“Do not drink this water,” warned the signs taped to fountains and bathroom sinks in a small Ontario town.

For thousands of people in the rural community 150 kilometres northwest of Toronto, the water they once used to brush their teeth, bathe their children and prepare their meals had become a hostile enemy.

Jugs of clean water had to be delivered to a depot. Hospitals were overrun with new patients. Children were pulled out of school. Businesses closed.

The tainted-water scandal in Walkerton in the spring of 2000 devastated the community, with thousands falling ill and seven people dying. It was one of the worst health epidemics in the province’s history.

Nearly 19 years later, environmental advocates say Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is posing one of the greatest risks both the environment and public health have faced in decades.

Last week, the government tabled a new piece of legislation, Bill 66, that, if passed, would allow commercial development to bypass several long-standing laws meant to protect the natural environment and the health of residents, including the Clean Water Act that was put in place following the Walkerton tragedy.

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The stated purpose of the proposed bill, called the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, is to cut “red tape” around planning approvals for businesses looking to invest in local communities.

Under the proposed legislation, if a development has the support of both the municipal government and the province and can demonstrate it would create 50 new jobs in areas with populations under 250,000, or 100 jobs for bigger cities, it could get the green light despite possibly being detrimental to the environment.

Bruce Davidson knows what’s at stake.

It’s been many years since he became a spokesperson for himself, his family and his concerned neighbours.

Reached by phone at his home in Walkerton, he said many couldn’t have found his town on a map before the outbreak. He continues to educate others on clean drinking water.

But he worries that as time passes and the Walkerton tragedy becomes a part of history, a distant memory, it’s easy to forget why the hard-won protections were put in place.

“I think as Walkerton sort of moves more into the rear-view mirror … the tendency is sort of to say, ‘Well, is that really necessary?’” Davidson said.

“I think it sends the wrong message to industry and to everyone that if we have enough dollars in our pocket, the economic impact will win over the environmental impact.”

He called the Ford government’s plan “ill-considered,” noting that the protections in place since 2006 are being studied as best practices as far away as China.

The bill, which would also circumvent legislation protecting the Greenbelt, Great Lakes and other environmentally sensitive areas, is set to be debated next year. It was introduced without any public consultation or warning.

According to the conclusions of an inquiry into the Walkerton tragedy, in May 2000, some 2,321 people became ill from two types of bacteria, including a type of dangerous E. coli, after heavy rainfall caused flooding that flushed the bacteria from cow manure near a farm into one of three groundwater wells that was the source of water for Walkerton.

The number of people who fell ill represented about half the town’s population.

It was concluded after much investigation that the water coming out of the taps in Walkerton had not been properly treated so as to kill off the deadly bacteria, and the tragedy could have been prevented if proper monitoring, protections and oversight had existed.

The E. coli subgroup that affected local residents, typically carried by cattle, causes intestinal disease with multiple symptoms, including the possibility of kidney failure and other life-threatening issues.

For Walkerton residents, it caused debilitating sickness — including for a two-year-old boy who was nearly lifeless, suffering from bloody diarrhea, and who experienced heart failure as he underwent dialysis, according to an account given by his mother at the time.

Following the outbreak, the Ontario government called a judicial inquiry, led by Justice Dennis O’Connor, which made conclusions in 2002 about the lasting impact, source of contamination and recommended next steps for both local and provincial governments.

It specifically recommended the provincial government “develop a comprehensive, source-to-tap, government-wide drinking water policy” and noted: “It is reasonable for all those in Ontario to expect that the government will do all it reasonably can to support a safe drinking water system.”

In 2006, under then-premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government, the Clean Water Act was passed.

It followed directly from a dozen of the inquiry’s recommendations and was meant to be a science-based approach to protect the sources of clean drinking water — lakes, rivers and aquifers.

“Keeping source water free of contamination is smarter, safer and more effective than cleaning up problems after the fact,” said a release at the time from then-environment minister Laurel Broten.

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The act required the creation of protection plans that would identify and then mitigate contamination risks to sources of drinking water: For example, preventing manure or harmful pesticides from leaching into a drinking water system from a nearby farm.

On Friday, Theresa McClenaghan and Richard Lindgren, respectively the executive director and counsel for the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), posted on the organization’s website that Bill 66, together with other recent moves by the Ford government — including the decision to abolish the office of the province’s environmental watchdog — “constitutes the biggest and most significant environmental rollback to occur in a generation in Ontario.”

In particular, they said the attempt to prevent a particular section of the Clean Water Act from applying to certain types of new development is both “objectionable and risk-laden.”

The particular section of the act that would not apply to new developments approved under the “open for business” rules is not some “obscure” provision in the law, but the key part of the act that requires land-use planning decisions in the province to protect safe drinking water, they said.

“In our view, this important provision must remain applicable to all municipal planning and zoning decisions in order to protect public health and safety,” their post reads.

“CELA is extremely disappointed to see that the lessons from the Walkerton tragedy are being discounted or ignored by the current Ontario government.”

Municipal politicians have also come out against the new bill.

Toronto councillors Josh Matlow, Gord Perks, Mike Layton and Mike Colle — who have all individually campaigned for stronger environmental protections, both as activists and in office — have written to Ford saying the exemptions should be reconsidered.

“Eroding environmental protections like the Clean Water Act, legislated in the wake of the Walkerton tragedy, will put the health of the people you serve at risk and make our province less attractive to prospective companies looking to create new jobs,” the letter said, referring to another town that has seen a crisis of contaminated drinking water.

“Businesses from around the world are lining up to invest in places like Toronto and Ottawa, not Flint, Michigan.”

The human cost of Walkerton has been long-lasting.

Those who were affected continue to face health challenges, including lasting kidney damage.

The Star’s Paul Hunter recently reported on the life and assisted death of Robbie Schnurr, a long-suffering victim of Walkerton’s tainted water who died with the help of a physician earlier this year after becoming confined to his bed following complications that caused debilitating pain.

The economic costs have also been great.

What was saved by not properly treating and monitoring the water before the epidemic has been grossly overshadowed by what was spent on the resulting cleanup and payments to victims, Davidson said.

He estimates it cost as much as $200 million.

Davidson said the protections now in place were the result of scientific planning involving public consultation. They were not designed to stall development and cover very little total land mass.

He’d like to see evidence of where there are onerous restrictions or significant roadblocks and a discussion of how to address those instead of boycotting the rules long in place.

Protection is often confused with treatment, he said — a situation he likened to putting five forwards on during a hockey game but leaving the net without a goalie or proper defence. Eventually a puck or two gets through.

“I think its really sort of a false narrative to suggest it’s an either-or,” he said of creating new investment and protecting the environment.

Davidson and his neighbours have seen what happens when there isn’t a strong defence in place.

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