Call for Contributions: NiCHE’s Walkerton Project
Edited by Mary Baxter
Proposals and Ideas Accepted on an Ongoing Basis
The first cases appeared twenty-five years ago in mid-May. Some people had bloody diarrhea. Others couldn’t stop vomiting. Many experienced cramps and fever. By May 20, 2000, within days of the first case, at least 40 people in Walkerton had visited local hospital emergency rooms and their doctors listing similar complaints. And so began the tainted water crisis that would become known by the name of the quiet Bruce County, Ontario town on the banks of the fast-running, rocky Saugeen River.
More than 2,000 people in the town of just 4,800 would be affected after drinking water that contained high levels of E. coli. Seven people died. A common bacteria often found in the intestines of people and animals, E. coli comes in many strains, most of which are harmless and indeed benefit digestion. Other forms, such as the strain that contaminated one of the wells that served Walkerton, can affect the kidneys, leading to kidney failure and, in some cases, death.
Two years after the outbreak, after extensive and emotional public hearings, Justice Dennis O’Connor would deliver his final report on what had led to the Walkerton crisis and how to prevent such contamination from happening in the future. By then, reform of Ontario’s legislation and regulation of water quality was underway. Six years after the outbreak, in 2006, the province passed the Clean Water Act, which contained new provisions for protecting drinking water, including source protection areas and regions. Increasingly, communities in southwestern Ontario that obtained their water from groundwater wells shifted to systems that provided water directly from lakes, such as the Lake Huron and Elgin Area Water Supply Systems that serve 15 municipalities and more than 500,000 people.
This NiCHE project takes the Walkerton water crisis as a point of departure for exploring the increasingly precious resource of potable water. It begins with questions such as how Walkerton changed how we get potable water. Have these changes gone far enough? What more needs to be done? How do we measure water quality? What has it taken for us to ensure access to potable water in Canada and beyond? How sustainable are these approaches? What has been the impact on the environment?
NiCHE invites submissions of different types to this ongoing project. Written contributions of 800 to 2,000 words are welcomed and can be reflections, personal accounts, essays, Q&As, narratives and histories. Visual projects, such as maps, photo essays, and short videos, are of interest, as are graphic histories and sound pieces. Proposals from first-time and experienced writers and creators are encouraged.
Topics or themes that might be addressed include (but are by no means limited to) the following:
· Histories of tainted water incidents throughout Canada and beyond, including aspects of the Walkerton crisis
· Great Lakes communities’ use of water
· Conservation authorities, water power and dams
· Drinking water sustainability
· Histories of the development of water systems
· Analyses of the effectiveness of current water regulations
· How we have changed how we think about potable water and why
· Potable water in Indigenous communities
· The future of our drinking water
· New (or old) threats to potable water
· How we share our water
Send your proposal of up to 200 words care of Mary Baxter at mbaxte32@uwo.ca and tell NiCHE a little about yourself and why this topic interests you. Alternatively, you can send an idea of what you would like to see addressed and why, and we will do our best to match your idea with a researcher. Proposals will be reviewed on an ongoing basis beginning May 15, 2025. If you have any questions, please get in touch with Mary at the email address above. We look forward to hearing from you!
Feature Image: “File:35 Kilometres to Walkerton, Ontario (21849228131).jpg” by Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
