Walkerton: 10 years later

Water tragedy was 10 years ago

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:22:30 +0000

Click here to watch the slideshow, with photography by Willy Waterton and James Masters, music from piper Scott Henderson, produced by Bill Henry

DOUG EDGAR
Sun Times staff
Justice Dennis O’Connor’s first report on the events of May, 2000 drew together decades of events and oversights that played parts in the deadly outbreak.
He found a heavy rain beginning May 8 washed E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni from a nearby farm into the town’s Well 5, which along with Well 6 and Well 7, provided the town’s drinking water at the time. He found Well 5 to be the source of contamination that killed seven and made about 3,000 people ill, some permanently.
The following timeline is based on Part 1 of the Report of the Walkerton Inquiry.
1978
Walkerton’s Well 5 is drilled shallow in fractured bedrock. It is identified as vulnerable to surface contamination, but no special requirements are made to ensure the water is chlorinated and tested properly.
1990s
Ministry of the Environment inspects Well 5 in 1991, 1995 and 1998, but it is not assessed to see if it is directly affected by surface water. Problems with testing and chlorination are identified, but the ministry relies on the Walkerton PUC to fix them without ordering it to do so.
MOE budget cuts start in 1992 and are stepped up after the election of 1995.

Drinking water lab tests are privatized in 1996 without making it necessary for those doing the tests to inform the MOE or local health officials of trouble.
May 8-13, 2000
Heavy rains begin and flooding follows. E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni enter Walkerton’s Well 5 from a nearby farm.
The well is the primary source of drinking water for the system in this period.
Chlorine residual measurements, which in part indicate if the chlorine’s disinfectant capacity is being overwhelmed, are not taken at the well.
It has been common practice at the PUC to make fictitious entries for chlorine residuals. Exposure to pathogens begins for people drinking the town’s water.
May 15, 2000
Water samples are taken by a PUC worker, but they are mislabelled. Samples also taken at a watermain construction site. PUC manager Stan Koebel returns to Walkerton after being away for more than a week and learns the town’s Well 7 has been operating without a chlorinator. He allows it to continue working. Well 5 is turned off, but the contaminated water has entered the system.
May 17, 2000
Private lab informs Koebel water samples taken May 15 are contaminated with E. coli, but lab doesn’t inform the MOE office in Owen Sound or the local health unit.
May 18, 2000
Signs of illness are noted when two children with bloody diarrhea are admitted to hospital in Owen Sound. Many more children are kept home from school and the PUC starts getting calls asking if something is wrong with the water.
May 19, 2000
More students are kept home from school and signs of illness are noticed by more people.
In Owen Sound, pediatrician Dr. Kristen Hallett contacts the health unit with suspicions the two children in hospital in the city have E. coli O157:H7 and notes other people in Walkerton show signs of illness.
Health unit officials phone Stan Koebel and ask if there is a problem with the water. He does not tell them of the adverse lab results, or that Well 7 had been operating without a chlorinator, which is unacceptable. After speaking with the health unit staff, Koebel begins flushing and superchlorinating the system.
“I am satisfied that Mr. Koebel was concerned during the weekend about people becoming ill from the water and he did not know that E. coli could be fatal,” O’Connor wrote.
May 20, 2000
E. coli is found in a preliminary test of one of the children at the Owen Sound hospital, prompting more calls from the health unit to Koebel. Again he doesn’t reveal what he knows about the May 15 lab tests. The health unit assures callers water isn’t the culprit.
A PUC worker makes an anonymous call to an MOE emergency number and says Walkerton water samples have failed lab tests.
May 21, 2000
E. coli O157:H7 is confirmed in tests at the Owen Sound hospital.
Health unit issues a boil water advisory at 1:30 p.m. and takes its own water samples in Walkerton.
There is rapid increase in the number of people affected by the contamination and Walkerton’s hospital is flooded with patients and calls.
The first child is airlifted to London.
May 22, 2000
First person dies. E. coli O157:H7 listed as contributing factor.
The MOE begins its own investigation of the water system at the request of the health unit. It isn’t until the MOE requests documents that Stan Koebel produces a fax sent to him by the lab May 17. He provides daily operating sheets for Well 5 and Well 6, and instructs his brother Frank to alter the documents for Well 7.
May 23, 2000
Second person dies. E. coli O157:H7 listed as cause.
Stan Koebel provides MOE with altered daily operating sheets for Well 7.
The health unit gets back test results showing E. coli is in the town’s water system. When informed, Koebel tells the health unit about the samples from May 15.
May 24, 2000
Two more people die. E. coli O157:H7 listed as cause in both cases.
Many others are transferred to London.
May 29, 2000
Fifth person dies. Campylobacter jejuni listed as contributing factor.
May 30, 2000
Sixth death. E. coli O157:H7 listed as cause.
July 25, 2000
Last death officially associated with outbreak. Campylobacter jejuni listed as a contributing factor.

