Downsized water expert finds no profit in protecting Walkerton residents

Downsizing, downloading and government cuts combine to threaten everyone's health and safety

By: Ish Theilheimer, Publisher, Straight Goods

  WALKERTON: If Gary Palmateer hadn't been downsized and gone private with his water-testing expertise, Walkerton might not be a symbol for what happens when government walks away from its responsibilities.
  On five occasions between January and May, the water-testing expert warned Walkerton's water was in jeopardy, but no apparent action followed.
  "It's more than ironic," Palmateer admits. "We had tested water at Walkerton for years at the Ministry of the Environment. We had a lot of experience with water there, and it was good quality."
 

"We were simply losing money at testing drinking water" - Gary Palmateer, downsized and privatized former Ontario Ministry of Environment water-tester for Walkerton

  Until 1996, Palmateer tested Walkerton's water for Ontario's environment ministry. Then, when he was downsized, he and some co-workers founded a private lab called GAP EnviroMicrobial Services, which had the Walkerton water testing contract until May of this year, when they dropped the contract.
  "We were simply losing money at testing drinking water," Palmateer told Straight Goods. His company has developed a number of sophisticated operations and its main clients are corporations, not governments.
  Although testing and reporting procedures are the same as when Palmateer worked for the government, he notes that staff at both the environment ministry and municipal utilities are scarcer and more stretched than ever as a result of cutbacks.
 

The Walkerton tragedy comes within "the overall context of the withdrawal of technical and financial aid to municipalities and the cutting off at the knees of the ministry's own ability to monitor and stay on top of what municipalities are doing."

  "Whether the MOE guys can get out to these little communities as frequently, I don't know," says Palmateer of his former co-workers. "I know they're really pressed hard."
  With experienced staff like Gary Palmateer working in more lucrative fields , it's no surpise public safety is compromised, according to Mark Winfield of the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy.
  He says the Walkerton affair "begins to raise questions of regulatory negligence on the part of the ministry." The disaster happened within the "overall context of the withdrawal of technical and financial aid to municipalities and the cutting off at the knees of the ministry's own ability to monitor and stay on top of what municipalities are doing. It leaves one to wonder if wasn't inevitable."
 

"The government felt it would be less expensive to do it this way. I don't know how their books look today, whether it's true."

  Suzanne Elston sees it that way. Elston, a public utilities commissioner in Darlington, Ontario, as well as environmental columnist for Straight Goods, says "There may not be a smoking gun, but with the general downloading from the province to the regions, from the regions to the municipalities, the municipalities have no choice but to hike property taxes. But people won't pay higher taxes. So you end up with people whose entire mandate is to provide these services at cost. They trim and they trim and they trim and they trim."
  Palmateer did what he had to. He went private and worked hard to make his business grow. When he worked for the government, it was his business to protect citizens. Now there are a lot fewer people in that business and the results are showing.
  "That's the way the privatization policy worked," said Palmateer of the Harris government move to shut down public labs. "The government felt it would be less expensive to do it this way. I don't know how their books look today, whether it's true."
  The first class action suit launched on behalf of Walkerton residents claims a billion dollars in damages. No one can predict the full extent of payouts the town and possibly province will have to make. But those costs will be borne not only by Walkerton residents but by everyone living in a place covered by the self-insurance pool run by Ontario's municipal utilities. Everyone in the province will pay for Walkerton.
  Suzanne Elston knows the Walkerton tragedy is not an isolated incident. In "Water, profit and public health", she makes the link between Walkerton's sorrow and the present-day reality that around the world; more than five million people - most of them children - already die every year from illnesses caused by poor drinking water.
  Straight Goods focuses on issues that hit close to home and that people can do something about. On occasions like these, we are reminded nothing hits closer to home than poison in our water, air and food. If we cut corners we pay the price.

- Ish Theilheimer
- May 29, 2000

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