Water infrastructure neglect costs tens of millions and causes sickness and death

Photo report by Tom Davey

AWWA President, Ronald O. Schwarzwalder (left), with Tim Lotimer, incoming OWWA chair, after the opening session.

The Walkerton tragedy was very much in evidence at the 2002 Ontario Water Works Association/Ontario Municipal Water Association) Convention in London, Ontario. James Van Loon, Sussex Circle Inc., said that it had brought unprecedented attention to the issues facing water services provision, problems that many of the public thought we had completely beaten as of the turn of the century. Walkerton, and eerily, a year later, he stressed, North Battleford, Saskatchewan, again focussed the spotlight of public attention on drinking water. It was gratifying, he said, to see that public and professional interest in preventing the kinds of problems that led to the Walkerton tragedy is not waning, but is, in fact, growing.

"This fact is well-known: there was a tragedy in Walkerton. Seven people died as a direct result, thousands more became ill, and some will be dealing with the physical effects for the rest of their lives, not to mention the psychological impacts. There was substantial economic injury, as the financial cost directly borne by Walkerton households was almost seven million dollars.

"Health care costs, including long term care, will be over $2.5 million dollars, and the total cost of the crisis, including responses such as having the water system fixed, costs incurred by the health unit, the costs associated with the Inquiry, and all the lawyers, is estimated to be over $64 million dollars.

"There have been numerous other examples of poor source water conditions leading to widespread illness, in Canada and abroad. In fact, it just about goes without saying that a serious drinking water outbreak must result from poor source water quality. A poor source of drinking water was clearly a factor in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, for instance. So, while it is important to select and protect the best source you can find, it is even more important that operators understand their source, and the ways in which it may be threatened. They need to know when to pay close attention to source quality, what to look for, and what to do about it.

"It is astonishing to see, as an example, the statistics concerning the relationship between heavy rainfall and drinking water outbreaks. According to one study, over 50% of waterborne disease outbreaks occurred after very hard rainfalls in the 90% percentile, and almost 70% were preceded by rainfalls in the 80% percentile. So when it rains, operators must pay close attention to their systems," he stressed.

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