Kody Hammell’s ongoing triumph

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:54:17 +0000

Tracey Hammell and her son Kody, who spent months in hospital and suffers still from multiple illnesses from contaminated Walkerton tap water 10 years ago, with a page of their scrap book from the ordeal. JAMES MASTERS/The Sun Times

VIDEO: People of Walkerton Look Back at Tragedy

SCOTT DUNN
Sun Times staff
Long may Kody Hammell run.
Ten years after Walkerton’s E. coli water poisoning left the tyke comatose and in kidney failure, the 11-year-old’s survival is a triumph of perseverance and medicine.
Amid the immediate crisis his mother, Tracey Hammell, drew on advice from her mother.
“My mom always said God wouldn’t give you anything you couldn’t handle,” Hammell recalled recently in the dining room of her country home near Hanover.
“So I thought, ‘Well then he won’t take him from me because I couldn’t handle it.’”
Kody’s gut-wrenching story was told by Justice Dennis O’Connor in his exhaustive report into the causes of one of Canada’s worst public health disasters, in May, 2000.
Cattle manure containing a deadly form of E. coli bacteria was washed by heavy rainfall into a town well, a well the Ministry of the Environment warned was vulnerable to contamination when built in 1978.
O’Connor recounted in heart-pounding detail Kody’s mom’s discovery of her son’s bloody diapers during the Victoria Day long weekend. He was vomiting, eyes rolling backward.
The hospital was backed up with sick people and Kody couldn’t be seen for hours. Advised to make him drink, with a syringe if necessary, Tracey Hammell got one and “shoved water down his throat.”

Hammell had already confirmed the water was safe with Stan Koebel, who was in charge of the town water system. She’d babysat his kids growing up. He and his first wife were good friends of her parents.
Kody was dehydrated and all he wanted was water.
“Kody’s throwing up and I saw that you guys are like pumping the water by our house. Like is the water OK?” she asked Koebel.
“Yep, yeah, it’s fine,” Koebel replied.
He would later be sentenced to one year in jail. His brother and foreman Frank received nine months house arrest for negligence in the operation of the water system.
After three days in Owen Sound hospital, Kody was rushed by air ambulance to London. He began to suffer heart failure, went on blood-filtering dialysis and underwent surgery twice, ultimately emerging from near-death.
He spent six weeks in bed and was released from London hospital on his second birthday. His family was profoundly relieved.
Today the husky 11-year-old loves hockey and hardball and jumping his bicycle over ramps at the end of his driveway, in the country east of Hanover.
His sports trophies and medals are displayed in his bedroom and elsewhere at home. He wants to play in the National Hockey League, or fix motorcycles when he grows up.
He listened quietly at the dining room table as his mother answered questions about the tragedy.
Kody’s story was one of three O’Connor selected to represent the personal suffering caused by Walkerton’s E. coli contamination.
They showed the impact on human lives of the failure to safeguard this essential element of life: pure, reliable water.
E. coli O157:H7 was most threatening to the very young and the frail seniors, who were at risk of kidney failure and strokes.
O’Connor also told the story of Norm Borth, a 66-year-old who survived the immediate calamity, all the more frightening because he knew people had died.
He told how Betty Trushinski, a 56-year-old “energetic, enthusiastic and vibrant” woman died “hooked up to machines and tubes in a coma.”
Many who shared personal stories with O’Connor in July 2000 said they were left “to feel unsafe in their own community.” Their trust was shattered.
Justice O’Connor found water operator deception, lax and complacent oversight locally and provincially, inadequate training, budget cuts in a government culture averse to enacting new regulations, and hasty government privatization of water testing were among the contributing factors.
The inquiry’s recommendations produced changes to safe-water practices and regulations and ongoing source-water protection planning across Ontario.
Mary Rose Raymond, a 2 1/2 year-old, was the the only child among the seven people whose deaths were attributed to the bad water.
Lenore Marie Al, Vera Coe, Evelyn Hussey, Edith Pearson, Laura Eva Rowe and Elizabeth Trushinski also lost their lives because minimum tap water chlorination was not maintained.
Of 33 who developed kidney damage or hemolytic uremic syndrome, in which an E. coli toxin burst primarily blood vessels in the kidneys, 27 were children.
Four remain on medication, including Kody Hammell.
Inclusion of Kody’s story in the Walkerton inquiry report signalled the children of Walkerton would survive the tragedy.
But Kody faces serious and lifelong health problems, which a personal 10-year health study of him attributed to the E. coli disaster, Tracey Hammell said.
The Walkerton Health Study, in which Kody did not participate, followed an initial 4,300 people over seven years. Ultimately, it identified about 3,000 people who got sick from the bad water.
“The vast majority of people, they’ve moved on. Their health is good,” because of ongoing treatment, said Dr. Bill Clark, who headed the 2002-2008 study, which was partially updated last year.
“There is a small minority of people who have significant problems.”
Kody takes pills twice daily to control and stabilize his kidney function. He also developed Type 1 diabetes and gets tired a lot now.
Kody’s mom said complications, like vision problems, limb amputation and further deterioration of his kidney function all threaten Kody’s future health.
“So it worries me,” Tracey Hammell said. “And it just makes our odds for needing a kidney transplant down the road a lot more likely,” she said.
“He hardly has a day go by that he feels well for the whole day,” since that diagnosis two years ago.
Dr. Clark said his study predicts no more people should develop diabetes and it is “extremely unlikely” dialysis would be needed for anyone affected if properly treated, he said.
Despite outward appearances, Kody’s bright-eyed and devoted mother has personal challenges of her own. She continues to receive counselling regularly, though not as often as before.
She misses her hairdressing job, which she left one year ago because Kody often needed her and dropping everything at work wasn’t a reasonable option.
“I couldn’t handle being everywhere he needed me to be. Or I felt bad there was things he wasn’t allowed to do.”
Unless she accompanied him on school trips or to his hockey or ball games, he couldn’t participate, she said.
She didn’t attend Sunday’s 10th anniversary memorial ceremonies in Walkerton. “They’re not happy things for me. And I already deal with this and him on a daily basis.”
An insulin pump keeps Kody’s blood sugar in check. His diet is strictly monitored and he must count his carbohydrate intake, a complicated task for him.
He’s been hospitalized twice after forgetting to do that. One time he fell into a diabetic coma, when his blood-sugar level went haywire.
“A normal child his age would know, OK, I need to test my sugar four times in the day and know what to do about it,” said Tracey.
There’s a sad explanation for why Kody forgets. While in the coma induced by the attacking E. coli bacteria, he suffered a brain injury.
It impairs his memory, ability to anticipate consequences and focus his attention on more than one task. The nature of his impairment also prevents him from understanding a clock face.
Kody struggles in school. For the past few months he has left his Grade 6 classes in the afternoon to work with a tutor.
He is bothered by excessive noise and suffers stress headaches. About six months ago doctors confirmed he has inflammatory arthritis.
But he remains positive.
“He’s excellent,” his mother said. “He never complains. You might hear him once in a blue moon say ‘I wish I wasn’t diabetic anymore.’”
Kody remains a sports junkie but has had to scale back from rep to houseleague hockey. He moved from right-wing to netminder, a concession to his new limitations.
“The days he feels good, he’s awesome,” his mother said. “And the days he doesn’t feel good, he’s a whole different kid out there.”
He gets frustrated he can’t excel like he used to but he keeps going.
“Well, I’m never going to get rid of it. So I just have to put up with it,” Kody said.

