Some 100,000 abandoned wells in Ontario are contributing to the contamination of aquifers, a senior environmental adviser of remediation and reclamation services at Imperial Oil told a Grand Valley audience Monday night.

And some of the capacity crowd at Trinity United Church told speaker Peter Miasek, PhD, that as many as 100 of those wells are right there on the banks of the Grand River.

Abandoned wells are only a part of the water quality problem, but perhaps a serious part, as "no one knows where the wells are, as there was no mapping (of wells in years past)," Dr. Miaseck said.

Canada has about 20 per cent of the world's fresh water, but some of it is already contaminated, partly because of past errors, and the supply is increasingly challenged.

We are continuing the error of doing as the Romans did with their human excrement: discharging it into the water. "That's not a very good place to put it." He said the Romans had to find new sources of water because they contaminated the Tiber River. Today, there are other ways of handling sewage. "Using water for disposal is kind of stupid. There are less polluting ways of disposal."

Dr. Miasek said municipal sewage contains pharmaceuticals, hormones and synthetic chemicals. Those, he said, are "untreatable in treatment plants. We can't do much about (medications) that pass through us," but he said some people flush unused pills down the toilet.

On supply, Dr. Miasek cited three main challenges: impending shortages in the beef and grain growing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, caused by climate change, lack of rain, disappearing glaciers, population growth, and "the use of water (10 units water/1 unit oil) for secondary oil recovery." He said there's a prediction that Alberta's Bow River will dry up in 20 years because the "glacier reservoir," the Bow's source, is "nearing depletion."

The U.S. wants Canadian fresh water. "I can't figure out whether NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) applies or not. My feeling is we don't own the water. We didn't put it there, (but) it's a political issue."

On the use of water for oil wells, he said that when wells start producing, the oil gushes out (under its own pressure) but, in the secondary stages of their lives, the wells require the water for pressure.

Dr. Miasek agreed with the efforts of Ducks Unlimited and other organizations to preserve wetlands. "Wetlands are a key component (of water supply and cleansing). Their destruction leads to increased flooding and ecological impacts."

Agriculture, urbanization and industry are all to blame for some of the pollution. In both farming and urban areas, there's a runoff of fertilizer, pesticides and other contaminants, and then there's animal waste from pets in the towns and cities. Some of the industrial pollution, he said, includes chlorinated solvents from manufacturing and dry cleaning, along with leaks and spills.

Mercury is a problem everywhere. Mercury is discharged into the air not only from coal-fired generating plants, but also from erupting volcanoes. Eventually, it returns to earth to contaminate the lakes and streams.

Dr. Miasek's message may have seemed entirely negative as he outlined the several ways in which water supply is being lost and quality deteriorating, but there was a bright side.We aren't as ignorant of the consequences, or as tolerant as we once were of environmentally harmful acts. Governments now are imposing hefty fines for industrial activities that they might once have licensed.

Monday evening's talk was the fourth in a Lenten series of six for the Community Forum on Water, sponsored by the Grand Valley Ministerial Association.

Next Monday's session features Elaine Towe of Technical Support Services at Zenon Environmental Inc. She'll be speaking at St. Alban's Anglican Church on "modern technologies to improve the quality of drinking water."

The evening sessions begin at 7:30, and there's no admission charge.