Mention “Walkerton” eight years later, and it still conjures up the worst drinking water crisis in Canadian history. Seven people died and thousands became sick drinking tainted water.
“We’re still dealing with the fallout from Walkerton,” Director of Public Works Ken Elder said recently.
Centre Wellington Township is doing strategic planning in all of its departments, looking for savings and best ways to lead the township in the future. The Wellington Advertiser is doing a series of articles about the efforts being led by its department heads. This, the second part of an interview with Elder, deals with sewer and water.
Elder said Justice Dennis O’Connor’s report recommended wellhead protection be mandatory, and the province agreed. The township has just taken its first few steps along that line, and recently held a public meeting to inform landowners about what they can do to protect their wells.
He added he does not think it will be too costly to meet the standards, and said farmers in the area are very responsible and very concerned when it comes to protecting water.
He noted there might be more problems with a lot of surface runoff, but the majority of the water here finds itself off the land quickly, and much is underground in the bedrock. “It affects the agricultural community very little,” he said.
He said of the quality, “It’s hard water,” and he noted with the limestone bedrock, “there is very little contamination.”
Elder finds it more than a little ironic that there are no controls or guarantees at all over the bottled water industry, but municipalities have huge amounts of regulations and reports that are mandatory.
“We work with the rules and regulations every day,” he said.
Elder noted the product of bottled water is “okay” but agreed packaging is becoming a problem for that industry. Several municipalities are taking or considering steps to remove bottled water from their public buildings.
The cost of bottled water liquid is enough to make municipal water workers shake their heads. Here is one set of statistics that Elder has collected. He said to fill a bathtub with the following products will cost:
– $150, bottled water;
– $450, Canadian Club Whisky;
– $300, milk; and
– $600, for a good wine.
Meanwhile, Elder said smiling, the municipality will deliver, heat, fill that tub, and take the water away. The total cost to do all that is one-third of one cent.
Water delivered by the municipality gets used for things other than drinking. Only an estimated three per cent will be used for drinking and cooking. But all water has to meet the same high purity standards.
In the United States, there are severe water shortages. That is not the case in this part of Ontario yet, but officials are being watchful of the water supply.
“In this municipality, we have room for growth,” Elder said. “We have enough for 10 to 15 years, but we are looking for another supply. We’re looking at it as we speak.”
Elder noted water policies (as well as for sewers) might have an affect on some of the older neighbourhoods of Elora and Fergus. Many streets have no curbs, no gutters, no catch basins, and no sidewalks. Elder said when those rebuilds take place, it means curbs and gutters, along with catch basins, to better protect the new road. And a sidewalk on at least one side of each street, for safety.
One of his biggest concerns is contamination of abandoned wells. There are many that are no longer in use because homeowners connected to municipal services. Elder worries about “the number of abandoned wells out there that have not been abandoned properly. We’re working on a mechanism to track and record them. We don’t need a hole in the ground where people can dump used oil down. It affects everybody.”
He supported the Yellow Fish Road program where Scouts warn only rainwater should go down catch basins.
There are other ways that protecting water will affect residents. Gone are the days when any industry can be plunked down on land designated industrial – particularly if that land is over water. Elder said dry industry and churches might be permitted, but any factory offering toxic waste products will be forbidden.
Sewage handling
Elder said one major project over the next year is an expansion of the Elora sewage treatment plant. That will cost about $4-million, and will be partially covered by development charges.
With that expansion, the effluent going through the plant and returning to the Grand River will be of a much better quality.
But there are challenges in sewage treatment. One of the biggest issues that has been under study for several years will come when the province demands that all sewage be treated – rural septate and urban.
There are only four plants, Guelph, Fergus, Elora, and Mount Forest that treat sewage.
The other issue, Elder said, is urban people paid for these plants. “People in rural areas did not contribute to the building of sewage treatment plants. They’re worth millions of dollars. Should they be allowed to have the use of those. Those are questions that have to be sorted out.”
For now, he noted, septate is still spread on farmland. Another problem determined early is rural septate is four times the concentration of urban. Sewage plants might have to be changed to handle rural septate.
All sewage eventually returns to the river as quality water. Elder said the improvements in Elora’s plant will make the river’s water better than it is. There is a count called BODs, biological oxygen demand, and any nutrient that goes into the river uses up oxygen. That can cause algae blooms when it hits a specific point.
Algae destroys the oxygen in the water, and kills fish and beneficial insects.
He is hoping a reduced BOD will mean better effluent and better water quality all around.