Disaster leaves people wary of water

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:50:13 +0000

Stacey Diemert, of Walkerton, and her two children Victoria, 11, and Madison, 2, with a water cooler jug. The family no longer drinks Walkerton tap water. BILL WALKER/The Sun Times

BILL WALKER
Sun Times staff
WALKERTON — Cassandra Diemert has never simply gone to her tap and turned it on for a drink of water.
The nine-year-old Walkerton resident never will if her mom Stacey has anything to say about it.
In her mind, Cassandra has already suffered enough because of Walkerton’s water. The elementary school student was not even born in 2000 when E. coli bacteria contaminated the town’s water system, killing seven people and sickening thousands more.
“I’ve had a glass or two out of the tap but we buy bottled water for the kids,” Stacey Diemert said one sunny spring day as she and 11-year-old daughter Victoria loaded a water-cooler jug into the family van.
“We won’t go through that again. For my kids’ safety and their health, I’ll buy water. I know it’s expensive in the long run, but it’s worth it. I think people are drinking a lot more bottled water. It’s for the piece of mind.”
Cassandra Diemert isn’t the only Walkerton resident who hasn’t had a glass of tap water since 2000.

The move to bottled water began when residents were forbidden to drink from their taps while water lines were being flushed of contaminants in 2000. It’s a habit that’s been supported by the bottled water industry which saw its share of the beverage market rise from 5% in 2000 to 9.1% in 2006, according to an Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada report.
Bottled water’s share of annual grocery sales grew 65% from 2003 to 2006, according to that same report.
Not surprisingly the bottled water industry is reluctant to discuss Walkerton and the financial impact that it had on sales.
Repeated calls to the Canadian Bottled Water Association and the International Council of Bottled Water Associations went unanswered.
But University of Waterloo civil and environmental engineering professor Dr. Peter Huck noted that “there is no doubt that the Walkerton incident has been a contributing factor — but not the only factor — in the increased consumption of bottled water. It is perceived by consumers to be safer.”
This perception gave the bottled water industry a boost.
The Walkerton Water and Wellness Centre opened shortly after the town’s water problems, not in an attempt to capitalize on peoples fears, employees say, but simply to fill a demand that was growing in town.
“A lot of us got used to it because we were given water bottles and the water coolers in order to get over the contamination,” said longtime centre employee Jan Radford.
“We’re used to purified (water) now and we don’t like the taste of the chlorine and the chemicals that’s added to it now.”
It’s too broad of a generalization to say that everyone in Walkerton drinks bottled water.
There’s also been an increase in under-the-counter filtration systems, according to Radford.
“But not everyone has a filter system and not everyone has a water bottle or a Brita in their fridge,” she noted. “People do drink the water here. It’s just that people are more conscious of where our water is coming from.”
Despite the safety of Walkerton’s water, many people still view bottled water as a safer alternative, even though the town “certainly has very safe water,” Huck said.
People coming to Walkerton often shy away from tap water. That’s certainly true for sports teams.
The Walkerton water tragedy happened near the end of the Ontario high school sports season in 2000.
Teams coming into Walkerton the following season made a point of bringing their own water. It’s a practice that’s still taking place today.
“Rarely do teams pull in and fill up their water bottles,” said Sacred Heart Crusaders girls rugby coach Bill King.
“They seem to want to bring their own water. We’ve brought in coolers with water from outside (of Walkerton) and they still won’t drink it. They seem to feel safer with bottled water and they still are like that today, even though we probably have the safest water in Canada.”
It’s safe because of the membrane filtration system that was installed by the municipality and province, a system that likely never would have been installed if not for the water tragedy, according to Huck.
But word of mouth and long memories trump a high-tech filtration system.
Walkerton, to many people around the world, means one thing — bad water.
Simply Google “Walkerton” and “Water” if you doubt this. Those two words spawn almost 1.7 million search results.
“We got known across Ontario as the town that was infected by this water problem,” said King. “The first thing they say is, ‘Oh, that’s where you had the water problem.”
But it wasn’t just people in Walkerton who were affected by the water in 2000.
Diemert and her family were Cargill residents in 2000 but were in the Bruce County town almost every day for business and to shop.
Stacey was pregnant with Cassandra when the expectant mother became ill due to the contaminated water. Cassandra later developed diabetes at age 2 and her doctors contributed the illness to her exposure — through Stacey — to Walkerton’s contaminated water.
