Well of Lies

by Colin Perkel

  “You Ian’s father? This is Dr. McQuigge. I’m quite certain Ian has E. coli.”

  Jamie McDonald didn’t need convincing. He and Cathy had watched their boy scream as waves of excruciating cramps racked his frame. After listening to McQuigge outline the signs of kidney failure, McDonald took Ian back to the Walkerton emergency department. They bumped into an obviously distressed neighbour, Bob McKay, as they left home. There were fifty people in emergency. McDonald could hardly believe it. Staff took blood from Ian and told them to go home.

  Victoria Day, Monday, May 22

  4 P.M.

  By the time John Earl arrived at the PUC office, Stan Koebel had already pulled together most of the information he’d been asked to collect. Stan struck Earl as tired, even a little distraught. The manager was cooperative, although he didn’t volunteer much information beyond what he was asked for. He dutifully produced a map of the system along with some handwritten notes on chlorine residuals. He provided two lab reports, both dated May 5, which indicated bacterial contamination in both raw and treated water from Well 5. He also produced the lab report that A&L had faxed to the PUC the previous Wednesday, the one he’d essentially ignored for several days, the one showing the town’s tap water to be heavily contaminated with both bacteria and E. coli. Earl glanced at it, but the astonishing information didn’t register. Had he looked more closely, he might also have realized it contained a startling anomaly: the treated water showed as grossly contaminated while the raw water had tested clean. And had he scoured the daily operating sheets of the wells Stan handed him, he’d have noticed a consistent pattern of chlorine residuals that might have immediately inspired suspicion. He stuffed the paperwork into his briefcase.

  “I don’t know what, if anything, is wrong,” Stan was saying.

  “Has there been anything unusual you can think of in the last couple of weeks?”

  “Well, we took Well 6 out of service due to a lightning strike that damaged one of the control switches for the pumphouse. Other than that, no, can’t think of anything.”

  Earl remembered the note in the action centre’s report and asked about the qualifications of the operators. Stan responded that he and Frank were the chief operators and were properly certified, although he conceded they occasionally used another employee who was not.

  “You had any problems with your staff?” Earl asked.

  Stan didn’t answer directly. Instead, he talked about the possibility of the municipality taking over operation of the water system. That had created some uncertainty, he said. He also mentioned, without elaboration, that one of the guys had been off work for some time. In any event, Stan assured him, there was no reason to suspect any intentional damage or deliberate contamination of the water system. He also talked about the vicious May 12 storm, and they discussed whether it could have affected the wells. Stan explained that Well 7 was an artesian well in which the water naturally bubbled upwards when the pump was shut off. The well had an overflow pipe. That, said Stan, was the only way surface water could have entered the system. Earl collected a water sample at the PUC office and two more at Well 7. He asked Stan to get any reports or documentation from the construction firms involved in the new mains. Stan agreed. Earl said he’d return the next morning to pick them up and drove back to the Owen Sound office, while Stan went to his daughter’s place to continue filling her swimming pool. At the office, Earl dropped off the samples he’d taken, along with the other information Stan had provided and went home. Despite the urgency of the situation, he didn’t call David Patterson, who was anxiously awaiting any information, such as the previous week’s test results.

  On the six o’clock news, a worried mother in the Walkerton emergency waiting room gently rubbed the bare chest and tummy of her dull-eyed tyke sitting on her lap. For the first time, the boil-water advisory had made it to TV, along with the PUC’s contention that the water was safe.

  Victoria Day, Monday, May 22

  6:30 P.M.

  The members of the health-unit outbreak team gathered again in the “war room.” From the line charts and information provided by doctors and hospitals, they plotted an epidemiological curve showing that the peak of the onset of symptoms had occurred on May 17, the previous Wednesday, the day A&L labs had faxed Stan the results showing contamination of the drinking water. Working backwards, they calculated the infections would most likely have occurred the previous Friday, May 12, possibly a day or two later. With that done, each member of the team called out the addresses of the patients from their share of the line listings. As each address was named, Patterson used a yellow marker to highlight a large map of Walkerton he’d pinned up on one wall. By the end of the exercise, the entire map was covered in yellow.

