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Drinking Water Drama Bubbles Over in Stratford

Pink tap water brought the famous Ontario theatre town to a standstill. This is how a Ministry of the Environment inspector helped find the cause - and punish those responsible.

One morning in March 2005, Stratford residents noticed something wrong with their tap water.

It was pink.

Stratford's municipal works department phoned Neville Rising with the Ministry of the Environment's (MOE's) Drinking Water Branch. The works department told him that some residents were complaining about rose-tinted, soapy water flowing from their taps.

As the area inspector for Perth County, which includes the home town of the famed Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Rising could expect several more calls. To make sure that Drinking Water Branch stayed completely in the loop, health officials, city workers and other MOE staff were required to call his office.

"At one point there were three phone calls coming into my line at the same time," says Rising. Who quickly booked a teleconference with the decision-makers needed to get an action plan in place.

It was Rising's job to collect samples for MOE labs, but his first priority was to help the city flush the still-unknown substance from its water supply.

Stratford's water treatment and distribution manager, Joe Salter instructed city workers to immediately open fire hydrants in range of the complaints. This diverted large amounts of water from the city-wide system.

"That's their bread-and-butter," says Rising. "They certainly understand the way their system works."

Close cooperation between inspectors and municipal water staff is expected and necessary during emergencies. So is collaboration with local health officials.

Stratford's medical officer of health went on television and radio to urge citizens not to drink the water. Meanwhile, firefighters, postal carriers, city staff and quickly-recruited volunteers went door-to-door delivering flyers stating that a drinking water advisory was in effect.

Schools were closed, the Stratford General Hospital redirected dialysis patients to other districts and depots were set up to distribute bottled water.

Rising went out to collect samples immediately after meeting with health officials, emergency personnel and the mayor at Stratford city hall. Rising, and then another inspector, collected samples until early the following morning. The next day, Rising was knocking on doors to notify people of what had become a boiled water advisory.

Festival U-Wash - a coin-operated car wash across the street from one of the affected households - turned out to be the pink water's source.

"Inspectors popped over to the car wash," Rising says. "They could see they used the same chemicals and that their system was having a problem at the time."

A car wash customer had complained, in fact, that the nozzle meant to rinse his car with clear water was spewing soap.

"It was this rinse water that the soap had gotten into," explains MOE investigator Gary Gordon.

While Rising's Drinking Water staff was still cleaning up, Gordon and a team of three investigators from nearby offices studied city plans and took statements to establish the extent to which the car wash owners were responsible for the emergency.

While not usually fatal, 2-butoxy-ethanol - a component of the pink soap - is an irritant if swallowed and may have been linked to various hospital visits.

The detergent leak had clearly brought institutions, homes and businesses in Stratford to a virtual standstill. What Gordon and his team needed to determine was whether the incident was a bona fide accident, or if human error was to blame - in which case charges would need to be laid.

Gordon and his team learned that, after the customer's complaint, a Festival U-Wash employee discovered a soap container leaking into the rinse water tank. During cleanup, the worker forgot to close a crucial valve, which allowed the release of 2-butoxy-ethanol detergent into the city's water supply.

"It went to the wrong place," Gordon explains. "If that valve had been shut off this wouldn't have happened."

Gordon soon learned that the cross-connection between the soap and rinse-water containers was one of several extra components installed without notifying the city. Another was a pressure pump twice as powerful as municipal records stated. While the pump did not transgress provincial laws, its extra force helped push the chemical into city pipes.

"There were 80 pounds per square inch [PSI] of water going out but only 65 PSI coming in," says Gordon. "That's why it got into the water system."

The owners of Festival U-Wash were ultimately fined $75,000 for "causing or permitting the discharge" of the detergent because of a combination of choices, an unexpected leak and a moment of human error.