Council Walkerton Priorities

Justice O’Connor set out specific recommendations regarding areas that the Council should focus on.  On June 10, 2004, the Minister of the Environment was present at the Council's inaugural meeting, and asked the Advisory Council to focus on addressing these particular recommendations:

Recommendation 27

• "The Advisory Council on Standards should consider whether to replace the total coliform test with an E. coli test."

Recommendation 28

• "No formal maximum contaminant level for protozoa should be established until real-time tests are available. The objective, as with bacterial and viral pathogens, should be zero, and the regulations should so state; but the standard should be a treatment standard, specified in terms of log removal dependent on source water quality."

Recommendation 29

• "The provincial government should seek the advice of the Advisory Council on Standards regarding the desirability of a turbidity limit that is lower than the limit specified in the federal-provincial Guidelines."

Recommendation 31

• "The Advisory Council on Standards should review Ontario's standards for disinfection by-products to take account of the risks that may be posed by the by-products of all chemical and radiation-based disinfectants."