Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 17/03) - Fresh out of the speaker's chair, where he'd been sitting in for Tony Whitford in late February, Mackenzie Delta MLA David Krutko went on a verbal rampage about water quality March 10.

First he grilled Health Minister Michael Miltenberger about the people of Fort McPherson, who Krutko says have had THMs (trihalomethanes, chemical compounds formed when water containing natural organic matter is chlorinated) in their drinking water supply for four years.

Then, later that afternoon, Krutko turned his attention to Public Works and Services.

"How vigorous testing do we really do?" he asked, briefly mentioning the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ont., that killed seven people and left more than 2,000 ill after a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria got into the town's drinking water supply in May 2000.

Vince Steen, the minister responsible for public works referred questions about water quality in the NWT to his deputy minister, Bruce Rattray, who said the department currently conducts tests for chlorine residual one to three times a day, and "chemical parameters" such as taste, odour, and the presence of radiological products, heavy metals and THMs.

The physical and parameter test is "costly" and done about once a year. THMs are tested on a semi-annual basis "unless it's an area we have a particular concern," said Rattray.

But no one spoke directly to Krutko's burning concern about Fort McPherson or contaminated water in the NWT in general.

Miltenberger, in his capacity as health minister, earlier in the day spoke around the issue saying that as far as he knew, there was currently an "acceptable level" of THMs in the Fort McPherson area.

But this will not satisfy Krutko who has been on a crusade about water quality since 1997.

Even at the start of the 14th assembly, on Feb. 13, Krutko was blunt about the realities of water quality in the NWT.

"In my riding, in every community I represent, we have crisis situations with the quality of water," he said.

"We don't have the modernized facilities that you see in major cities. In most communities it's just a basic chlorinated system."