TOTTENHAM, ONT.—The anger inside the jam-packed community centre was beginning to spill over. Hundreds of residents from this community an hour northwest of Toronto gathered in a gymnasium on a Tuesday night in April, seeking answers from town officials about their drinking water, which often pours from the tap orange-brown, packed with iron dregs and smelling like a swimming pool. For more than 15 years, politicians and health officials in the township of New Tecumseth have known the tap water in Tottenham, population 5,000, contained suspected carcinogens called Trihalomethanes (THMs), which studies have linked to pregnancy complications, spontaneous abortion, growth retardation, gastrointestinal disease, some cancers and damage to the heart, liver, kidneys and central nervous system. After years of demands for a public meeting about their water, many in this audience of more than 250 would find out about THMs for the first time that night. Questions and comments came in rapid fire. “I have the ability to make a choice for my family to buy bottled water,” one local resident told town officials. “But if you don’t give me the information, and I don’t know, and I blindly use the water … that’s not fair.”Megan Varga spoke up from the audience demanding a show of hands: how many of the officials, including the mayor, deputy mayor and town councillors, live in Tottenham and drink its water? None raised their hands.A man held out a bottle filled with discoloured water from a local tap. “This is some of our water, right here …You people up there, would you drink this?” he asked, as cheers of support erupted from the crowd. Town mayor Rick Milne said he would, if experts deemed it safe. But in the end, none of the officials took a drink. Milne conceded shortcomings with the water supply: “I agree, with regards to Tottenham, your water has not been the greatest…Who in this room has had c ...
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