Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - March 2004
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Now let’s drink to the real Aqua Sommeliers

by Tom Davey, Editor
The mid 1970s saw environmental groups evolve across the country. These were new phenomena which became a force that shook political complacency to the core. Andy Brandt, then Environment Minister in the Ontario Conservative Government, had repeatedly come under fire for his government’s environmental record. He decided to invite his worst critics to comment, criticize and advise him about their various concerns regarding environmental toxins and drinking water.

To this end, he invited 20 people to meet, and create, a Drinking Water Advisory Board. I was among those invited to the inaugural meeting. After a brief welcome, the Minister gave the group carte blanche to debate, criticize and advise his Ministry on all, and any, environmental issues. The protesters should have been ecstatic; they had breached the legislative walls and could now confront the “enemy” within its own territory.

Two senior civil servants were present but their mandate was only to answer any scientific questions which might emerge; they were not to become involved in any debates or defences of government policies. After a brief welcoming address, the Minister left the meeting with a single guideline: “Voice any and all of your concerns and my Ministry will listen.”

Environmental activists now had a blank sheet upon which to air their grievances, which, as it turned out, were many. A brief lull followed the Minister’s departure, then the conspiracy theories started. “Why have they invited us?” asked one member plaintively, before unleashing a veritable deluge of suspicion worthy of Oliver Stone. The Periodic Table of Elements was invoked like some exhortation to pagan gods, as protesters emoted a veritable litany of outrage and hostility. Despite the fact that the Minister had only invited the ‘aristocracy’ of the protest movements, deep suspicion of his intentions emerged. Heated discussions on ‘toxics’ - now transformed from an adjective to a revered noun - broke out. Oddly enough, there were little or no concerns expressed about pathogens in drinking water, such as E.Coli 0157, or lethal parasites such as Giardia or Cryptospiridium. “Toxic” really was a four letter word to them.

When I raised concerns that these parasites and pathogens might be more lethal than the minute levels of the toxins under discussion, there was little response. Concerns focused only on chemicals, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene, and organochlorines in drinking water.

Some of these chemicals are undeniably dangerous, but are usually found in minute traces obtainable only by the most sophisticated analytical equipment. Even when found in parts per quadrillion*, a figure so small as to be incomprehensible to lay persons, the spectre of any of the dreaded chemicals seemed to arouse anger and fear in some of the environmental puritans. No one seemed aware of the wisdom of Paracelcus, the iconoclastic physician of the Middle Ages, who once noted that: “All things are poison, there are none which are not. The difference between a poison and a remedy lies in the dosage.”

I pointed out that the Minister had invited his most vocal critics to the group. “There is not a single member at this meeting, including myself, who has not seriously criticized government environmental policies in the recent past. Surely this is evidence of good faith on the part of the Minister? Here is a tangible opportunity for environmental concerns to be heard at the very zenith of the MOE and clearly much more effective than carrying placards on the steps of Queen’s Park”, I stressed.

In this day and age, it is surprising to recall that one outraged activist smoked throughout the meeting as she, ironically, as well as metaphorically, vented her concerns, punctuated by tobacco smoke. The irony that tobacco smoke, now perhaps the most regulated carcinogen of our era, was being involuntarily imbibed by activists at a meeting devoted to environmental purity, seemed lost on this meeting. The cigarette smoke lingered long after the deep suspicions of the MOE had subsided.

After the group progressed over several months, some of us became friends and often shared our views socially outside the MOE sponsored meetings. Some friendships continued long after the group mutated into an Advisory Group whose members were paid to propound their viewpoints. But after the initial conspiracy theories had been dissolved, by the application of a little common sense, the initial Advisory Group did make many valuable suggestions, which impacted on MOE policies.

The Aqua Sommeliers Cometh At the time of these meetings, it cost Toronto householders about 60 cents for a cubic metre of purified water. Thanks in part to a plethora of alarmist stories, sales of bottled water rose to unprecedented heights with the ubiquitous 200 ml plastic water bottles practically mandatory at aerobics classes, sporting and other events. Householders who were horrified at paying 60 cents for 1,000 litres of high quality drinking water had no compunction at paying two or three dollars for 200 millilitres in plastic bottles.

But even this is low-end stuff by today's standards. Enter the water sommelier. Bottled water has apparently acquired the cachet and snob appeal enjoyed by fine wines, mutating into a new line of aqua sommelier waters at as much as $15 a bottle. According to an article in the National Post, one of the first sommeliers‚ who plies his trade (sorry, practises his profession) in a plush New York hotel, is said to emit a bemused chuckle when he recalls the dark days when he too once drank tap water. With apparent horror he notes that tap water “can be recycled as many as seven times before it flushes out of your faucet”. Demon drink has been replaced by designer drink.

Perhaps when our sommelier grows up he might learn of the hydrological cycle. Water has been recycled countless millions of times since the first land mass emerged on Planet Earth to evolve into the present seven continents, leaching salts over the eons to form today's oceans. “Recycled seven times”, indeed! Every tree takes in water with its roots after rainfalls which is later transpired by its leaves to the atmosphere. This is recycling, pure and simple, which has been going on from countless billions of trees over countless millions of years.

Meanwhile, few homeowners are aware of the incredible value of having treated water delivered, winter and summer, inside their houses with unmatched reliability. No other service, not telephones, electrical services, cable or satellite television, can match the reliability of our municipal water supplies.

No, our water utilities are not perfect. There have been sporadic outbursts of tainted water in Canadian cities. But while auto recalls are commonplace - and every year airplanes crash due to mechanical failures - our water faucets keep flowing with a safety and reliability unmatched by any other industry. At approximately ten cents a litre, it is probably the best municipal bargain in Canada, if not in the world.

Those who suspect me of hyperbole, should check on the water prices per cubic metre in such advanced countries as England, Japan and Germany, to name but three, then perhaps, raise their glasses in gratitude to The Invisible Profession, our environmental engineers, chemists, and operators, the true aqua sommeliers of drinking water.

* In the range of one second per 30 million years.

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