Province urged to rethink the plan to close Hamilton lab
HCA, public health officials worry free testing of rural well water is at risk
The possible closure of Public Health Ontario’s Hamilton laboratory is raising concerns about what will happen to rural residents who rely on it for free testing of their well water for harmful bacteria — and learn more than a quarter of samples are unsafe to drink.
“This is near and dear to my heart because I live on a private well,” said Hamilton Conservation Authority director Susan Fielding, who lives in Puslinch, located just west of the Flamborough border.
“Over the years, we have had issues with our water and we only knew about those issues through testing our water. Many, many years ago I became very ill because of the water.”
Fielding said she’s surprised the province would consider closing the Fennell Avenue West lab after the experience in Walkerton in May 2000, when seven people died and 2,300 others became ill from E. coli contamination in their drinking water.
“I know that’s municipal water, but it’s a perfect example of how ill people can get and sometimes even cause loss of life,” she said at the authority’s May 2 meeting, backing a motion by Coun. Alex Wilson to write Health Minister Sylvia Jones opposing the lab’s closure.
A value-for-money audit in December by the province’s auditor general recommended Public Health Ontario proceed with a 2017 plan to “streamline” laboratories by closing six of 11 labs within 12 months — a recommendation the agency formally accepted.
The audit noted Public Health Ontario spent $150 million of its $222-million budget in 2022-23 on the labs program, which also does a variety of other tests, including for COVID-19, HIV, syphilis, tuberculosis, influenza and West Nile virus.
It concluded the labs “were not operating efficiently,” citing labs in Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury that had to ship between 80 and 91 per cent of samples over a five-year period to other labs for testing.
Hamilton’s lab had the fourthhighest intake of samples at nearly 2.8 million over five years, but shipped out 47 per cent to other labs — although it also had the highest volume of samples per full-time staff at 13,533, compared to a low of 711 in Timmins.
The audit also recommended the labs phase out free testing of well water, a move Jones recently rejected.
Authority chair Brad Clark, a former provincial cabinet minister, said he doesn’t understand the audit’s rationale for closing labs given the health implications.
“It just seems completely opposite to what one would assume is a value to people,” the upper Stoney Creek councillor said.
Contacted for comment, Hamilton Public Health Services said it’s also concerned about the Hamilton lab’s possible closure because of the potential impact on access to lab services, timely public health decision-making and free private well water testing.
Associate medical officer of health Dr. Brendan Lew said testing rural wells is important because they can be vulnerable to contamination from failing on-site sewage systems, incompatible land uses, flooding, and extreme rainfalls.
Figures provided by public health show that it received 17,506 well and cistern water samples for bacteriological testing from 2016 to 2023, of which 12,675 were safe — or 72.4 per cent.
“Any increase in cost or reduction in access to drinking water sampling services may inadvertently increase health inequalities for rural residents and hinder their ability to access safe drinking water sources,” Lew said via email.
Local access to the Hamilton lab is also “fundamental to protecting the health of the public and preventing the spread of diseases in our community,” he said, adding the lab played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Public Health Ontario did not directly respond to questions on why the Hamilton lab is targeted for closure, how much the water tests costs per year or what alternatives rural residents will have to get their water tested should the lab close.
A two-sentence email response only stated that the agency’s “laboratory modernization plan” hasn’t been approved by the government and “there are no changes to water testing services.”