In Calvert’s Saskatchewan, it’s not good enough to drive bureaucratic nails in the coffin of a tiny rural community – not if you can collect a fine as well.
Because God knows, they need every penny of those revenues to pour into the rural infrastructure.
Have you forgotten about Walkerton already? Essentially people died and many are still dealing with chronic health problems because potable water in a public supply was not properly disinfected. There was a system in place to ensure that this didn’t happen but the plant operators fudged the books. The government of Ontario and various levels of municipal government came under great heat for NOT doing what officials at SaskWater have obviously done in the case of Keeler.
Water meters so you can monitor flow so you can recover the cost of water use to support your disinfection process.
If somebody died in Keeler from a water borne illness you would be recommending the behea…., I mean, you would be after Calverts head again.
“The mayor of Keeler, a community of eight about 100 kilometres northwest of Regina, says residents can’t afford to chlorinate.”
Our community of 4 (i.e. those who live in this house) don’t chlorinate our water, we drink it straight from the well, have it tested by the municipal health unit twice a year for bacteria.
If there really are only 8 people in the community, 1) why do they have a mayor and 2) why do they have a municipal water supply and not a well for each home?
There is a simple solution to this a la NDP. Move into Regina and vote NDP.That is the Socialist dream. Starve rural Sask and maybe it will go away.
The people of Keeler should contact the people of Walkerton, Ontario and ask them if they can afford to chlorinate. The government of Saskatchewan obviously knows about Walkerton and doesn’t want to be seen as ignoring a problem that could lead to the deaths of people.
If the people of Keeler truly can’t afford clean water then I think that they fail the minimum required to live as a community. They should move somewhere where the economics make clean water affordable.
The NDP government probably spent more money on lawyers prosecuting this tiny village than it would have cost to chlorinate the water for the next decade! What a bunch of maroons!!!
The Walkerton Fiasco was the direct result of the action of 1 or 2 municipal employees who were either too lazy or incompetent(most likely a
combination of both) to do their job.This is endemic in any Goverment run organization because these individuals never have to take resposability for anything they do.
The Librano media tried to pin this on the “right wing goverment ” of Ontario in power at the time. They also tried to blame the private sector.
From what I remember the private lab that was testing Walkerton’s waters was the only institution that was actually doing it’s job.After all if the private sector doesn’t do a good job you can fire them unlike union employees that are prtty much there fo life. I’d be curious to know if the 2 brother involved were in some kind of union.
It’s seems like the Major of Keeler and the peole know that their water has not been chlorinated and they will act accordingly(drink bottled water,boil their water etc).
People on farms all over the country have lived like that for years. They don’t need the Big Red Brother telling them what to do. They are smart enough to look after themselves and their families.
Who is the maroon?
How much would it cost the “NDP government” to treat 8 cases of e.coli?
Where does their water come from?
What makes a community a community?
How many families = 8 people
How expensive to chlorinate the water?
Do they get money for being a community?
Did any of you “remember Walkerton!” twits actually read the link?
I live on a farm there are 10 in our familly, we do not clorinate our water. What do all you ” do goodes” have to say about that.
sick of the dippers
The Conservative Provincial government was culpable in that they didn’t monitor water safety. They privatized it and the private lab didn’t inform the Ministry of the Environment.
The Provincial government is always responsible for anything that goes on in the province because they are the only constitutional authority. In the Walkerton case the province tried to off-load its responsibility onto the private sector.
Would it be too much to have them sign they are aware of the possible dangers,and will have no legal grounds for compensation if there is a problem, or would that be too simple and hands-off?
Governments on all levels just loathe letting “good” people live in peace, while they let the scumbags carry on without a care.
All Walkerton has done for the water system in Ontario, is scare the crap out of bureaucrats.Great for our business, installing sewer and watermains but basically most of the millions that are being spent since Walkerton are just to cover bureaucrats behinds under the guise of public safety.
Could this be similar to the way that Stephen “promise you equalization reform before the election, renege on it after” is doing to the resource-rich provinces?
People who can remember recent incidents where a similar set of circumsatnces resulted in fatalities are twits?
