In what Rev. Ron Archer views as the most captivating talk in a sixpart community forum on water, the first person to identify the Walkerton tragedy as E.coli contamination was the featured speaker at Knox Presbyterian Church in Grand Valley Monday night.

Pediatrician Dr. Kristen Hallett of Owen Sound is sometimes referred to as the "whistle blower" in the May 2000 tragedy that resulted in seven dead and more than 2,000 ill from E.coli. The water contamination followed heavy rains.

More than two years later, 12 criminal charges were laid against the manager and foreman of the water works, and a commission headed by Justice Dennis O'Connor led to stringent drinkingwater controls provincewide.

Mr. Archer quoted Dr. Hallett as having said that her greatest fear, now that Walkerton is in the past, is that it will have become "old news," and the lessons to be learned from it will be lost.

The Walkerton saga was a painful and soulsearching one for Dr. Hallett, one of whose patients was among the seven residents who died. Now, although not hesitant in her discussions, she is non-judgmental but believes people should continue to look back on the tragedy to consider how it happened.

"When I was in McMaster, there was a sign on the wall that said, 'the longer you look back, the further you can look forward.' " The quote, she said, was from Winston Churchill.

Dr. Hallett looks as far back as the Biblical story of King David, Bathsheba, Uriah and Nathan. She said there is a lesson to be taken from the story, and applied to society today.

"We need to be able to explain to people (why certain safety procedures are necessary). I am 100 per cent Canadian, and very fortunate to have access to clean water and to education."

Walkerton, she said, was "a collection of errors and (lack of) accountability. But it's not for me to say who was to blame."

Dr. Hallett was on duty in the emergency room at Owen Sound hospital on a Thursday night when a child was brought in with diabetes. Shortly, a second child came with bloody diarrhea. "Within hours, the first child had the same symptoms.

"All I knew of the two children was that they both attended the same school. But they'd had no big fat hamburgers." She said the first suspicion in such cases is a food source. "We are not in South America where the first suspicion might be the water. Here, we have lost sense of (the possible dangers of water)."

By Friday a.m., after learning of numerous people at Walkerton who suffered with the same symptoms as the two children, Dr. Hallett had "a hunch" that contaminated water was to blame. By Friday night, after everyone in local authority had been told repeatedly that the Walkerton water was fine, she was able to contact the minister of health, who was on his way out of town.

"The minister spent the weekend mapping out (a solution), and the boilwater order wasn't issued until (E.coli had been identified) Monday morning. The order should have gone out Friday instead of Monday."

The Walkerton lessons included the need for diligence, accountability, honesty and action. Our present society hasn't experienced the hardships of previous generations, or seen the effects of widespread polio or tuberculosis or other such things, says Dr. Hallett. We have become complacent.

Dr. Hallett was the third presenter in the Community Forum on Water sponsored by Grand Valley Ministerial Association.

Next Monday's speaker, at Trinity United Church, will be Dr. Peter Miasek, the senior environmental adviser of Remediation and Reclamation Services at Imperial Oil. The session is from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

The forum continues on Monday nights throughout Lent, with sessions April 3 and 10.