People like David Rudolph, a professor of earth sciences and hydrogeologist at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, say many positive developments have occurred in the wake of the Walkerton disaster, a deadly outbreak of E. coli in the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario, late last spring. Already, he says, there has been a flood of people taking renewed responsibility to have their wells tested. There is greater awareness of the importance of maintaining these wells so structural vulnerabilities allowing contaminants to enter are minimized. And because Walkerton demonstrated serious communication gaps as well as infrastructure weaknesses, there will be much closer scrutiny of the way management systems are run.
Rudolph reports that Ontario is becoming particularly proactive in its attempts to minimize impact of new development on water sources. Wellhead guidelines, which prohibit construction of such things as gas stations or manufacturing plants near wells and other water sources, are becoming more commonplace.