“I got really ill and (the doctors) felt she got it too at birth,” said Diemert, who was unsuccessful in her bid to get compensation for her daughter’s illness.
“It (diabetes) hit her when she was two and I almost lost her. They weren’t able to prove it but when I got her tested, the doctors said part of it was because of the water and because I was so sick from it.”
Diemert’s husband Rick Smith also got sick during the contamination and like many people, could not work.
His inability to work and the drop in business eventually led to the couple selling their duct cleaning business.
“It got really slow and in a year or two after that we got rid of it,” said Diemert, who like many residents is amazed that it all took place 10 years ago.
“It seems like it was just like yesterday that everyone was sick.”
For residents in Walkerton, the water tragedy lives in their mind every day.
Even if they weren’t sick, they undoubtedly knew someone who was.
“I think it’s something that will live with you for the rest of your life,” said King. “Everyone knows where they were that (long weekend in May 2000) and what they did. It’s our JFK moment.”

Family remembers ‘a life that could have been’

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:57:08 +0000

Siblings Kylie and Ian McDonald were both made ill by E.coli-tainted water in Walkerton in May of 2000. SCOTT DUNN/The Sun Times

SCOTT DUNN
Sun Times staff
LONDON — Ian McDonald was fighting for his life when the same wave of wrenching gut cramps caused by E. coli bacteria attacked his three-year-old sister Kylie.
Ian, 4, was already gravely ill when his mother, Cathy McDonald, noticed blood in his urine and doctors had him transferred from hospital in Walkerton to London.
She travelled in a police cruiser that accompanied Ian’s ambulance when the air ambulance was unavailable. Her husband Jamie McDonald was an OPP constable stationed in Walkerton then.
Ian’s arms were black and blue from IV injections. He’d been throwing up blood in Walkerton and he was dying.
His condition worsened in London. A surgeon had to open him up to stop an internal bleed before he was placed on dialysis in the middle of the night.
Hours before that, word came that Kylie had it too. Room was found for her in the fast-filling facility, in the floor above where Ian lay. Her kidneys were failing too.

With both parents in London now, their two-year-old Alex stayed with Jamie’s parents in Owen Sound, feeling forgotten, Cathy said. Alex never contracted the potentially deadly bug.
Kylie, now 13 and in Grade 8, excels in soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, track and more. She dreams of competing in the Olympics. She may study archeology.
But she has a weakened heart muscle, which doctors say was caused by an “extraordinary illness,” with E. coli the obvious culprit, Jamie said.
The abnormality doesn’t bother her and she requires no medication. She is to have it checked every two years.
Beyond an overwhelming and lasting fear of needles, Kylie said she has put the experience behind her.
Concerns about Ian remain.
He has some cognitive impairment, caused by a neurological injury resulting from E. coli poisoning, Jamie said. The spilling of protein in his urine indicates he may have more serious kidney and health issues down the road.
Jamie and Cathy McDonald said the disaster no longer commands their attention like it did for years. But uncertainty about the future leaves them waiting for the other shoe to drop, both said.
Ian, 14, appears serious and intense when answering questions. But when Kylie throws her arms around him warmly, he smiles easily. Seeing this, his mother encourages him to flash that smile more.
“I don’t really think about it as much as I used to,” he said of his three-week fight for survival, of which he remembers very little. “The last 10 years haven’t been the best.”
But he quickly added it’s getting “a lot better.”
For the first five years, Ian underwent examinations in London or Toronto weekly.
“There are some complications that he has that they just haven’t encountered before,” Jamie McDonald said. “And some of it still does remain a mystery.”
Ian plays guitar, favours death metal and is an avid gamer. He’s in Grade 9, where his favourite subjects include computers, chemistry and biology.
He’s also in the army cadets where he enjoys winter survival training and marksmanship. He hopes to study computer science and enter the military.
“I just like the fact that I’d be defending something.”
Today the McDonalds live in a large new home in London. It has a bacteria-killing ultraviolet water filter hooked up to London’s municipal water system. Their second daughter, Katie, was born in London nine years ago.
Cathy McDonald said she and her husband guard against being overprotective of their children.
“It makes you more alert,” she said of the water disaster’s psychological impact. “If something happens to your kid, you’re going to be the first to advocate out there, whatever it is.”
The McDonalds had intended to remain in Walkerton for the rest of their lives. The family moved to London because it was closer to medical experts for Ian.
But when driving to Owen Sound to visit Jamie’s parents, he said they make a point of driving through Walkerton to remember “a life that could have been.”

