A certified water treatment and distribution operator, as well as the northern Ontario township that employed him, have each been fined $5,000 for issues around testing requirements for free chlorine residual that led to a boil water advisory in 2021.
A court bulletin from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks states that water operator Terrance Zapf was employed at the time of the offences by the Corporation of the Township of Pickle Lake.
Zapf, as the operator in charge of the drinking water system, failed to operate plant processes in a safe and efficient manner in accordance with relevant operations manuals and the Safe Drinking Water Act, the court found.
The conviction against Pickle Lake, as the owner of the drinking water system that serves some 380 people, was for failing to meet sampling requirements for free chlorine residual.
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The community is the most northerly in the province that has year-round access by road.
A ministry inspection determined that during a one-week period in September 2021, distribution chlorine sampling and testing requirements had not been met at the water treatment plant, nor had prescribed rules been followed.
In November of 2021, another ministry inspection revealed that while Zapf was the on-call operator for the plant, a low chlorine water alarm triggered. However, Zapf did not attend the plant to assess the performance of the system for approximately several hours after the low chlorine alarm engaged, according to the court bulletin.
The water treatment plant is designed to shut down in the event of an alarm condition. When the plant is not producing water, treated water is supplied to the community from an elevated storage tower in the distribution system that has a 220,000-gallon capacity, according to municipal documents.
“As a result of the alarm event, the water tower was drained to the point where pressure was lost throughout the distribution system,” the ministry states in the court bulletin. “Maintenance of positive pressure in distribution lines is important to prevent the infiltration of contaminants and for fire protection.”
The following day, the township reported a system-wide loss of pressure to regulatory authorities and issued a self-imposed boil water advisory to the community as “the safety of the drinking water could not be guaranteed.”
The ministry’s Environmental Investigations and Enforcement Branch investigated and laid charges which resulted in the convictions.
