The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) host- D ed an international conference in 2000 titled "Small drinking water and wastewater systems: Technology for the 21st Century". It brought together scientists and water treatment experts from North America and beyond. At the end of the conference the delegates were invited to debate a drinking water challenge.

The federal and Ontario governments, with major political posturing, went into the deeр end of drinking water issues in Kashechewan as visions of Walkerton re-emerged as E. coli had invaded yet another First Nations community in Canada.

During the recent E. coli outbreak in Kashechewan I was interrogated by a string of reporters in print, radio and TV. After having explained the appalling issues to one of the reporters for about 30 minutes, he asked: “What are coliforms?”

An article in the Economist magazine (June 2003) stated: "There's oil in them tar sands!" The article made a comparison of global oil reserves and recognized the potential for the tar sands of Northern Alberta to be the second largest oil reserves on earth.

Despite Walkerton, North Battleford and countless other incidents of unsafe drinking water distributions in Canada, implementing rural water quality regulations is a formidable life challenge, which we have desire to tackle.

Water plant operator Tony Steinhauer has struggled to maintain good water quality from the poor water quality found on the Saddle Lake reserve.

I spend much of my time working away from home building improved drinking water and wastewater treatment systems in Indigenous communities.

The recent tsunami destroyed water infrastructure and is raising fears of deadly repercussions as sewage and corpses are contaminating water supplies.

The question of what needs to be done to move toward safe drinking water is not as simple as most people assume. It is a question that can have both a political and a technical answer.

Often groundwater sources are analyzed with the main objective of compliance to guidelines. This is great if you want to comply with guidelines, but if you want to produce safe drinking water a different approach is required.

The first filters for municipal drinking water treatment were slow sand filters –where water is passed through a bed of fine sand at slow speeds – developed almost 200 years ago in England.

In Canada and around the world communities and individuals are drilling into underground water sources that are similar to above ground lakes. Aquifers can be found a few meters to hundreds of meters below the earth’s surface.

Days before the Walkerton outbreak in May 2000, Municipal World magazine published one of my articles warning Canadians about rampant water quality problems in rural Canada.

On May 10, 2005, an internal briefing note to Environment Minister Stephane Dion was published from an Access to Information request. The document states “Our failure to protect water has caught up with us”.

Since the formation of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation (SDWF) in 1997, we have argued that there should be greater accountability and more applied science to ensure that drinking water is not only perceived to be safe but actually is safe.

In February the B.C. government launched a new $80 million safe drinking water program.

I have attended many water conferences in Canada, the U.S. and around the world and have found that when it comes to dealing with water issues in most countries, politics frequently comes into the scientific mix.

When we turn on the tap, we assume the water has been treated properly and is safe to drink. We know someone is responsible for ensuring this is safe and if it causes illness, that they will be held accountable.

Perhaps Peterson’s technology will change this. Between 2002 and 2004, he developed a biological treatment process that has had enormous success in First Nations communities that have to rely on poor-quality water sources.

With an enormous expanse of lakes and rivers, it’s hard to believe that Canada would have any major issues supplying clean water to its residents—but unfortunately, this is the case.

A delegation from the Keepers of the Water (KOW) grassroots organization will be attending the annual Dene Nation Water Summit from March 13th to 17th, 2023, hosted at the Ingamo Hall in Inuvik, Northwest Territories (NT).

As far back as the late 70s, there have been deep concerns regarding severe adverse human health impacts to those living nearby, downstream and downwind of the Alberta tar sands mining sites.

When the drinking water in a major city has even the slightest taste and odour residents will often phone and complain despite the fact that these incidences are typically controlled rapidly by the water treatment plant.

The world took notice in 1993 when the Cryptosporidium parasite eluded the combined water treatment processes in Milwaukee and infected 400,000 people - half the city’s population.

In a recent CMAJ editorial, Steve Hrudey correctly stated that Canadian water quality is a rural versus urban issue.

What happened? Groundwater quality in Saskatchewan is typically extremely poor. Indian Affairs, which now calls itself Aboriginal Affairs, has even labeled some groundwater sources as “untreatable.”

In 1999 everybody knew that Yellow Quill First Nation had bad tap water. Actually, bad, was an understatement.

To make matters worse, Kelvington annually released its wastewater lagoon into Pipestone Creek. Most wastewater discharges from lagoons in Saskatchewan are of really poor quality in the spring.

