Sloppy water quality record keeping has the City of North Battleford in trouble with environment officials.
The City entered a guilty plea Thursday to a charge under the Environmental Management and Protection Act of failing to comply with a Permit to Operate. The City failed to conduct specified sampling and/or monthly reviews, provide turpidity trending data and maintain operational records or logs, contrary to section 23(6) and 74(2) of the Environmental Management and Protection Act, 2002.
The failure, in this case, has to do with record keeping at the city's water treatment plants. According to the information filed in provincial court, the alleged failure took place between March 30, 2012 and Aug. 1, 2013.
The City has been fined $3,500 and must pay an additional $1,400 surcharge, for a total of $4,900. The City has until June 30 to pay.
The penalty was imposed by Judge Lloyd Deshaye, in accordance with a joint submission by the Crown and defence in the case.
The charge had been laid Feb. 13 by the Ministry of Environment office in Prince Albert. A summons was issued and the case had been before the courts in North Battleford since March before its final resolution Thursday morning.
The guilty plea is a setback for a City still trying to recover its reputation for water quality after a 2001 cryptosporidium outbreak that sickened thousands of residents.
There is no indication, however, of any issue this time with the actual quality of the water itself.
Crown and defence lawyers made clear there was no indication of anyone falling ill as a result, or that the failure to keep up the records contributed to a real safety issue with the water supply.
In his submission, prosecutor Peter Hryhorchuk hammered home the importance of proper compliance.
"Water quality and water safety is an absolute priority," Hryhorchuk told the court. By not following the rules you increase the risk, however minutely, and there was a risk of something going wrong because of the non-compliance, he said.
According to the facts outlined in court, the issue had to do with the requirement that the City test chemicals in the water. It was not done, according to Hryhorchuk's submission, due to an error on the technician's part.
In fact the error was not caught until July 2013, as even the Water Security Agency's environmental protection officer failed to catch it, the prosecutor noted. Turpidity trending data was also not collected properly.
According to Hryhorchuk, the situation happened in the wake of the changes put in place to review all matters with respect to the purification of water, following the cryptosporidium crisis of 2001.
There was supposed to be a chain of command in place to monitor water quality. However, the system broke down due to changes in management style, according to the prosecutor.
It got to the point where the person doing the actual testing was "checking themselves," Hryhorchuk said in court.
Someone else higher up the ladder and outside the chain of collecting the data should have done the checking, he said. The purpose of this would have been to cast as many eyes on the data as possible.
The charge was laid by the Ministry of Environment not because anyone had fallen ill, nor had there been any drop in water quality. It was a "shot across the bow," said Hryhorchuk, meant to bring attention to the City of this potential problem and the importance of keeping proper records.
In his submission, city solicitor Eldon Lindgren explained the situation arose due to someone in a junior position in the system "not doing checks which should have been done."
Moreover, it did not get noticed up the chain by administration staff. Lindgren told the court the issue only came to light when senior personnel were preparing a report on the water quality, and found incorrect information filed.
Also compounding matters was a situation where some information stored on an old computer system was lost when converting to a newer system.
The City is now in full compliance, Lindgren said. He also said there were no incidences where any of the non-compliance resulted in any harm to the water quality.
Judge Deshaye asked whether there would be enhanced screening as a result of this. Hryhorchuk said there was not anything formal, but likely more scrutiny in the future as a result.
Lindgren assured the court the City has taken steps to deal with the issues and that work is still ongoing.