  “It can only be the water,” someone said, and everyone nodded.

  A world away in the London hospital to which she’d been airlifted from Walkerton just hours earlier, sixty-six-year-old Lenore Al, a retired library worker who was suffering from cancer, passed away. She left her husband, three sons, and ten grandchildren. It had been just four days since she’d shown the first symptoms of E. coli poisoning. In the critical care unit, Mary Rose Raymond was showing some signs of improvement. In Walkerton, eighty-four-year-old Laura Rowe had been admitted to hospital with diarrhea. Her already weak heart would stop beating a week later.

  Ripping the Veil

  Tuesday, May 23

  7:30 A.M.

  THE FIRST DAY of the shortened workweek saw Stan Koebel arrive at the PUC shop even earlier than was his usual practice. The others could immediately tell he was anxious, upset, exhausted. For one thing, he was smoking. Stan never smoked. He and Frank talked about the boil-water advisory. Frank had heard it on Sunday but chose to ignore it.

  “We got to get out and do some flushing,” Stan said. “I’ve already jacked up the chlorine out at 7.”

  Stan was probably just overreacting again. But that was Stan: always serious, always anxious. And yet Frank, too, was starting to feel nervous, perhaps more so than he cared to admit. Something was different this time.

  “You’ve got a lot of work to do today,” he said to Al Buckle and the other guys. “Get out and start flushing every hydrant in town.”

  As the others left, Stan turned to Frank.

  “The ministry guy is coming back,” he said quietly. “Go to Well 7 and get the operating sheet. You know, make it presentable.”

  Tuesday, May 23

  8:45 A.M.

  From the laboratory in London, John Alden called Dave Patterson to tell him the twenty samples he had hand-delivered on Sunday were showing high bacterial counts, including E. coli. Tests on the Monday samples were also showing early signs of similar serious contamination. Patterson was shocked. Disbelieving. Everything he’d ever learned, ever experienced, told him that as long as there’s chlorine in the system, bacteria can’t survive.

  Patterson hung up and called ministry supervisor Phil Bye.

  “Something has definitely gone wrong with the Walkerton water system,” said Patterson.

  The unfolding crisis was slowly starting to filter through to the province’s politicians. The Ministry of Health called looking for details. A political aide in Toronto asked for information that could be passed on to the health minister. The first sparks of what would become a political firestorm had been ignited. It was time to go back to the source.

  “Stan, our tests have come back,” Patterson said. “The water is bad.”

  There was no response.

  “When were the last bacteriological tests that you took?”

  A few moments passed.

  “A week ago Monday,” came the reply.

  “And the results?”

  Again, there was a silence that seemed to last for minutes.

  “They all failed, but I just found them on Saturday, on my desk.”

  There was another long silence, then a muffled sobbing.

  “I can’t believe it, Stan,” Patterson said, his disappo
intment barely disguised. “How can this be?”

  Patterson listened in stunned amazement as Stan talked about the PUC’s recent change in laboratories.

  “We might have a communication problem with the new company,” he said, and he began to cry.

  “It’s okay, Stan,” Patterson soothed. “Have there been any other recent changes?”

  “I’ve been changing the chlorinator.”

  “Does that mean there’s been a lapse in chlorination?”

  “Well, it wasn’t working properly, you know, on and off, so that’s why I changed it.”

  Patterson scribbled down notes as Stan talked.

  “What should we do?” Stan asked, his voice tinged with despair. After all, days of superchlorination had raised the levels of chlorine in the water. Patterson didn’t respond immediately.

  “Let me ask you, Stan. Do you have any idea of what might have happened here?”

  Stan considered. It had to be Well 7. He explained how the level rises in the artesian well when it’s not pumping. The overflow is discharged into a nearby swamp that may have flooded with the recent heavy rains. When the well’s pump had come on, it might have sucked the swamp water back in through the pipe, which only had a flimsy flap on it designed to keep out animals and birds. Stan had once described the flap as Mickey Mouse, but it had been there from Day 1 and the Environment Ministry had approved it.

