Marking a grim anniversary

The unmistakable sound of a helicopter flying overhead still makes Charles Bagnato shudder.

A helicopter flying over Walkerton, Ont., 10 years ago this week meant someone else was sick from drinking contaminated water, and had to be flown to a hospital in London for emergency treatment.

"It was just brutal," said Bagnato, Walkerton’s current mayor. "You had tears in your eyes. Those poor people. Those poor parents."

Ten years ago, residents of Walkerton, a small town of about 5,000 people in southwest Ontario, started getting sick.

They complained of stomach cramps, vomiting and bloody diarrhea.

At the time, they didn’t know the water they were drinking and using to cook and bathe had been contaminated with fecal matter after cow manure entered one the town’s wells. This detail had been withheld by their public utilities commission despite lab results that tested positive for E. coli.

Residents flocked to emergency rooms, while medical officers started to probe the town’s food supply, believing that could be the cause of the rash of illnesses.

Only after medical officials launched their own investigation into the safety of the town’s water did news of the contamination become public on May 23, 2000 – five days after the public utilities commission received the positive lab test.

In the end, the crisis killed seven people and sickened at least half the community, and was quickly dubbed the worst water tragedy in Canadian history.

A subsequent investigation blamed a combination of factors for the preventable tragedy, including heavy rains and flooding in the region, human error and broken equipment.

Two brothers were found criminally responsible for their role in the crisis.

Stan Koebel, the former utilities manager for Walkerton, was sentenced to one year in jail. The former utilities foreman, and Koebel’s younger brother, Frank, received nine months of house arrest. They each pleaded guilty to common nuisance.

On a broader scale, the investigation, called the Walkerton Inquiry, fingered the provincial government for cutbacks that led to insufficient inspections and monitoring. A decade later, some residents still have difficulty drinking the water.

But the tragedy has turned Walkerton’s residents into clean water crusaders, proud of how they’ve influenced public policy and how they’ve upheld a fundamental right to safe drinking water.

They poured money and effort into their own water system, fixing the problems identified by the Walkerton Inquiry, Bagnato said.

"You gather your resources, learn from what happened and try to turn it into a positive and that’s exactly what we’ve done here," he said.

One of the positive outcomes of the tragedy is the Walkerton Clean Water Centre, a government agency that trains drinking water system operators from across Ontario. It focuses on remote water systems, including those in First Nations communities. The centre’s grand opening is in June.

"It took 10 years but that’s what we did. We turned infamy into excellence," Bagnato said. "It’s been quite a long haul. There were some pretty bad times. You don’t forget the families that lost loved ones."

During the crisis, pharmacists in Walkerton noticed a massive spike in the use of stomach, intestinal and diarrhea medication before they knew the cause, said Ken Brown, the owner of Brown’s Pharmacy.

"(The spike) happened before people started going to the hospital," he said, "and, at the time, we were baffled."

Pharmacy sales were monitored for a pilot project, Brown said, and now the government keeps track of sales of specific medications, in order to anticipate and – ideally – contain a similar outbreak before it gets too serious.

"They monitor sales of specific items and if they see a spike then they call the health unit just to check," he said. "Something really good came of (the crisis). Before, we were just blind."

Walkerton plans to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy. Some residents will gather at Well 5 – the site of the initial contamination – to say a prayer for the people who died.

Remembering the emotional impact of the tragedy can help encourage other communities to be vigilant about their own water systems, said Bruce Davidson.

"What we have found since (Walkerton) is that the management of water in our small communities before the year 2000 was far from universally professional," said Davidson, who is a part of the group Concerned Walkerton Citizens.

After the tragedy in 2000, the group pushed for the Walkerton Inquiry.

"The pivotal moment for me was there were four members of my street airlifted (to the hospital)," Davidson said. "The questions started to bubble up when the shock started to fade. Why and how could this possibly happen in southern Ontario? We’re not part of the developing world. We have the science. We have the technology."

Davidson travels around Canada, telling water operators and others about the mistakes made in Walkerton, and how to prevent them.

"The job of maintaining and managing our water will never be done," he said. "It’s got to be an ongoing piece of work."

While Walkerton residents now boast openly about the quality of their water, calling it the safest in the world, they also see other communities whose water systems need significant improvements.

Many First Nations and other rural communities are still subject to boil-water advisories, Bagnato said.

"It’s very frustrating. It just makes me crazy that after what happened in Walkerton, 10 years later, if I was on a native reserve, I would not drink the water," he said.