Safe Drinking Water, Lessons from Recent Outbreaks in Affluent Nations by Steve E. Hrudey and Elizabeth J. Hrudey Iwa Publishing, 486 pp.

Contaminated drinking water killed and sickened people in affluent communities long before anyone heard of Walkerton’s Koebel brothers. University of Alberta water scientist Steve Hrudey says waterborne outbreaks will persist in wealthy societies long after the brothers are forgotten - unless the underlying problems of complacency, neglect, accumulating errors, bad judgment and poor practice in water treatment plants are properly dealt with.

Hrudey, who worked on the research advisory panel to the Walkerton Inquiry and collaborated with the Canadian Water Network on the issue, said, “Far too many people seemed prepared to write off Walkerton as being only the misdeeds of the Koebel brothers. If you draw all the attention to a few blunders, ignoring the bigger picture about why waterborne outbreaks have persisted, you aren’t going to get the right people to take ownership of the problem.” (more…)

Random audits or inspections have long history in regulation. However, given the pressure on regulators today to stop bad things from happening, is it time to question this practice? So why are random audits used? The apparent reasons include:

• Efficiency, auditing every situation is not possible
• The threat of an audit keeps everyone honest
• They’re fair; no prejudice determines who gets audited

Are these reasons really valid? Let’s consider them. (more…)