The Rural Voice, 2003-11, Page 36News in Agriculture
Farmers are vulnerable, Biesenthal says
Ed Dannen of the Perth County Federation of Agriculture (left) presents a gift
to Dr. David Biesenthal after he spoke at the PCFA's annual meeting.
The farmer caught in the middle of
the biggest water purity controversy
of the past several decades warns that
water source protection regulations
could put farmers out of business. '
Dr. David Biesenthal, whose 40 -
cow cow -calf operation on the edge
of Walkerton was implicated, but
never proven to be, as the source of
E. coli contamination of the
Walkerton water supply in May 2000
when hundreds of people became
sick with E. coli poisoning through
the town's water supply and seven
people died, spoke to the annual
,meetings of both the Grey County
and Perth County Federations of
Agriculture in October.
Dr. Biesenthal said the world
seemed to fall apart very quickly for
him and his wife Carolyn. They
began to hear stories of illness he
Tuesday following the Victoria Day
holiday in May 2000. People began
suspicious that it could be water that
was causing the problem when they
saw Public Utilities Commission
workers flushing water hydrants, he
said. The Friday night of the holiday
weekend workers at a construction
project had hit a sanitary sewer line
and suspicions first focused on that
as the source of the E. coli.
It was that Tuesday that the first
child died from the illness brought on
by the bacterial infection. By
32 THE RURAL VOICE
Thursday fingers were pointing to the
infamous Well 5 of the town's water
system. The Biesenthals went
looking for the well, first being told it
was behind the high school. "Nobody
seemed to know where Well 5 was."
On the Friday, an official from the
Ministry of Environment visited the
Biesenthals and started asking about
their manure -handling practices.
After explaining how he handled
manure he asked the official to tell
him where the well was. He pointed
to a little brush area just past the
eastern boundary of the Biesenthal
farm. "That's the first time we knew
there was a town well there."
By the time pictures of the well
started showing up on television the
area had been cleaned up, Dr.
Biesenthal said. Originally the well
was surrounded by a swampy area.
"By Monday night we were
contacted by OMAFRA and they
asked 'if Health Canada could do a
research project on our farm."
Wanting to get to the bottom of the
situation the Biesenthals agreed. The
following day five veterinarians
showed up and blanketed the area
near the barn and the well. They took
fecal samples of cattle and walked
the fields.
It wasn't until later that they
realized how serious the situation
was for their own farm. The bearer of
the bad news was Stan Eby of
Kincardine, then president of the
Ontario Cattlemen's Association. He
told of a conference call between
several government departments and
the suspicion that the source of the
problem was "the dirty barnyard
adjacent to Well 5."
Angered by this suggestion Dr.
Biesenthal took Eby to show him the
"dirty barnyard" that didn't have any
cattle in it because the cattle were on
pasture and only came to the barn for
water.
"In retrospect I realize that we were
probably targeted from the very
onset," he says. While other farms
checked had perhaps 10 per cent of
their cattle tested for E. coli, the
Biesenthals had 40 per cent of their
cattle tested.
The results of those tests were kept
secret by the local Health Unit and to
this day he has not seen the actual
results. Further tests by Health
Canada did show two cows with E.
coli that were genetically close
matches to the E. coli that infected a
couple of the people who had passed
away.
By early June the farm was the
centre of a constant stream of people
coming and going as three separate
groups — the government group, the
town group and the citizens group —
invaded the farm. "Each group had
their own set of lawyers. Each group
was afraid the others were suing
them."
Each set of lawyers would ask the
same questions about things like
manure practices.
In one investigation trying to
portray the movement of water
underground, a grid of wires and
stakes was set up throughout their
hay field. Nobody wanted to even tell
them what was going on. Finally,
with the season getting late, they
asked if they could cut the hay. They
were told they could as long as the
stakes were replaced in the same
holes. Their son laboriously got off
the tractor at each stake, cut the hay
and then stopped to replace the stake,
40 or more times. The next day a
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