Province’s water system transformed by crisis

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:50:04 +0000

The Walkerton Clean Water Centre, established following the disaster. JAMES MASTERS/ The Sun Times

DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff
The man in charge of enforcing Ontario’s drinking water standards says municipal drinking water in the province has become among the best protected in the world 10 years after E. coli bacteria killed seven people and made thousands sick in Walkerton.
“The first word that I would use to describe where we’ve come since 2000 is transformational,” said Ontario’s chief drinking water inspector John Stager.
Since the Walkerton water disaster, the province has enacted strict laws for treating, monitoring and testing municipal drinking water. Source water is better protected and system operators, inspectors and laboratories must now be certified and licenced.
But advocates for safer drinking water say more can and should be done to ensure every Ontarian — and Canadian — has access to safe, clean, reliable drinking water.
They point to a need for stricter regulations to protect the quality of Ontario’s lakes and rivers and to preserve the safety of private wells. They’re also calling on the federal government to provide stronger leadership by creating a national policy to boost water quality across Canada.

“We have made tremendous progress. Awareness is higher. The chance of large-scale contamination, like what happened in Walkerton, is far reduced. But, I do think we need to do more,” said Bruce Davidson, vice-chair of Concerned Walkerton Citizens.
Drinking water standards have drastically changed in the last 10 years.
The province says each of the 121 recommendations made by Justice Dennis O’Connor, following the Walkerton water inquiry, have been implemented. Stager said 600,000 drinking water tests are conducted annually at 56 certified laboratories. Compliance is at 99.8%.
At the time brothers Stan and Frank Koebel ran Walkerton’s water system in May 2000, testing labs were in private hands, few safeguards were in place and only guidelines existed for drinking water quality.
Two years after the Walkerton disaster, the provincial government approved the Safe Drinking Water Act, which established strict standards for municipal drinking water quality, testing, monitoring and inspections. The act, the result of recommendations contained in Part 2 of O’Connor’s inquiry report, requires certification for all municipal water systems, operators and testing labs.
New regulations for smaller, lower risk water systems, such as ones in place at churches and community halls, were approved in 2008, due to concerns over the high cost to municipalities to update small systems up to the same level as municipal systems.
The province also spent $50 million to build the Walkerton Clean Water Centre, a world-class training and education centre for owners and operators of municipal drinking water systems. It has trained 23,000 people to date.
A second major piece of safe-water legislation, which also came out of the Walkerton water inquiry, was approved in 2006. The Clean Water Act provides mandates to better protect sources of drinking water. Nineteen local Source Water Protection committees are now working to identify local threats to source water and draft a source protection plan to address them.
Mike Layton, deputy outreach leader at Environmental Defence, said clean water advocates are “excited” about the source water protection work, but believe more work is needed to protect drinking water for all Ontarians.
“We’re only protecting sources of water that are used for municipal drinking supplies. That leaves a lot of Ontario’s water as unprotected,” he said.
Christopher Waffle, a researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said the Clean Water Act does not address protection for private, stand-alone wells, which supply drinking water to 10 to 15% of Ontarians.
“It sounds like a small minority but when we’re talking about a province of 13 million people, you’re talking about up to two million people,” he said.
Nancy Goucher, co-ordinator of the Forum for Leadership on Water (Flow Canada), said up to 40% of rural wells contain bacterial concentrations, such as E. coli, that exceed provincial standards.
Flow Canada and EcoJustice Canada, a national environmental group, have written a policy paper that calls on the federal government to develop legally binding standards to protect all drinking water across the country.
Goucher said First Nations communities are not bound by Ontario’s safe water standards and only Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, Nova Scotia and the Yukon have adopted safe drinking water legislation.
She said Ottawa needs to create a “federal safety net” by adopting national safe drinking water standards to protect all Canadians.
EcoJustice lawyer Randy Christensen said rules are also needed to better protect the quality of the Great Lakes and all watersheds from contaminants.
“It’s much easier to prevent contaminants from getting in the water in the first place than to clean it up later,” he said.
Stager, who oversees a division of people at the Ministry of the Environment that inspect municipal drinking water systems, said it is imperative that the province never loses sight of the lessons learned in Walkerton.
That means scientists and water quality experts must continue to develop better ways to treat drinking water and be quick to identify any potential new threats, he said.
“It’s absolutely critical that we maintain that level of vigilance.”

