universally safe drinking water in Canada. "Larger cities have the resources to install a multi-barrier approach," she explains. "Which means that if one thing should fail, there is a backup system or procedure available. Smaller municipalities often lack the resources for that."
Nevertheless, Andrews says there are few municipalities in Canada where water quality is "out of whack" with government-set safety guidelines. Federal guidelines tend to state the true maximum acceptable level of concentration (MAC), while the provinces, if they are so inclined, can specify somewhat lower levels. Municipalities can do the same, Andrews says, but rarely do because they generally lack the financial resources to provide the additional monitoring that would be required.
Experts say groundwater tends to be of higher quality than surface water and requires less robust treatment. In fact, says David Rudolph, a Waterloo earth sciences professor and hydrogeologist, groundwater has always shown a remarkable capacity to filter itself. But with the growing threat of contamination, that natural ability is being tested like never before.
Rudolph laments that groundwater continues to receive little attention in comparison to the more visible surface water sources. This despite the efforts of the Waterloo Centre for Groundwater Research, an Ontario Centre of Excellence based at the University of Waterloo since 1987 and part of the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech) since 1997.
"We have been very complacent in Canada," he says. "There's hardly a nation on the planet that wastes more water than Canada because we have always had such an ample supply. But looking after our water has not been given a high priority."
Certainly, researchers at Waterloo are doing more than their share in this area. In fact, the university has become world-famous for innovations that are being used around the world in water testing, treatment, and remediation.
It was here, for instance, that Robert Gillham developed his reactive iron wall, a technology that has the potential of halving the cost of reducing chlorinated solvents that are notorious as major industrial groundwater contaminants in Europe and North America. The wall is a layer of granular iron and sand between layers of gravel, set vertically in the ground across the path of a plume of contaminated water. As water seeps through the wall, the solvents react with the iron and break down into elements and compounds that are harmless at normal concentrations.
Gillham says that there are now 50 walls installed around the world, predominantly in Europe and the United States. Most have met with rave reviews, both for their ability to keep water clean and their cost-effectiveness. The first Canadian installation is scheduled for early fall in the Peterborough, Ontario area. Meanwhile, another kind of wall, also developed here, is being lauded for its ability to contain contamination. Dubbed the Waterloo Barrier, this impermeable wall was developed by earth sciences professor John Cherry and technician Sam Vales. The Barrier, which prevents contamination from escaping to surrounding areas, is now in use by many research groups, and by landfills and industrial sites across the continent. It is expected to play a major role in attempts to clean up America's industrial and military waste sites in the next 30 years.
The work of other Waterloo researchers is not going unnoticed. Janusz Pawliszyn, a professor in the chemistry department, has commercialized a sampling technology called solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Traditionally, environmental monitoring has involved sending chemists or technicians into the field to collect samples, bottles of water from lakes or soil from the ground. Back in the lab, they undergo a time-consuming and expensive process in which costly, high-purity, and highly toxic solvents are used to extract the contaminants.
SPME, on the other hand, involves the use of a simple, low-cost syringe that can be inserted into a lake or stream or exposed to the air. The needle part of the adapted syringe is a tiny steel rod enclosing a glass fibre coated with a polymer to which pollutants chemically bond. The field worker pushes the plunger to move the glass fibre out of the steel needle and the pollutants bond with the polymer. The result is on-the-spot analysis that not only discloses existing pollutants but also determines how safe their concentrations are.
In another promising research initiative, Susan Andrews is studying the effects of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation in the treatment of drinking water. Since the mid-1970s, scientists have had concerns about the effects of chlorination, particularly when it reacts with organic matter to produce trihalomethanes, chemicals that may contribute to certain cancers. As a result, much of her work has focused on determining the links between trihalomethanes and various health problems and to find ways to change treatment processes to reduce the concentrations of these chemicals.
"The idea is to find the best combination of disinfectants to do the job," she explains. "We can't just stop chlorinating altogether but perhaps we can reduce the levels of chlorination needed to reduce the number of negative byproducts."
Andrews says UV looks "very promising" in that regard. She believes that, in time, many towns will be able to replace chlorination with UV irradiation in the beginning stages of disinfection. Chlorination would then only be necessary at the end of the process, in much smaller amounts.
While such research will ultimately have a significant impact in the ongoing battle against water contamination, the real key to a reliable supply of safe drinking water will boil down to increased vigilance and improved management that places a heavy emphasis on prevention, experts maintain.
People like David Rudolph say many positive developments have occurred in the wake of the Walkerton disaster. Already, he says, there has been a flood of people taking renewed responsibility to have their wells tested. Already there is a greater awareness of the importance of maintaining these wells so that structural vulnerabilities allowing contaminants to enter are minimized. And because Walkerton demonstrated serious communication gaps as well as infrastructure weaknesses, there will be much closer scrutiny of the way management systems are run.
Rudolph says Ontario is becoming particularly proactive in its attempts to minimize the impact of new development on water sources. Wellhead guidelines, which prohibit the construction of such things as gas stations or manufacturing plants near wells and other water sources, are becoming more commonplace.
There is also a growing movement to improve land use processes. Today, some 18,000 Ontario farmers are voluntary participants in the Ontario Environmental Farm Plan, a program that helps them manage fertilizer use much more prudently.
Finally, there is a growing sense that Canadians are prepared to put significant pressure on government to make environmental issues, including water management and quality, a greater priority.
Peter Huck believes Canadians will be much more willing to support increased investment in the system to bolster research, prevention, treatment, testing, monitoring, and troubleshooting. And while he realizes that public attention and concern over our water supply may fade into the background as other issues arise, he insists Walkerton has served as a crucial wake-up call.
"We needed more vigilance, and that's happening right now," he says. "And the steps that are being taken as a result of the Walkerton tragedy will have long-lasting positive effects."