Water, water, everywhere, but not all is fit to drink

Letting regions manage and regulate the province's many small H 2 0 systems may be a step forward, ombudsperson says

By Daphne Bramham,
Vancouver Sun June 2, 2011


Urbanites take it for granted that you can turn on the tap and take a drink.

But venture out this summer,even to government-owned parks and campsites, and you'll find that there are many places in Canada where you can't.

Kitty Coleman park near Courtenay, for example, hasn't had drinkable water for more than 10 years. Dozens of camps have water advisories. Caycuse Camp at Honeymoon Bay hasn't had safe water for more than 6,033 days.

The pub at Fulford Harbour on Saltspring Island, a popular boaters' destination, has had a boil-water advisory for more than six months.

And we're deluded if we think that the only place where there are problems are seasonal recreational spots. For years, small-town and rural residents have put up with it because they're unable to get anyone to pay attention to their problems.

It seems the only time we're likely to even think about safe drinking water is when there are deaths from waterborne diseases as there were in Walkerton, Ont., in 2000 when seven people died and 2,500 got sick from E. coli-contaminated water.

It's not that Canada's quality standards are bad (although there is active and highly charged debate about the appropriate levels of heavy metals such as arsenic).

The problem is there are too many small systems and too few well-trained people to run them.

That, at least, is the conclusion of Steve Hrudey, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta who served on an expert panel on safe drinking water for first nations' communities and was an adviser to the Walkerton Inquiry.

Hrudey describes Canada as "out of step with the international leaders in adopting management systems for assuring safe drinking water" because water systems are "generally guided and managed in a fragmented, almost ad hoc, manner."

British Columbia is one of the worst.

There are an estimated 3,500 private water systems. Currently, there are more than 585 boil-water notices, up from 527 last August.

The longest-suffering residents live at Dodge Cove near Prince Rupert. They've been boiling their water ever since March 31, 1988. On the Sunshine Coast, Egmont water advisories have been a constant since Jan. 1, 1990, while Lasqueti Island residents on the Pete's Lake system have been boiling water for 6,248 days and counting.

But Interior residents are most adversely affected -at least 77 per cent of the advisories are in the Kootenays, Okanagan and Thompson/Cariboo/Shuswap. The Interior Health Region notes that its list of 451 notices is "not wholly inclusive."

Many -if not most -of the B.C. boil-water advisories and notices about heavy metals and other contaminants are long-standing ones.

That's despite regional health authorities committing in 2008 to meet ombudsperson Kim Carter's target of eliminating every problem (and every advisory) that had existed for more than 18 months by the end of this fiscal year. But because the health authorities don't own or operate the systems, they don't have the power or money to upgrade them or even train the staff.


Hrudey's recommendation is to follow the lead of England and several Australian states, which have consolidated management and regulation of even the smallest water systems into regional authorities.

Another problem, according to Hrudey, is that Canadian water regulation is "generally more reactive than preventive."

And if nothing's done until there's a bad test result, it may be too late for the frail among us -the sick, elderly and very young.

Look no further than White Rock where, fortunately, last summer no one did die or become seriously ill.

A holdout from the Metro Vancouver water district, it has wells and a water system owned and operated by Alberta-based EPCOR.

On Aug. 17, a first sample tested positive for E. coli, followed two days later by another positive test. On Aug. 20, the boil-water notice was issued.

The next day more samples were taken at other sites. More came back positive.

Two reservoirs were drained and E. coli was detected throughout both. On Aug. 27, EPCOR started chlorinating some of the well water.

Nearly two weeks after the first indication of E. coli, another reservoir was drained. It had no evidence of E. coli.

On Sept. 1, the boil-water notice was rescinded.

As a result of that, EPCOR has increased its testing, upgraded the reservoirs (including installing deterrents for birds, last year's apparent culprits) and has engaged in a public process to explain a new "total water quality management plan."

That plan includes: Chlorinating the water to eliminate future risks of E. coli; using sulphate to reduce bacteria in cold water taps, large homes and low-flow areas; filtration in one well to reduce arsenic levels that hover at or near the national standard; and, filtration in another where manganese levels range from three to four times the standard.

Of course, it all costs money. And, like all of the 3,500 other private systems, EPCOR and its 20,000 customers have to bear the full cost, even though residents have helped pay for upgrades to the Metro Vancouver system as well as other publicly owned systems that have benefited from federal and provincial infrastructure grants.

It's not much -even though on paper it might seem so.

The company is asking the provincial water commissioner for three annual increases starting this year with 4.4 per cent, 4.9 per cent in 2012 and four per cent for 2013.

By 2013, it only amounts to the average household paying an extra $31.20 a year. That's about the cost of a single bottle of water each month.

"It's ironic," says Hrudey. "Canadians have no qualms about spending hundreds of dollars a year on bottled stuff."

Statistics Canada says our consumption of it rose 63 per cent between 2003 and 2006.

But ask Canadians about tap water and he says we're "largely indifferent or complacent about the need to invest in assuring high-quality municipal water supplies."

That is, of course, until we're the ones inconvenienced or someone we know gets sick or dies.

dbramhamvancouversun.com

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