Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada needs new plumbing and it won't come cheap. Countless communities across Canada, not just North Battleford and Walkerton, are at risk from outdated, poorly managed or non-existent water infrastructures, experts say.

Literally hundreds of boiled water advisories have been issued across Canada in recent months, Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein said in an interview.

"We witness across Canada a clear and present danger to public health emerging in recent months due to the obvious deteriorating state of our community drinking water systems," Grafstein says.

In all, 357 of 645 Ontario drinking water systems have failed to meet provincial standards, Grafstein says. ... A 1996 estimate by the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association said it would cost $90 billion to bring municipal water systems up to scratch by 2002.

The cost of new infrastructure could easily be eclipsed by the cost of bad water to public health, says Hans Peterson of the Saskatoon-based Safe Drinking Water Foundation.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 12, 2001