Vast Majority now recovered from illness due to tainted water 10 years ago

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:42:10 +0000

A news helicopter circles Walkerton in May, 2000, when the eyes of the world were on the Bruce County community as it grappled with a water contamination tragedy that eventually killed seven people. WILLY WATERTON/The Sun Times

SCOTT DUNN
The Sun Times
The seven-year Walkerton Health Study showed about 65% of people in Walkerton got sick by drinking the deadly E. coli-laden water and nearly all recovered.
It found at least 3,000 people contracted intestinal illness during the E. coli outbreak, significantly more than is often quoted. Seven people died from the May 2000 outbreak.
“The vast majority of people, they’ve moved on. Their health is good,” said Dr. Bill Clark, who headed the study.
The study started with 4,300 people, including 1,000 who didn’t get sick. A diminishing number continued to participate in annual checkups between 2002 and 2008.
“There is a small minority of people who have significant problems,” Clark said.
The study helped catch and treat illnesses both brought on by the disaster and not, he said.
There were 27 children during the outbreak who developed kidney damage or hemolytic uremic syndrome. Now four remain on medication.
HUS is caused when a toxin produced by the E. coli. bursts blood vessels predominantly in the kidneys, though the gut, the brain and pancreas are also at risk.

With adult victims included there were 33 cases of HUS. One adult has unimproved kidney impairment, while two more have kidneys that are impaired but not significantly, Clark said.
“But the good news is, I think that very few if any will progress to end-stage renal (kidney) failure because we have identified and treated those at risk,” Clark said.
Based on the study, one child would be expected to develop diabetes and one did.
About 30% or 900 people developed irritable bowel syndrome in the initial outbreak. Very few children were afflicted with this uncomfortable problem, with urgent loose bowel movements and bouts of constipation.
Now about 100 people are left with it, as 50% improved every two to three years, Clark said.
Of those adults who got sick, there’s a 30% increased risk they’ll develop high blood pressure, a sign of worsening health that could lead to heart attack or stroke. It is a characteristic of the general population that one quarter will develop it.
So potentially that’s 110 more people will have high blood pressure due to the bad water, Clark said. But ongoing monitoring and treatment has improved their health significantly, he said. Drugs can prevent high blood pressure’s progression.
There remain increased risks of kidney impairment and cardiovascular problems though, Clark said.
The study also found a “significant increase” in inflammatory arthritis, or joint pain, affecting less than 100 people. Most people’s symptoms abated but the rest use medication.
Hopeful signs continue.
A study update in 2009 found 87% still in the study rated their health good-to-excellent. Of those remaining, who rated their health fair-to-poor, 49.4% said it was stable or better that year than in the previous year, Clark said.
Clark also said roughly two-thirds of people became sick to their stomach in the initial outbreak because they were genetically predisposed. One third of folks were less genetically vulnerable.
Clark said there wasn’t resistance in the population due to any past exposures to E. coli in the water, as some have suspected. That’s because the bug is so toxic that even a bit of E. coli O157:H7 in the water prior to 2000 would have produced the same disaster, Clark said.

Teen physically fine, but emotional effects linger

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:15:12 +0000

Aleasha Reich, 17, was seven when she drank contaminated water. Ten years later she still hasn't tried the town's tap water again despite assurances Walkerton water is now amongst the safest drinking water in the world. JAMES MASTERS/The Sun Times

VIDEO: People of Walkerton Look Back at Tragedy

SCOTT DUNN
Sun Times staff
Aleasha Reich, a statuesque 17-year-old young woman, stands as a proud Walkerton success.
The reigning ambassador of the Walkerton Little Royal Fair was once fighting for her life, amid this town’s tainted water cover-up in May 2000.
She and a younger boy were the first two Walkerton patients seen by then-Owen Sound Dr. Kristen Hallett, who set in motion the hunt for the source of E. coli poisoning.
While Aleasha suffered kidney failure in a London hospital bed, doctors worried she might have a fatal stroke. But the seven-year-old recovered with no apparent physical injury and left hospital after two weeks.
Aleasha’s participation in the seven-year Walkerton Health Study found no lasting physical health concerns.

Aleasha Reich wears the Walkerton Little Royal Ambassador's crown.

“We’re very thankful,” said Aleasha’s mother, Cathy. She wears a ring with five stones, representing the month of May when disaster struck, “to remind us how lucky we are.”
But Aleasha suffers from anxiety and migraines. She strives to feel in control of situations, which a psychiatrist told her is a normal reaction to her E. coli traumatization.
So the lasting effect on Aleasha has been emotional.
She has a phobia about needles, after receiving around 160 injections because of her illness. It was “a matter of holding her down” to give her an injection, said her mom, Cathy, who Aleasha calls “my rock.”
And Aleasha’s alarm as a child at anyone drinking tap water still compels her immediate family not to drink it.
“I know it’s fine now and that it wouldn’t hurt me but I just can’t get myself to get a glass of it,” she said.
There is one big medical uncertainty remaining. She has been told she may be unable to bear children because of the E. coli poisoning.
Aleasha is graduating from high school this spring, then it’s off to Conestoga College to study early childhood education next fall.
Her winning speech to Little Royal judges was about the benefits of small-town life, with caring people and productive farms. If it turns out she lives her whole life in Walkerton, she’ll do so happily, she said.
“I think the town in general has come back very well from it. Everyone is very supportive of one another,” Aleasha said.

