Dear Editor:
RE: Source water protection committee raises alarm about proposal to end free private well testing, March 21.
Thank you for your article. It is oddly appropriate that on The Ides of March, and 24 years after the Walkerton tragedy, Doug Ford’s government is looking at another way to off us in the name of “efficiency.”
It is particularly shortsighted because, as noted by Daine Saxe, Ontario’s last environmental commissioner, there is a major gap in Ontario’s water protection policy in that private wells are monitored.
The proposal to discontinue free private well testing adds two impediments to maintaining safety of private wells:
– the cost of well testing and need to find labs to do the tests; and
– removal of a convenient location for submitting water samples.
I understand that thousands of homes in the Halton region are on private wells and I suspect similar numbers would apply to the Grand River Source Water Protection Area and many other Ontario Source Water Protection Areas.
Please let your MPP know that “efficiencies” which could endanger public health are not acceptable.
Dave Rodgers,
Puslinch