Im pissed.

Its that plain and its that simple. 

And for my readers, Im letting you know up front.... one, I am mounting the soap box, and two, right now, I do not claim to know all the facts, but that is not terminating my seething anger.

Eight years ago, a terrible thing happened in my serene and beautiful little county.  Many people who have never heard of any of my surrounding towns are still familiar with at least one of them, Walkerton.  

Oh, how many times I have heard the jokes, "Oh, heading to Walkerton, don't drink the water!"  

Yes I guess enough time has passed for many to make that joke, especially for people that were not touched by the horrors that happened to many of the people of that town.  The gross incompetence by many people and systems, peppered liberally with malicious and horrible acts of deception cost 7 people their lives, and over 2300 to become ill.  That was the tip of a very damaging iceburg.  That case of E. coli, (which has become known as most serious case of water contamination in Canada) could have easily been prevented or at least severely minimized.  I am not going to get into the specifics, there are plenty of webpages that will discuss the death, tragedy and corruption that surrounded those fateful days.

The full results of this tragedy will never truly be known, but aside from grieving families, and loss of friends, there are still many that suffer serious health conditions and many of us have/had fears of the safety of our water supply.  Walkerton still suffers today, from a stigma that will take years and years to overcome, from deflated house prices, job losses, and host of other economic and trust issues and related social issues.  

There was one silver liner to the clouds that cover that picturistic town.  After two long years of inquiries and inquests... the government took interest, they promised the people that tragedies like this must never happen again, they came up with a plan, and a sound one at that.  At least it looked that way on paper.  Slowly people began to gain a trust in local water systems, a trust in their government to protect, and faith in a system that would safeguard them.

Well that trust was shot to hell this week.  

On Monday, a positive E. coli result in a water sample was collected from my local Elementary School which is fed by the Municipal water system, that serves my town, the neighbouring town, and some surrounding rural areas.  The school turned off the water supply and closed its doors on and in turn, my children's High School called my home alerting us of this E. coli result using their automatized dialling system.  Which is when, I and SOME other citizens of the town learnt of the water issue.  

At the time of the call, I went immediately online to find local news from the two closest radio stations and newspaper stations.  At that time I could not find out any information at all.  Eventually much that evening, through word of mouth, I found out that we had a "Boil Water Advisory" in place.   


Now, considering the elderly and the young are at much more serious risk than anyone else, and considering families with kids that are not in school yet, or the elderly whose children have long graduated, the would not have received this call.  I have to wonder, how in hell were they supposed to find out???  How many people need to be contaminated again before we as a society realise that word of mouth, or an auto-dialling program to only a small portion of citizens is enough???

I am pissed we live in a time, when the Government has enough money, time and manpower to go door to door to enumerate us to be sure they collect their tax dollars, but doesnt have a way to go door to door to alert us when we are drinking death disguised as healthy water. 

I am also pissed at the morally around this issue.  I truly believe that all the members of town council went home and didnt allow their families to drink the water, but didnt seem to care that the rest of the town was. 

I am feverishly pissed that now they say that the test was corrupt because the line they tested has a cartridge water treatment system on it.  In fact, and I quote, ""That could have been the source of a problem".... Could have??? COULD?  Ummm Sir, let me know when you know for sure, would ya???   

Brother can you spare me a dime! 

Call me a conspiratorialist , think me insane! Hell, colour me completely irrational, but after all the corruption, deceit and pure out and out negligence last time and the failure to alert the public anymore effectively this time makes me have absolutely NO FAITH in the local water system, nor the people who manage it.  

Regardless of what anyone says, be it a badly run system of checks and balances, ineffectual procedure  or government plan,  or total contamination, this reeks of incompetence.  And, I wont drink to that, at least not the water here! 

Someone pass me a whiskey, its time we all get pissed.

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