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Well of Lies: The Walkerton Water Tragedy

by Colin N. Perkel

In May 2000 in the community of Walkerton, Ontario, seven people died and over 2,000 others became ill from the vicious and often permanent effects of E. Coli poisoning. The source of the contamination was the town’s water supply, and was the result of mismanagement, unaccountability, and government cuts to the Ministry of the Environment.

In Well of Lies, journalist Colin N. Perkel presents the history of the small, locally owned and operated Public Utilities Commission in Walkerton, and how it came to be managed by brothers Stan and Frank Koebel, both of whom lacked any formal training as waterworks operators. This well-researched and evocative study lays part of the blame on the parochial networks of hard-drinking, hard-working men like the Koebel brothers, who scratch each other’s backs and fudge chlorine test records to suit ministry “white-coats.”

Readers also meet the doctors and other bureacrats in the regional public health unit, and the Ministry of Health who broke the news to a public hungry for someone to pin the tragedy on. The outrage and media maelstrom that followed precipitated a judicial inquiry that lasted 10 months and called over 100 witnesses to the stand.

Perkel’s sense of pacing and his ability to capture the right details evoke the frenzy of the unfolding events. Though he occasionally summarizes some of the tragedy’s more complex issues and events, Perkel always keeps the big picture in mind, carefully analyzing the social and political trends behind the events without forcing any ideological conclusions on the reader.

However, it becomes evident that the tragedy could have been averted if the provincial government had done its job of ensuring the quality of drinking water for its residents. The inquiry heard of years of warnings from scientists and ministry officials about the hazards of cutbacks to the Ministry of the Environment and the hasty privatization of water-testing laboratories. Yet Premier Mike Harris was able to walk away from the hearings with only a bit of sweat on his brow. Well of Lies suggests that Harris got off far too lightly.

 

Reviewer: Darren Alexander

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

DETAILS

Price: $34.99

Page Count: 304 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 0-7710-7019-5

Released: Mar.

Issue Date: 2002-2

Categories: Politics & Current Affairs