“I consider myself to be a pretty positive person just ’cause I know sort of what can happen at its worst. And I’ve gotten so lucky,” Aleasha said.

Aleasha Reich in her Owen Sound hospital bed in May, 2000.

It’s hard to believe the ordeal happened to her, she said. “It doesn’t anger me. It’s sad. It’s hard to think about.”
Tenth anniversary ceremonies were held Sunday at the Walkerton Heritage Water Garden, where water gushed over rocks and breezes rustled leaves in the trees, one of which Aleasha planted.
The park is dedicated to the “indomitable spirit” found in Walkerton’s people, a rock’s inscription says. It’s also for all who suffered and died.
But the Reichs didn’t attend. Instead, they spent that day with Aleasha’s grandmother, who celebrated her 80th birthday.
“We chose to celebrate rather than dwell on the past,” Cathy Reich said.

Families still fighting for compensation

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:06:48 +0000

The McDonald family, still in litigation following the Walkerton water tragedy 10 years ago. SCOTT DUNN/The Sun Times

SCOTT DUNN
The Sun Times
Efforts to obtain compensation for Walkerton’s water disaster have lasted years for two of the hardest-hit kids’ families.
It took 10 years for the Walkerton Compensation Plan to pay anything significant for 11-year-old Kody Hammell, who has lasting health problems from the May 2000 E. coli water tragedy, which left seven dead and about 3,000 sick.
Fighting with the insurance company administering the compensation plan has left Kody’s mother exasperated and the boy’s father angry.
“That has almost split us up so many times. I am so sick of hearing Kevin come home and say, ‘Did you phone the lawyers today?’” Tracey Hammell said in an interview from her home near Hanover.
“I don’t know why it took so long.”
Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris said after a class-action lawsuit was filed that his government’s alternative plan, which was accepted by the claimants, was a humanitarian gesture to avoid courts and lawyers.
The no-fault compensation plan was advertised as “efficient, timely and impartial.” Funds came from insurance companies, topped up by the province.
It paid $2,000 automatically to all Walkerton residents at the time, and most got another $2,000 for mental distress during the six-month water disruption.
It also paid legal bills for those who hired a lawyer to justify further compensation, with no deadline to reapply.
As of this month the plan has paid out $70.5 million to 10,189 approved claims, said Kim Chalmers, manager for the plan administrator, Crawford and Company.

After the initial payout, 6,958 sought more money and there are 151 of those claims unresolved, “maybe 10″ involving people with particularly serious illness, Chalmers said.
The plan, while it may be expeditious for those without serious complications, has been a brutal struggle for the Hammells.
“Of course anybody would think how could anything take 10 years, that just seems ridiculous,” Chalmers said, without commenting directly on individual claims.
But lawyer involvement added delays, partly because they and their clients don’t want to settle prematurely, possibly until the extent of injury to their children is known. The plan administrator may not want to make an offer too early, Chalmers said.
“Especially in the cases of the children, a lot of the medical issues . . . developed over time,” she said. “So you’re looking at, do you make an offer to somebody who seems to have something ongoing that they can’t quite put their finger on?”
The administrator also requires records of the medical problems, which takes time to document, she said.
“It’s not because of any malice or deliberate intent on the part of the administrator to drag our feet,” Chalmers said.
In fact, Chalmers said, this plan is “probably the most generous.” In some cases settlements are “pushing sort of the boundaries” required by Ontario law, she said.
Chalmers said the plan’s provision for allowing a fresh claim with no time limit makes it “very unique to any settlement that I’ve seen.”
Some less generous plans use a chart which lumps all claimants into the same category, regardless of circumstance, she said.
It allowed for coverage of pain and suffering, past and future lost income and future uninsured health expenses.
Ontario courts limit general damages, including pain and suffering from injuries, to about $270,000, Chalmers said.
Personal damages are limited to $330,000 today, said Owen Sound lawyer Brian Barrie, who added total damages in other claim categories can significantly increase that total.
Damages had to be proven and a Superior Court judge was available, if required, to rule in disputes over damages in serious cases.
“Compensation helped a little along the way but not without a huge fight,” said Tracey Hammell, who worried talking would breach a confidentiality agreement with Crawford.
Hammell said Kody suffered a permanent brain injury, kidney disease and went on to develop Type 1 diabetes and arthritis — all from contamination by manure washed into a town well by a rainstorm in May 2000.
The retroactive payment to the Hammells followed the conclusion of a 10-year health study of Kody, which Hammell said attributed his health problems to the disaster. Paperwork required by the compensation plan became available in December, she said.
“Like they have finally started paying for his meds that we’ve needed for the past 10 years,” Hammell said. For example, in December the compensation plan paid $10,000 for medication for 2009, she said.
Chalmers said “in some very limited situations” confidentiality agreements were negotiated concerning individual settlement amounts.
“In some situations it’s as much to protect them (claimants) as anybody else” from “things that come out of left field that maybe people aren’t expecting,” when it’s known people have come into money, she said.
Hammell was always told that Kody’s case was complicated and the possibility of future illness caused the insurance company to “hold off,” she said. Kody’s case will still be reviewed annually, she said.
But Hammell said she’s tired of being angry.
After 10 years of persistence, she said, having Kody’s medical expenses covered is enough for her.
“I want to be a good mum. I want to be a better person. I want to feel better. I don’t want to be depressed every day.”
She said she’s also concerned about future unforeseen expenses for Kody.
“I don’t want anyone to think that I just wanted to get rich off this ’cause I certainly didn’t. I just want to know that we can afford to look after Kody.”
Ian McDonald fought for his life in the same London intensive care unit as Kody Hammell a decade ago.
Ian, now 14, suffered some cognitive impairment from a neurological injury attributable to E. coli poisoning and must be monitored for the rest of his life for signs of diabetes and high blood pressure.
Sister Kylie, now 13, who also had kidney failure, has a weakened heart muscle which is being monitored but doesn’t prevent her from full participation in sports.
“Here we are a decade later and we’re still, we still have our battles,” said Jamie McDonald, Ian’s father. “We’re still in litigation.”
The McDonalds received “partial” compensation in an interim agreement settled after eight years of “fighting.”
It took a lot of “fist pounding, foot stomping, not only with our own legal counsel but also through them to the compensation plan,” Jamie said.
After that, progress started to be made, he said. But the fight continues.
McDonald, an Ontario Provincial Police officer in the London area, put his name forward to register the class-action lawsuit, which was settled in favour of the government plan.
He said a confidentiality agreement requires him to speak in generalities.
“Basically for the first eight years, we didn’t have a life. Our life revolved around doctor visits, lawyer visits,” Jamie said. “Reports for this, reports for that,” Cathy added.
“You’d think you’d had everything and then they’d say, well, what about this, this and this?” Cathy said.
“For every answer we gave them, they put up two more roadblocks,” Jamie said, adding as far as he could tell, “a lot of our delays were imposed to try and make us give up.
“I think the province can rest assured that the lawyers they had representing the province did their job very well.”
Crawford manager Chalmers strongly objected to the assertion that the administrator tried to wait out claimants.
“The answer is absolutely no. That is not who we are. That is not what we do and that is not what the compensation plan was . . . intended to do.”
Though the Superior Court of Justice tried to impose deadlines on Crawford and the government, Jamie McDonald said months went by between responses. The plan should have set limits, he said.
Barrie, the Owen Sound lawyer, represented four victims, including families of three who died. Though he found the plan generous, it was not responsive — until, it seemed to him, when he went to a newspaper for a story featuring his clients “expressing their dismay about the delays.
“And the article had the desired effect because immediately the process was streamlined for at least for the cases that I was involved in.”
However, it’s also the nature of compensating for injuries that it can take time to prove and establish causality, he said.