I wouldn’t be suprised to hear that the residents of Keeler buy hundreds of dollars worth of bottled water but won’t spend a couple of bucks on chlorine.
Sorry I forgot you main agenda here. It looked like you were raising an issue of public health but you but I guess you saw it as an opportunity to bash Calvert.
Bash away.
steve : was that the protocol? Where all private labs mandated to inform the Enviroment department of any abnormal findings or were they mandated to inform the official who were in charge of the affected facility? If there was such a breakdown in the system after privatization why did this only happen only under this set of circumstances? The person in charge of the water facility totally ignored the information from the lab. You can’t legislate a concious or competence.
“People who can remember recent incidents where a similar set of circumsatnces resulted in fatalities are twits?”
No Glen – just you.
It’s not that I am unsympathtic twit, especially to the folks in Keeler. One of my fondest memories was a weekend spent around Craik and Keeler and Brownlee attending a fowl supper and Caberet.
I also know a little bit about small town Sask. having operated a contracting business there for years. Tried to raise a few cows too.
I would still be there and I might retire there if I can. I own a bit of property in place that used to be a thriving French Canadian community 40 years ago. There were 50 or so families around there at that time now there are two (my kin) and the place is mostly an open field.
I didn’t want to raise my kids where most of the opportunities for socializing involved drinking beer and shooting gophers. Not that I don’t like doing those things but my teenaged daughters think it is boring.
I don’t know if you can blame the NDP for decline in rural Sask. More likely Cargil, Royal Bank and CN or CP or the grain handlers on the St Lawrence Seaway are as much to blame. Small communites and small family farms aren’t considered cost effective for the 23 year old MBA’s who are running the world on the bottom right hand corner of the spreadsheet.
What happened to the idea of one being responsible for oneself?
Chlorine is a carcinogen. To use Walkerton as a hamer to hit us yokels over the head with–it WAS a municipal system and the people still died. Being government run by any level of government does not make it safe–but it does make a government more self-important.
The local municipalities here have forced many small towns to get water systems–one of them built three wells at great cost to the citizen–within a year two of them had to be shut down because of contamination from old gas tanks underground. Now tell me, who did the investigation on those wells to make sure they would be safe BEFORE building them–answer–the County government, not the yokels that needed Big Brother to look after their drinking water.
Governments at all levels do not protect the source of our ground water–you can not make a silk purse out of a sows ear–they add alum to clump the particulates and alum mixing with chlorine is deadly–so instead of ecoli deaths we accumulate these chemicals in our bodies and then we can die of cancers of all sorts. No government is all powerful–grab a brain–we have to look after ourselves.
sick of the dippers
Honestly, I am not sure if results where to be sent only to the municipality. My point is that the provincial government is ultimately responsible regardless. The provincial government was so bent on off-loading financial responsibility they forgot about their legal responsibility. The lab results should have been copied to the Province. The Province should routinely inspect, regardless of reports. They didn’t. Were they 100% culpable? No. The local guys in charge of keeping the water clean are responsible too.
Because the environment is the provincial responsibility and water being perhaps the first item on their ‘to do’ list they should monitor this precious resource today more closely than ever. The local yokel in some small community cannot be expected to have the environmental expertise that the Ministry has. The Government would be foolish to leave water safety to every local yokel in the province.
Steve d–google the site for water contamination of municipal water systems in Ontario–the systems run by government–there were three pages last time I checked. My point is that governments have an abysmal record when it comes to water source protection–therefore I can understand a very small community not wanting to have the thousands of dollars of expenses to have a systme run by a government that has proven not to be up to the task. We are going through the same exercise in our small community–and a municipal water system is being forced on us so that the sub-dividers can start building. The sources are not protected–we take sludge from Toronto and are not allowed to refuse it–this is just one of lthe sources of contamination—and our main concern is that chlorine is a proven carcinogen–and other systems are not allowed–like ultraviolet light. The community closest to my community has had municipal water for three years–the chlorine content is so high that people have to buy bottled water to drink and cook. And this is the ystem that we will be getting our water from–only our chlorine content will be higher because the government will have to add more in transit.
google train derailments and chlorine gas or gas spills. Bad solution for a tough job(ie pure wate)
8 people have to pay theres 5 in my house and we don’t.
