Think before you drink

[Bulldog]

By CHRISTINA SPENCER

OTTAWA – Think before you drink.

Canadians can’t assume the drinking water aboard trains, boats or planes is safe, according to the federal commissioner of the environment.

While Health Canada has made significant progress in ensuring airline water is potable, there are still leaks in its testing.

“Further work is needed before Canadians can be sure that the water on board all commercial passenger aircraft is safe to drink,” said a report released yesterday by Commissioner Scott Vaughan. “We also noted that inspection coverage for trains and cruise ships is incomplete.”

Nor is the environment commissioner fully satisfied with standards for bottled water.

Still, compared to where it was three years ago, the federal government has made progress on drinking water. When the commissioner last examined the issue in 2005, Health Canada didn’t inspect aircraft water at all because funding had been cut.

In 2006, however, it began routine testing of water for nine major airlines and worked on voluntary sampling and sanitization plans with them. Last year, it added four more to the list.

There are no plans yet for inspecting smaller companies or foreign airlines that use Canada’s airports.

Health Canada says it intends to further expand water monitoring in 2009-2010. The government also intends to overhaul legislation covering not just aircraft but trains and cruise ships to reflect its general water quality guidelines.

Bottled water presents different challenges.

“We expected Health Canada to have up-to-date health and safety standards for bottled water,” the commissioner’s report said. “However, the current Food and Drug Regulations specific to bottled water date back to 1973.”

Health Canada had hoped to make revisions to those safety rules by 2006 but has not yet done so.

That said, Canadian Food Inspection Agency tests of bottled water have found “no issues or only minor ones,” the commissioner’s report says.

The federal government says it thinks health risks associated with bottled water are low.

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