  “Did you explain this to John Earl?”

  “Yeah, I talked to John,” Stan replied.

  “Who do you report to?”

  “The PUC commission.”

  “Look, Stan, you’d better tell them. You’ve got to be honest.”

  “Yeah,” came the murmured response.

  The line went quiet and Stan began sobbing again, more loudly this time, more persistently.

  “I’m not sleeping. We’re running on a shoestring,” he wailed. “Not enough dedicated people. We should have one person dedicated just to the water. I’ve been telling them this for years.”

  “Oh my God, Stan.”

  His mind a jumble, Patterson grabbed his notes and raced to McQuigge’s office.

  “It’s the water!” he said. “The lab tests show it’s the water.”

  Stan put the phone down on his desk and slumped forward in his chair, his face red, his eyes strained and puffy from lack of sleep.

  “Oh my God, it’s the water,” he said to Janice Hallahan. “The samples have come back and it’s the water.”

  It felt as if a devastating earthquake had rumbled through his world. For twenty-eight years he had helped run the utilities commission. For twenty-eight years, the lights had stayed on and the water had been just fine. How could this be? He’d fought so hard, so valiantly, to deal with the situation. He’d flushed and increased the chlorine. What else could he have done? But it had all come to naught. Everything he’d tried to do had failed. His entire world was set to come crashing down and he knew it. He buried his face in his hands. To the casual visitor, the large bookcase filled from floor to ceiling with books and binders lent an air of authority and technical competence to the man who’d occupied the office for the past twelve years. Now they bore only mute witness to the inadequacy of a man charged with the safety of a water system that fed five thousand unsuspecting people.

  “Better call the insurance company to let them know,” he at last said to Hallahan. “We could have some liability on our hands.”

  —

  At the top of the long driveway and inside the horse clinic that Dr. David Biesenthal ran three times a week, a horse’s owner was speculating that a water main had broken and sewage had gotten into the town’s drinking water. That might account for the dew-worm smell Carolyn had complained about, Biesenthal rejoined. The clinic phone rang and Carolyn answered. It was her daughter-in-law, Kim, whose children were in a Walkerton day care while she worked in the office of Dr. Susan McArthur, the physician who had initially treated Mary Rose Raymond.

  “Please get our kids out of town,” she said to a startled Carolyn. “There are people out there dying. It’s worse than you think.”

  —

  In Owen Sound, Murray McQuigge remained grimly silent as Dave Patterson, his voice wavering, recounted briefly the conversation he’d just had with Stan Koebel.

  “We’d better head to Walkerton,” McQuigge announced. “I’ll call Mayor Thomson and let him know we’re coming.”

  Patterson scurried to alert other members of the team.

  “Dave, we’ve got a terrible situation on our hands,” McQuigge told the mayor. “Our tests show the water is grossly contaminated.”

  He relayed Patterson’s conversation with Stan. Thomson remained curiously quiet.

  “You may want to get someone down to Stan. He sounds suicidal. You know, just to keep an eye on him. And you’d better get a council meeting together. Make it 2 P.M.”

  Thomson thought for a few moments before suggesting they meet at Newman’s, the restaurant located in the landmark Hartley House hotel on the corner of Durham and Jackson. It’s a short block from council chambers and a traditional meeting place for local businessmen and politicians alike. McQuigge didn’t think it the greatest place to meet but let it slide. Five members of the health unit piled into the car and headed for Walkerton. Mary Sellars, McQuigge’s secretary, took notes as they drove. Patterson borrowed McQuigge’s cellphone and alerted Phil Bye to the meeting. The rest of the trip was taken up with strategizing how best to present what they knew to council and what information they needed to pass on to the medical community.

  Tuesday, May 23

  11:30 A.M.