EDITORIAL: Lessons from Walkerton still to be learned

suntimeswalkerton — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:18:12 +0000

Ten years later, what have we learned? Not an easy question.
In today’s Sun Times our award-winning news team tells just a few of the heart-wrenching stories that stemmed from the Walkerton tainted-water tragedy.
You’ll be struck by the pathos of these stories. Ordinary lives were forever changed. Seven lives ended. None of that can ever be undone.
We may draw some historical lessons.
The Mike Harris Conservatives rode to power in 1995 infused with a reformist zeal that brooked no opposition.

Harris was determined to slash the size of government. He wasn’t afraid to break things in order to get that done. He wanted to build a new society founded on bootstrap values.
After Walkerton it became painfully clear that Harris had broken too much and built too little.
The O’Connor Inquiry found that the pell-mell rush to deregulate was a factor — along with human error and negligence — leading to the disaster.
Harris, and local Conservative MPP Bill Murdoch, initially argued the government had no responsibility. Murdoch insisted that it was just a case of two men who hadn’t done their jobs.
He was eventually found to be wrong about this. “In 1996, provincial budget cuts ended government lab testing for municipalities,” the O’Connor report found.
“In implementing this decision, the government should have enacted a regulation mandating that testing laboratories immediately and directly notify both the MOE and the Medical Officer of Health about adverse results.”
Had the government done so, the report continues, “hundreds of illnesses” would have been prevented.
There was hard evidence the water supply was at risk, but warnings were not taken seriously enough. The Ministry of Environment repeatedly found problems with under-chlorination. It wrote letters to then-Walkerton utilities manager Stan Koebel.
But the MOE did not issue enforcement orders. (Koebel later served a year in jail for his role in the tragedy. His brother Frank, who was water foreman, received nine months’ conditional house arrest.)
It would be unfair to blame Mike Harris for all of this or even the major part of it. But he clearly fostered the political and regulatory culture in which it took place.
Now here we are in 2010 with another majority government at Queen’s Park, seemingly every bit as removed from ordinary folk as the Harris government was at its peak.
The lack of accountability for the e- Health scandal, the clumsiness and autocracy inherent in the Green Energy Act, reveal a government in love with its own righteousness.
So this, perhaps, is the largest lesson of all: Democracy is a live art, which requires our active participation. If we don’t get involved it withers and dies.
To blithely accept the official line, regardless of which party holds power, is to accept that our interests will often be overlooked.
Walkerton proved this if nothing else: People need to stand up and represent their own interests, especially when it comes to their health. No one else, certainly no politician, will do it as well.