The Rural Voice, 1993-03, Page 22Water, water
everywhere but not
a drop to drink
Drinkable water is becoming a
scarce commodity in rural Ontario
It seemed like an innocent enough
school project for teacher Dave
Bartlett's grade 8 class at East
Wawanosh Public School, but it
ended up rocking the complacent
attitude of a lot of parents of the
students involved.
Bartlett gave each of his students a
water sample bottle and asked them
to bring a sample of water from
homc. The samples were sent in for
testing by the Huron County Health
Unit. When the results were in,
everyone was a little shaken. No less
than 43 per cent of the samples came
back with unacceptable levels of
coliform bacteria (a reading of 11 to
80). Five of the samples had counts
over 80. Coliform bacteria occurs
naturally in the soil and the danger
increases with the concentration.
Three of the tests carne back with
contamination by fecal coliform,
bacteria from human or animal
wastes.
Fecal coliforms are the most
dangerous to human beings. They are
found in the intestinal contents of
warm-blooded animals and their
presence in water usually indicates
contamination by sewage. They tend
to die more rapidly outside the body
so their presence in water indicates a
relatively recent contamination. No
one should drink water containing
fecal coliform bacteria. The bacteria
can cause typhoid, cholera, hepatitis
and various gastro -enteric diseases
such as those associated with
salmonella.
18 THE RURAL VOICE
"It was scary to think all
those kids were drinking that
water," said Ken Scott,
principal of the school. "It
made me more conscious that
things can go wrong with well
water."
Stunning as the results of
the East Wawanosh school
project were, they are little
above average, according to a
province -wide study released
last October by the Ontario
Soil and Crop Improvement
Association (OSCIA). In a
survey of 1300 wells across the
province 37 per cent exceeded
provincial drinking water tµ.
objectives for private wells."
Thirty-one per cent exceeded
the acceptable concentrations
of coliform bacteria, 20 per
cent of these exceeding the
objectives for fecal coliform
bacteria. Unacceptable
concentration for nitrates were
recorded in 13 per cent of the
samples (with seven per cent having
unacceptable levels of both nitrates
and coliform and six per cent with
unacceptable nitrate concentrations
alone). One well had a herbicide
concentration exceeding acceptable
concentrations due to a spill near the
site. There were no contaminations
by petroleum-based derivatives
found.
The study was undertaken by a
committee comprised of OSCIA,
Environment Ontario, the Ontario
1
Ministry of Health, the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food,
Agriculture Canada, the Centre for
Land and Water Stewardship at the
University of Guelph and the Centre
for Groundwater Research at the
University of Waterloo, funded by a
$710,000 grant from Agriculture
Canada.
Dave Rudolph of the Centre for
Groundwater Research said the
individual breakdown of survey
records by county shows nearly the
same percentage as the provincial
findings.
He admitted surprise that the
original report last October didn't
cause more of a stir in the province.
He did two or three TV interviews at
the time and still gets quite a few
phone calls but the issue seemed to
come and go quickly. Perhaps, he
speculated, rural residents are used
to dealing with the problem and so
weren't as surprised as many
researchers and government officials
were by the results. The silence is not
golden. The only way governments
are going to concentrate on finding
solutions to the problem is if the
public is concerned enough to make it
an issue, Rudolph says.
The East Wawanosh Public
School project was prompted by
results of a test of the school's water
supply that showed water unsafe for
drinking in a September test. "Water
§amples from East Wawanosh in
August were good and in September
they weren't" says Phil Paquette the