Wakefield Spring

Some Wakefielders may know of my involvement with the Wakefield Spring over the years. On January 19 the Spring was closed by the Municipality of La Peche who have responsibility of this spring and its testing. I took some time to call the municipality to understand the reasons for this, and no one in authority would speak to me. I managed to get some information from the receptionist who was kind enough to give me some background on the closure, of which I subsequently shared with my community via the Wakefield News as per the following:


Some of us heard about the Spring closure via the CBC a few days ago and has been closed since
Jan. 19 following a bad or inconsistent water test result. I understand from talking to our Council and from their website that further analysis is being carried out as a precaution measure and that it is Not related to a coliform or Ecoli problem. More testing is currently being done and results will be known on Jan. 27 which will determine next steps. The spigots have been removed which looks kind of ominous but its too early
to speculate about the long term health of the aquifer or the Spring. This is why our local SOS group pushed for a source protection strategy for the Spring and it's aquifer watershed. While this is an inconvenience to the upwards of 5,000 people who rely on this drinking water source, I think we can rest assured that our
municipality is doing it's job to ensure this water is safe to drink. I hope its back soon so I won't need to resort to melting snow for my drinking water.

A friend of mine advised me against melting snow for drinking water as snow contains a witches brew of chemicals that it picks up in the air thanks to air pollution we receive from the Ohio Valley. Of course I knew this but wanted to make a point concerning how much I and others rely on the Spring for our drinking water. I also heard from other people in the community that the problem Was related to the presence of coliforms, so now I felt like I had been misinformed, and I was determine to not get fooled again...

On Feb. 2, the pipes were reconnected and water was available again for thirsty residents of Wakefield and the Gatineau Hills (not to mention many people from Ottawa and Gatineau who enjoy chemical free water for drinking or making wine and beer!). 

I wanted to follow up on my earlier investigation and provide insightful feedback to anyone who might ask me, so I called my municipality to ask what the problem was. No one could take my call so I left a message and patiently waited for a return call. None came over a few days, so I called and left another polite message. By the time I gave up two weeks later, I had left 4 messages with the Public Works department, even our Mayor wouldn't speak with me. I guess as a taxpayer, my questions don't carry weight. I did get a call back from a municipal employee who suggested I would have to request an access to information which I replied "that's ridiculous! I just want to know what happened to warrant the closing of the Spring for two weeks".  When I asked to speak with our Mayor for the second time, I was told he was unavailable and his assistant would call me back. She did finally call me back but her response did not contain any information as to the source of the problem or the reason for closing the Spring. I asked what her position was, and she told me she was a lawyer. Now I understood why she couldn't or wouldn't give me a simple direct answer, so I finally gave up. 

I bought the Low Down newspaper (Feb. 3-9) and this is what I learned:

The municipality is calling it "User Error". "The problem is not the water", La Peche mayor Robert Bussiere told the Low Down. "The water quality is great". The mayor said contamination (came) from people hooking pipes to the spring. Following a positive test result on Feb. 1, which ordinarily would have seen the spring remain closed, council members made a private, unanimous decision to reopen the spring on Feb. 2. Our Councillor is reported to have said the type of coliform bacteria found was "so benign it's ridiculous". "Because we added the (extra) test, the stringency of what we are doing... has increased our vigilance, adding "there's no danger: the water is absolutely fine". The municipality is planning to install a sign to educate people about the importance of not touching the spring's pipes to avoid contamination. 

For what my university water quality training is worth, coliform readings are an indicator species for fecal contamination. Not only does the municipality not bother to provide transparency about the actual numbers, but they assume that the source of the coliform readings are coming from people hooking up dirty pipes or hoses to the spigots from the spring. In over 25 years of collecting water at the spring and undertaking water surveys, I've never seen or heard of anyone hooking up hoses or pipes to fill up their containers!  This just doesn't  make sense to me and even if they did, I find it hard to believe that this could cause a water sample in the winter, to test positive for the presence of coliforms. I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it and I don't like the way this problem was handled from the beginning. (not withstanding the stonewalling I got when I tried to get some basic information). Something is fishy with our Council I'm sorry to say, after this latest episode, I'm not sure if I trust anything they say about the spring. Maybe I'll look into obtaining my water from the river in the future....