In June 2002, everybody agreed on one thing: resolving Yellow Quill’s water woes would need some heavy artillery.

There is an old saying that goes something like this: “The proof is in the pudding.” What if there is not even a pudding?

He likens any water source as a “smorgasbord” of food for bacteria. The biological treatment eradicates that smorgasbord, so that there is not a scrap of food for bacteria, and the bacteria disappear.

For decades the federal government has constructed the water treatment plants according to the Low Cost Rule. This has resulted in poor quality engineering, poor quality workmanship, poor quality equipment, and poor quality treated water.

Newly constructed water or wastewater treatment plants should not need to be altered for 10 to 20 years, yet how do we prepare for the seemingly unpredictable guidelines that govern them?

With increasing attention on the production of safe drinking water, large utilities around the world are trying to position themselves to meet the challenges.

Some say the tap water in rural Saskatchewan is perfectly fine. Indeed, one government official termed a bitter tasting water in one town as “delicious”.

There is one rule that is dominating private industry right now. It is the requirement for innovative product development.

The E. coli outbreak in Walkerton sent a wake-up call across Canada. Among rural residents, it instilled fear that the water their family is drinking may not be safe.

During the past two years we have documented the concerns with rural drinking water in almost every issue of The Rural Councillor.

During a public address in October 1999 Saskatchewan’s Premier Mr. Roy Romanow made the following statement: “Here in Saskatchewan we have always placed a high priority on meeting the challenges of adequate water and wastewater systems to our citizens, urban and rural alike.”

The provincial government in Saskatchewan both through its elected representatives and through its senior civil servants have tripped over each other to deny the obvious: that rural Saskatchewan has problems making high quality drinking water out of poor quality source waters.

PFRA commissioned a report with the above title. I wrote the report in collaboration with PFRA. Strategic funding was provided by the Canada-Saskatchewan Agri-Food Innovation Fund (Canada-Saskatchewan) and WateResearch Corp.

Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management (SERM) puts together a weekly list of boil water orders and boil water advisories.

On September 24 I had lunch with Dr. David Horrobin, a true innovator in Stirling, Scotland. Dr. David Horrobin was formerly CEO of Scotia Pharmaceuticals, a major British drug development company with one major research facility in Canada.

Sixty years ago, in an effort to increase available water supplies on the Canadian prairies, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Agency (PFRA) implemented a dugout construction program.

To determine if a water is safe for human consumption in rural areas it is common practice to measure two things, the amount of nitrates and total coliform bacteria in the water.

Contaminants in the environment can affect how long a person will live and what illnesses that person will suffer.

A national meeting of the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors was held May 10-12 in Saskatoon.

As the temperature rises and the sun gets hot crops such as alfalfa, become green. This is because the plant pigment chlorophyll is present.

The definition of quality drinking water is universal: Drinking water should be clear, colourless and odourless. It should not contain disease-causing microorganisms (pathogens) or harmful chemicals.

The notion that only pure water is good for us is wrong. Most water contains basic elements, such as minerals, which are actually good for us.

When the drinking water in Saskatoon has even the slightest taste and odour city people phone and bitterly complain to the Water Treatment Plant.

The Saskatchewan Government formed a working group to address water issues in 1994 and in 1998 they produced a booklet for public input.

Rural water users around the world have two sources of water: surface water (dugouts, lakes and rivers) and ground water (well water).

Safe drinking water has been on Hans Peterson’s mind for 10 years. Hans is the Principal Research Scientist with the Saskatchewan Research Council and in the spring of 1987 he started a project called “Algae in dugouts”.

In an effort to increase available water supplies on the Canadian Prairies, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) implemented a dugout construction program more than sixty years ago.

Microbially and chemically poor quality surface and ground water sources are frequently used for the production of drinking water by rural communities across Canada and indeed internationally.

The ill effects of human exposure to arsenic (As) have recently been reevaluated by government agencies around the world.

Groundwater supplies on the Canadian prairies are often contaminated with arsenic, high levels of sulphate, ammonium or nitrate, iron and manganese as well as organic material.

The role of water as a carrier of microbes that are disease-causing in humans is often overlooked with diseases being vastly under-reported.

For years, Canada’s aboriginal communities struggled to deal with poor-quality drinking water. Their cold, brackish groundwater was packed with high levels of calcium, arsenic, and a variety of other contaminants, and was nearly impossible to treat effectively.

Around the world there are guidelines and regulations regarding the quality of drinking water distributed by water treatment plants.