In a just world there would not be a first-class citizen and a second-class citizen in Ontario, but there is.

When it comes to water, rural Ontarians are at the mercy of the Ministry of the Environment permit giving office; something cities don't have to contend with. Cities, villages, towns and hamlets on municipal water are protected under the law. It is considered to be a right of the citizens to receive clean protected water. It's not so with rural Ontario. We have been left out of any form of protection .

Why? Basically the Province of Ontario hasn't the guts to stand up to water-guzzling industries and protect rural citizens. If you talk to the MOE you get the "they're a business" speech and that "they deserve the water" even if it is just watering grass.

I thought this only happened in Third World nations, not Canada. Unfortunately the MOE prefers giving water to golf courses, water bottlers, cement plants, sod farming and aggregates. They deserve the water over rural Ontario on wells .

The MOE and Queen's Park seem to think that well owners should be left to their own devices when it comes to water; that we needn't live in rural Ontario and we should if we want protected water, move into water protected towns.

They do not consider farms, and home-based businesses, as actual businesses. When they go out for dinner, they never think their meal originated on a farm and that farms need water. What is wrong with these people? We elect them to protect us, yet they only protect the people in structured communities.

Walkerton bowled Ontario over and rocked the nation. If the water could be contaminated there, with loss of life, it could happen anywhere. The Walkerton Report was a brilliantly written document laying out clearly and precisely what the province should do to prevent such a disaster occurring again. It even had a section on rural wells "Water Source Protection." I read it eagerly, then waited .

Cities, towns, villages and hamlets saw stricter regulations brought to bear on them. They had to comply with the new regulations. A white paper came out on Water Source Protection a few years later that was innovative and directed to those of us on wells. Our water was as important as anyone else's. By the time it became law it was a farce.

What it said was that the varying conservation authorities or regional governments were responsible for making sure that the septic beds near a municipal well in the countryside were in good working order and not polluting the well.

Fine and good, but who protected these homeowners from the township draining these same resident's wells? They were on their own. Just like the other residents on wells. Their wells can be polluted from improper sewage disposal or storm water dispersal. They can have their wells drained dry by municipalities, counties and development that the MOE backs.

Our water is up for grabs and threatened by pollution and the Province supports these actions. They turn a blind eye to rural Ontario's plight, but like all levels of government want our tax dollar on time.

What will they do as pockets of Ontario become not ghost towns, but ghost areas? It will be too late to implement a Water Source Protection Act for us, because the water will be gone and so will our farms and homes.

Sharon Yovanoff,
Residents Of South Simcoe Conserving Our Rural Environment,
Colgan