  The first event for the team was a joint news conference with the Walkerton hospital set up by Dianne Waram, the hospital’s acting administrator. The steady trickle of media calls had grown into a raging torrent that was threatening to swamp them. Better one large news conference than to have to deal with dozens of individual reporters. Besides, it was urgent to impress on the town just how bad the situation was and what measures to take to prevent it from getting worse. With the news conference out of the way, the team gathered in the hospital cafeteria for a quick bite to eat, then met half-a-dozen local doctors in the boardroom, with another taking part by teleconference call. McQuigge gave advice on how to look for and treat cases of E. coli O157–induced kidney failure in children and how to avoid secondary cases, the most effective means being a thorough handwashing. The meeting finished shortly after 1:30 P.M. The outbreak team piled back into the car and headed for Newman’s.

  Tuesday, May 23

  1:45 P.M.

  As they entered the restaurant where Mayor Dave Thomson and his councillors were gathered, ministry supervisor Phil Bye took McQuigge and Patterson aside. He motioned them into “the library,” a room off the lobby filled with surplus books from the public library down the street. Bye was tense. He told them the ministry’s enforcement branch was investigating and they planned to issue legal orders to the town. Patterson and McQuigge nodded in agreement and the trio headed into the restaurant, where Thomson and his councillors were ordering lunch. Patterson and McQuigge, who had been fretting all morning about the choice of location, bridled.

  “This isn’t an appropriate place to have this kind of conversation,” Patterson said to the nonplussed politicians. “Can we go to council offices?”

  “We’ve just ordered lunch,” Thomson protested.

  “Well then you’d better cancel,” McQuigge growled. The outbreak team turned and headed for the doors.

  “Guess we’d better go,” Thomson remarked as the others disappeared from view.

  The mayor and his deputy, Councillor Rolly Anstett, headed into the kitchen and apologized for having to bolt. Just send the bill, Thomson said. They trooped out of the restaurant and made the quick walk to the municipal office. Inside, the members of the health unit passed a drinking water fountain.

  “There should be a sign on that fountain,” McQuigge said to the women behind the count
er.

  The admonition was met with laughter. McQuigge fumed. He stalked into the council chambers, where the student-like desks were quickly rearranged. They all sat down under the smiling gaze of a young Queen Elizabeth, her portrait snug against the bare beige-toned concrete block wall. McQuigge opened the meeting by emphasizing the seriousness of the situation, the high incidence of illness, the possibility of deaths. He was obviously angry, and appeared to be struggling to control himself. Everyone listened intently as he spoke. Above the Queen, the plastic clock with the square gold-coloured frame ticked away the minutes. And sitting there silently, barely moving, was Stan Koebel, his face flushed, his head bowed.

  “The ministry is going to be ordering immediate action,” Bye said. “I should also warn you that charges could be laid.”

  Councillors discussed how best to disseminate information on the boil-water advisory and about E. coli. The post office is next door, someone noted. Perhaps they could drop the information directly into everyone’s mailboxes.

  “We have some questions,” Thomson said, turning to McQuigge.

  “Could the public have been made aware of this earlier?”

  McQuigge’s blood pressure rose another notch. He reviewed the unit’s actions, starting with Dr. Kristen Hallett’s call, and how they had tracked the increasing number of cases through the weekend, culminating in the boil-water advisory on the Sunday.

  And then McQuigge was asked if the boil-water advisory could have been better advertised.

  “I called the mayor and I called the radio stations, so everyone knew by Sunday afternoon,” he said emphatically.

  “Was the holiday a factor?” a councillor asked.

  McQuigge shook his head and walked the meeting through how he and his staff had spent days investigating the epidemic.

  “We went at this hammer and tong all long weekend,” he pronounced.

  It was too much for Patterson. The quiet, self-contained man was furious at the last question. How dare they? He had worked almost non-stop since Friday. He had raced to London in the middle of the night with water samples, almost killing a deer and possibly himself on the way back. He had recommended putting out the boil-water advisory and had drawn it up despite the uncertainties, despite Stan’s assurances. It was through his efforts and those of his colleagues that they’d traced the epidemic to the water. How dare anyone even suggest they’d all spent the long weekend goofing off while people were getting sick and dying?