February 21, 2006 Source: University of Waterloo:
http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4685 Leading expert discusses safety of drinking water in Canada WATERLOO, Ont. (Feb. 21, 2006) -- A leading expert on environmental health risks will give a public talk next week at the University of Waterloo, exploring the safety of drinking water in Canada. Steve Hrudey, UW's 2006 TD Canada Trust/Walter Bean Visiting Professor in the Environment, will deliver a lecture titled, "150 Years and Counting: Drinking Water Safety Lessons are Learned Slowly." The event, open to the public, will be held Thursday, March 2 at 3:30 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall. Admission is free. In his speech, Hrudey will examine drinking water safety in Canada, ranging from the Walkerton disaster to the recent Kashechewan reservation evacuation. Despite advances in technology and painful lessons, he says, Canadian governments seem slow to understand how to assure water safety. The TD Canada Trust/Walter Bean Visiting Professorship in the Environment provides students with an opportunity to study with ranking experts active in the fields in which they plan to work. During his stay at UW, Hrudey will be based in the civil engineering department and will give a graduate course in environmental health risk assessment and management, along with several seminars. Hrudey is a professor of environmental health sciences in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta. He is an expert in environmental contaminant exposure assessment, approaches for health risk assessment, risk management and risk communication, and decision-making based on environmental evidence. In May 2000, seven Canadians died in Walkerton when their public water supply was contaminated with pathogenic E. coli O157:H7. The exhaustive Walkerton inquiry documented the many shortfalls causing the disaster, including the failure to meet established treatment requirements for effective disinfection that would have prevented the fatal outbreak. Besides his position at the University of Alberta, Hrudey has been the chair and chief executive officer of the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board since July 2005, a quasi-judicial appointment. He is also an honorary professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. As well, he served on the Research Advisory Panel to the Walkerton inquiry and currently is a member of the Science Advisory Council to the National Collaborating Centres of the Public Health Agency of Canada. A founding leader of the Protecting Public Health program for the Canadian Water Network, Hrudey was an architect of the catchment-to-consumer risk management approach for the 2004 Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Also, he was selected as the 2006 Distinguished Lecturer by the National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ont. The visiting professorship was founded in 1992 by the late Walter Bean, who was president of Waterloo Trust until its merger with Canada Trust in 1968 (today it is TD Canada Trust). The professorship seeks to promote a legacy of community involvement and commitment to youth, education and community, and involves UW's faculties of Environmental Studies, Engineering and Science. The professorship attracts top researchers with international reputations in engineering, science and environmental studies to give lectures and teach classes, along with meeting faculty members and students. Previous visiting lecturers include Frank Schwartz of Ohio State University, a leading researcher on contaminant hydrogeology and groundwater geochemistry; Kelly Thambimuthu, a senior scientist with CANMET Energy Technology Centre of Natural Resources Canada; Jorg Imberger of the University of Western Australia, an expert on water flows and water resources; and David Schindler of the University of Alberta, a top Canadian researcher in freshwater environmental science. To confirm attendance at the public lecture, call (519) 888-4973 or e-mail join-us at uwaterloo.ca
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