Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau wants the town’s private well water sample drop-off site restored by Public Health Ontario.
Before the pandemic, residents who wanted their private drinking water tested could drop off a sample at the hospital in Southampton, where it would be picked up by Public Health Ontario and tested in a lab in London.
That local option was suspended during the pandemic.
Now, drop off sites are returning, but not the one in Saugeen Shores. “We just can’t accept that,” says Mayor Luke Charbonneau.
He adds, “Now, we’re in a situation where we do not have a well water sample collection location in the Town of Saugeen Shores. We’re the second-largest community in the region, the largest community in Bruce County. Hundreds of people on well water and they have nowhere in their community to drop off those samples.”
“That’s obviously a major concern because water can be contaminated and if folks drink contaminated water, they get sick,” says Charbonneau.
A list on Public Health’s website says there are bottle pick up and drop-off sites in Wiarton, Kincardine, Lion’s Head, Owen Sound Walkerton and Markdale.
Charbonneau recently told council he feels the removal of a local drop-off site not only impacts residents of Saugeen Shores, but also those of Arran-Elderslie, the northern part of Kincardine, and Saugeen First Nation.
He adds the Town has the support of Public Health Grey Bruce as well as Bruce County.
“We’ve been pushing Public Health Ontario to reinstate collection in our community,” says Charbonneau
“We’ve all asked them to re-create a collection location in our community,” says Charbonneau, adding, “In fact, Grey Bruce Public health did a review and figured that the Public Health courier would only have to add about ten minutes to their route to pick up samples at the Plex in Port Elgin.”
Charbonneau says they presented that possible location to Public Health Ontario, but the agency continues to say it won’t do it. He says efforts by Grey Bruce Medical Officer of Health Dr. Ian Arra have been met with the same response from Public Health Ontario.
Charbonneau notes, he’s been asking for the return of a site in the community for months. “I sent my first letter back in November, and I have not had a response at all— of any kind. Just silence.”
He adds, “One of the best tings we can do to protect people’s health is give them free access to well water testing. That’s been a tenet, a staple of public health for a very, very long time. The idea that Public Health Ontario wouldn’t see that– that they would persist in not providing easy access to that testing is, I think, a really bad decision on their part and something that they should reverse.”
Charbonneau is suggesting anyone in Saugeen Shores who is on well water should write a letter to the Province’s minister of health and to Public Health Ontario, if they’re dissatisfied with the removal of the drop-off site.