Blame in the Walkerton water tragedy – A systemic problem

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

04/30/2009

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Social sciences

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Summary :

Introduction
The Walkerton Water tragedy
The toxin that contaminated the water supply
The outbreak in Walkerton
A town with a history of contaminated water incidents
Ms. Zillinger's 3rd inspection and issuing a legally binding order to the PUC
A lack of a well managed public water system
Bibliography

Abstract

This paper will present a case study of the walkerton, Ontario water tragedy. In particular the paper is concerned to analyze what happened to determine guilt. Who is responsible for what was ultimately a preventable toxic contamination of a town's water supply? What does this tell us about the larger issue of water management, both in Canada, and in an international context? water is a limited resource that has often been characterized as limitless. The walkerton tragedy reveals that haphazard, neglectful, and inefficient management of resources at the local level occurred, but also will reveal a syndrome of mistakes at all levels of the water management system. As the walkerton crisis reveals, public management of water testing in Ontario was not a perfect or even well-operated system, revealing a lack of an overall legislative basis upon which to maintain a safe drinking water supply in Ontario. (Perkel, 2002, O'Connor Report, 2002, CELA documents, CBC, Cooper, 2003) This case therefore points to larger systemic problems in the way government deals with a fundamentally necessary resource for human survival - available safe drinking water.