In WWI they used chlorene gas to kill people and some people are allergic to it.
One of my friends needed to get a non chlorene filter for his swimming pool as one child couldn’t use it.
so
STEVE D. Want’s people who might be allergic to chlorene to be forced to drink it because it’s presumably good for them. Nanny state knows best tough if it hurts.
If someone in the government thought of it it must be a good idea for everyone. maybe they can force people to put peanuts in the water in case someones allergic to them too???
Why do we need to mention Walkerton? What about the 2001 cryptosporidium outbreak in North Battleford?
The Sask government has been making progress on provincial drinking water safety since 2002; a recent version of the performance plan is here, and it outlines, among other things, plans to spend a further $13.5 million on drinking water safety in Sask in 2006-2007. Contrary to the implication that the government is somehow at odds with rural Saskatchewan on this issue, the planning document points out that SARM has been a key partner with the government in developing and implementing its plans.
As for the smart-aleck remark about pennies for rural infrastructure, I trust Kate will be front and centre in criticizing Stephen Harper for backing away from his promises on equalization. What Harper now dismisses as ‘technical details’ of calculations would make hundreds of millions of dollars’ difference to the people of this province, including possible investments in rural communities, highways, drinking water safety, etc.
A few weeks after the election, speaking on the occasion of John Hamm’s retirement, Stephen Harper seemed to understand the importance of the position he’d taken on equalization, to the people of Nova Scotia, that is:
“The Prime Minister said Dr. Hamm’s greatest achievement was his successful fight to keep provinces’ offshore oil and gas revenues ‘where they belong, right here in Nova Scotia.’
“Mr. Harper said his Conservative government is ‘committed to the principle that Nova Scotia and all provinces must be able to keep the benefits of their non-renewable resources right at home in their own province.'”
A ‘principle’ to be defended in Nova Scotia in February is now a mere ‘preference’ when it comes to Saskatchewan: how many flip flops does that make by now?
If you want to have a look at someone who’s getting ready to shortchange Saskatchewan, including rural Saskatchewan, look no farther than Stephen Harper.
Am I missing something?
“The village is asking Saskatchewan Environment to reclassify its water and have it declared off-limits for drinking.”
What is it about this statement that confuses the left? Do they really think all “non-drinkable” water should be chlorinated? or only in Sask?
The issue here is not safe drinking water. These people must be totally aware that their drinking water in unpotable.After all there are only 8 of them.
The issue is that all the affected individuals will be forced to either pay to chlorinate the water (How much would cost?)or build individual wells that are not subject to the regulations or haul all their water. Drinking water is a very small part of water comsumption compared to toilet flushing, laundry,bathing, lawn and garden irrigation.
This issue is about common sense. If the indiviuals in this community are aware and take the proper precautions they should not be penalized because they do not have the population to support a municipal water supply.
Some writers have compared this Walkerton. Walkerton was a town of 5000 with a theoretically functional treated water supply. Someone( or several someones) were being paid to look after the system but failed to do so.
I wouldn’t think that a community of 8 would have these resources so for this their water supply will be cut off. Sounds fair to me!!!! Ha ha ha
Maybe this IS another Walkerton, after all. From a Google search, the 2001 population of Keeler was 15…now its 8! Gosh, maybe those 7 other folks already died of E.coli poisoning and this is the Saskatchewan NDP on the case to save the day! Bureaucracy to the rescue again! 😉
We’ve been drinking from our unchlorinated well on our acreage without any problems for the last year. We have the water tested regularly, so, no worries.
some people don’t know or understand what fresh water is Sean, their loss.
Kate,
Watch for Wood Mountain to be on the executioner’s block next, as the government tries to bankrupt another Village unwilling to add chlorine to the water supply within its city limits. The catch there is that the Village doesn’t even distribute the water, each resident collects it, and have each signed a letter stating they do not want a chlorination system.
It all boils down [pardon the pun] to just another example of the NDP wasting money.
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2006/06/06/keeler-loses-pure-water-judge-waits-on-serm/